A Memorial Day Thought

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Thanks Guys and Gals for your service. It's the reason we can write and speak and "discuss" things as we do. And it's how we are able to be all we are.

From the WSJ-OJ (for non subscribers - it is free though)

Victors, Not Victims
[FONT=Garamond, Times]Honor soldiers. Don't pity them.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Times]
Friday, May 26, 2006 12:01 a.m. EDT

Here's a Memorial Day quiz:

1. Who is Jessica Lynch?

Correct. She's the Army private captured, and later rescued, in the early days of the war.

2. Who is Leigh Ann Hester?

Come on. The Kentucky National Guard vehicle commander was awarded a Silver Star last year for fighting off an insurgent attack on a convoy in Iraq. The first woman to receive a Silver Star since World War II, and the first woman ever to receive one for close combat.

If you don't recognize Sergeant Hester's name, that's not surprising. While Private Lynch's ordeal appears in some 12,992 newspaper and broadcast reports on the Factiva news service, Sergeant Hester and her decoration for extraordinary valor show up in only 162.


One difference: Sergeant Hester is a victor, while Private Lynch can be seen as a victim. And when it comes to media reports about the military these days, victimology is all the rage. For every story about someone who served out of conviction and resolutely went on with his civilian life, there are many more articles about a soldier's failure or a veteran's floundering.


It's a sign of some progress that the men and women returning from Iraq and Afghanistan are not spit upon and shunned as Vietnam vets were. Yet there may be something more pernicious about mouthing "Support Our Troops" while also asserting that many of them are poor, uneducated dupes who were cannon fodder overseas and have come home as basket cases, plagued by a range of mental, emotional and financial problems.


The vast majority of vets don't fit that description. Many, like one returned Army guardsman we talked to, chalk up this portrayal to the media's fascination with bad news in general. As for his combat in Iraq, both "going to war and coming home is very overwhelming," he says. "But you make choices in life . . . and through inner strength and support, I am making a choice that I want to be healthy."


In some cases, the depiction of military personnel as damaged goods serves the antiwar agenda. Yet retired Marine Lieutenant Colonel Tom Linn sees more basic impulses at work. "I honestly believe it is guilt" and even resentment, he says. The military type as misfit "is a stereotype that a lot of people from the Vietnam era have held on to." Then, as now, "they saw men and women who did more than they did . . . and they'd compensate by casting those folks in an inferior status."

This Memorial Day, most of us will remember the Americans who have served their country since the Revolutionary War not with pity but with admiration. For those who want to show their gratitude, Major John Morris has some recommendations. He's deputy chaplain for Minnesota's Army National Guard and a founder of a state program called Reintegration: Beyond Reunion. Its broad goal, he explains, is to help returning guardsmen and reservists frame their "experience, to draw from it everything that they can to grow into productive citizens."


How can we help? For one thing, he says, don't assume that all struggling vets are sick, since what looks like abnormal behavior may be culture shock. But do give vets and their families the tools to adjust. Major Morris explains: "Schools, look out for these military kids. Neighbors, cut their grass and shovel their snow, baby-sit and do chores around the house. Employers, make sure those jobs are still there." It's the least we can do, he says: "Since there are so few of us fighting the war, it's easy for the rest of us to try." [/FONT]

 

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one more thing....I did this one time for real, and it was probably the hardest thing I ever did. I was glad to have the Chaplain, the Lawyer and some good people with me. All the months of practice, of drills, made the difference. Afterwards, I asked my CO to give me something else. Something that no one else wanted to do. He sat me down and said: "Mister P., that is why you are here. No one wants this job, but we all have to do it sometime."

I did it for 6 more months and had no more real calls, just drills. I don't know how they found people to be the victims for the drill, but they did and they made the impression. I have never forgotten. And I can't imagine doing it at the pace it is being done today.

Remember YOUR veterans.

KP
_______________________________________________________________________

'Ma'am, We Regret to Inform You'

There's no easy way to tell military families that their loved ones will not be coming home.

By Chaplain Norris Burkes


I don't like fish. I know eating fish is supposed to be healthy and prevent cancer, but if it's not fried shrimp I'd rather it be the dinner that got away.

Nevertheless, like spinach and liver, it tries hard to make a regular guest appearance on my dinner plate.

My wife knows I'll eat it if she cooks it, but she also knows that fish dinners at this chaplain's house have a mysterious way of coincidentally being interrupted by the beeping of my pager. My days as an Air Force chaplain were no different.

Late one Saturday afternoon, my wife signaled me to cease my yard work by waving my pager over her head. I let the mower die and read the page.

"Mortuary Affairs Office," I told her.

"Let me guess, I won't be cooking fish tonight?" she said.

"Don't slice the lemon just yet."

After a quick shower, I threw on my uniform and was on my way to meet with a death notification team. Composed of a lawyer, a chaplain, a medic, and a commander, the team seems more like the beginning of a Bob Hope joke. "There was a doctor, a lawyer and a priest driving down the street. … "

Only this was a jokeless script that read something like this:

"Are you Mrs. John E. Jones?"

"Yes."

"Is your husband Captain John E. Jones?"

"Yes."

"Ma'am, we regret to inform you that your husband Captain John E. Jones, SSN 555-55-5555, was killed."

Of course it's rare we ever get that far without a lot of sobbing and screams of denial, but we stay with the script until it's delivered.

As many times as we deliver the news, we always read from the script. It's the only way to get through without cracking. The goal is to be compassionate, but professional.

As our team formed at the Mortuary Affairs Office, we began practicing the script. Following that, we watched a refresher video on how to make the notification and mapped out a route.

Finally, after checking and rechecking our facts, we drove off in a dark blue Dodge sedan that took us into the heart of base housing

Uniforms in base housing on a weekend are a rare event. Young families are usually out playing catch, washing cars, or hosting garage sales. This afternoon was no different, but it was about to become permanently different for one resident.

The sudden appearance of uniforms in the cul-de-sac made us look like a small parade formation. We were a living, breathing cliché. It was all too predictable.

As we stepped out of our car, a little boy met us at the curb. He was just in time to point out his mother who was coming out of the garage wiping motor oil off her hands.

"Can I help you?" she asked.

Suddenly she inhaled our presence.

"What's this about?"

"May we talk inside?" the commander asked.

"Come back later. This isn't a good time," she said.

"We're sorry ma'am, but we can't do that. Please, let us come in."

The commander's pained look sought permission to enter.

Permission was granted.

The commander started the script, but she refused to let him "regret" by pressing her hands tightly over her ears.

Eventually, we were able to tell the woman what had happened to her husband. The legal guy explained how her husband's body would come home and how someone would be there for every step.

The medic watched her for signs of fainting as I held her hand, read from the Scriptures, and led in a prayer.

The compassion was as real as it could be—even if it wasn't real.

For you see, on this occasion, it wasn't real. All the players were volunteer family actors taking part in a base exercise designed to get us ready for a worldwide deployment.

The predictability of the script gives breath to the fear known by every person who has ever served in the military. It is a fear reenacted hundreds of times in the mind of the service member and their families. Despite the fear, they go, they do their jobs, and most of them come home.

And yet some won't return—some like Marine Captain Ryan Anthony Beaupre, Army Sergeant George Edward Buggs, and Army Private First Class Lori Piestewa, whose families were among the first to receive such a visit after the launch of Operation Iraqi Freedom in March. It is in their memory, and in memory of their fallen comrades—indeed, in memory of all who have fallen in battle—that we pause on Memorial Day this year to honor the sacrifice of those who never wavered as they served. And we ask God to fill their surviving loved ones with his peace.

Frankly, I'd rather have eaten the fish than go on that practice exercise with my Mortuary Affairs colleagues. The exercise triggered many unpleasant flashbacks.

They were flashbacks of barking dogs protesting our late-night arrivals on moonlit porches. Flashbacks of contorted people blurred by screen doors that they refused to unlatch. Flashbacks of the midnight screams of spouses, children, and parents as they were informed of their new reality.

This exercise was much too real. It was exactly the way it happens every time—too much of the time.

We received a high grade on the exercise, and I suppose that was good because the next visit we made was a real one.

We had to interrupt a little boy's birthday party to do it, but we did. As our team turned away partygoers on the doorstep, the commander began his script.

"Ma'am we regret to inform you. … "


Norris Burkes, formerly a military chaplain, is now a hospital chaplain at the Sutter Medical Center in Sacramento, California.

 

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Do not squander the time given to you by God or the freedom preserved by this Marine's life." —Rev. Michael Dolan



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