National Museum of the Marine Corps FB page
There is a profound, sickening duality in being thanked for your service by people who would be horrified if they actually saw what that service required. ~ Jarrod Toothman
The rest of the essay is here. If you do nothing else today, read it.
My dad was injured at Pearl Harbor and always refused any honors on Memorial Day. "This day is not for me. This day is for my friends who didn't come home." And, like many who served, he never, ever spoke of what he had seen or done.
ReplyDeletethank you for linking that
ReplyDeleteHeart breaking to read but I am not able to to touch that level of pain, I was never there with them. I sincerely thank these military men and women who gave up a normal life and survived forever maimed in mind and body so my small life would not suffer hardship. I will bear their contempt for my weakness.
ReplyDeleteI was never there, either, but am descended from (and married to) a long line of infantrymen. I sometimes feel a real fraud.
DeleteThe usual Memorial Day “Band of Brothers” marathon is on. Brian is in the next room watching. There’s a lot of shooting, some dialogue, and then I hear his voice say in a tone of hopeless scorn, “you dumbass.”
And then more shooting, by which I infer someone in Easy Company has just made a very bad decision.