Memorials

It is true – memorials are for the living. An attempt to remember with occasional side trips into glory or honor. Not counting in these particular numbers, those that provide a stark memory to how things go wrong.

When I was stationed in the UK, it seemed that there was one thing consistent in every small town and village. A memorial from WWI stood in the center square or entrance to the town, that, though it might have had a patriotic saying or three, always had the names of those local who had left for the war and never returned.

For remember, in former times, soldiers were buried where they were killed. No one had the ability, resources, or thought to bring home the bodies of those who had failed. It is in this vein that we [the US] still have cemeteries in Europe. It is for the same reason that there are Commonwealth cemeteries outside the UK where you can read the names not only of the fallen, but of the countries from whence they came.

When we make a huge fuss and production, it is more to show the importance of those in the ceremony than it is for those who have actually lost someone. Nothing is going to bring back my colleagues from 11 Sept. Nor my National Guard soldiers killed when when their ambulance was hit in Baghdad in 2003. Nor the countless sons, daughters, wives, husbands, parents who have lost their lives in service to their country, just in my lifetime alone.

But if you want a memorial that stands cleanly and starkly for the toll that was takes – The Wall is it. Stark, listing name after name after name without decoration; the dead from a war that never made sense.  Speeches are not needed. Flowers are for the living.

Names can be remembered.

 

 

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About Holly

fiber person - knitter, spinner, weaver who spent 33 years being a military officer to fund the above. And home. And family. Sewing and quilting projects are also in the stash. After living again in Heidelberg after retiring (finally) from the U.S. Army May 2011, we moved to the US ~ Dec 2015. Something about being over 65 and access to health care. It also might have had to do with finding a buyer for our house. Allegedly this will provide me a home base in the same country as our four adult children, all of whom I adore, so that I can drive them totally insane. Considerations of time to knit down the stash…(right, and if you believe that…) and spin and .... There is now actually enough time to do a bit of consulting, editing. Even more amazing - we have only one household again. As long as everyone understands that I still, 40 years into our marriage, don't do kitchens or bathrooms. For that matter, not being a golden retriever, I don't do slippers or newspapers either. I don’t miss either the military or full-time clinical practice. Limiting my public health/travel med/consulting and lecturing to “when I feel like it” has let me happily spend my pension cruising, stash enhancing (oops), arguing with the DH about where we are going to travel next and book buying. Life is good!
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