Memorial Day

I am the daughter of a Veteran.

That's a short, simple statement.  A straightforward, declarative sentence most would consider patriotic.  Which would be an erroneous assumption by those who do not understand the meaning of that word from a military point of view.  Because in it hides a chaotic blend of experiences and sentiments.  For me, it is a wild clash of opposing emotions, beliefs and realities; all born from having lived with an active-duty solider.  The patriotism I understand is not the packaged, bastardized insult used to sell toilet-paper, tacky, $.99 'Made in China' flags and shiny, new cars.  Nor is it the lawn-chair riding, rock-and-roll blaring, "Let's-do-this-for-a-weekend" drunken party.

As you can see my take is vastly different from the televised version.  Because in our home, the cost of patriotism was bloody, heavy and it hurt; emotionally, psychologically and, sometimes, physically.  More about the truth of what my father sacrificed, it had nothing to do with pride, parties and parades.  It was about a flesh and blood man who answered the call to leave behind everything he knew and understood of the world and do things, endure things, and witness things which changed him forever.

In 1971 I was nearly six years old when my father shipped out.  Gone for two tours of duty, learning to be without him in the house was hard.  The head of the table was empty.  The TV remote was up for grabs and there were no more Saturday morning cartoon and pj camp-outs or nacho chip and Long-Horn cheese lunches.  Mom's Sunday loaves of home-baked bread were safe from his sneaky marauding and the aroma of engine oil and oil paints slowly faded away.  For three years my mother became the single parent of two small girls and all this while living under the constant threat of an 'official' knock on the door.

Indoctrinated to the neat, shiny package of what we were told patriotism was, we were in no way prepared for what our lives would become when he returned.   Because the man we picked up at the airport was not the man who had left us.  Within the first few hours we became aware of the stranger sitting in our living room.  At six months we began to worry he was there to stay.  By the end of the first year, we were praying.  For him.  And for us.

Yet, we did not lose sight of the fact we were luckier than some families.  Memorial Day was not for our solider, because he came home.  Damaged, invisibly wounded and different, but he had come home.  For other families, the cost of patriotism was long, black cars, dark, uniformed chaplains and a practiced speech. It was a triangularly-folded flag and a 21 gun salute.  It smelled like grave dirt, wreaths and sounded like "Taps".

For us it became about survival.  Struggling to map the nuances of this visitor who now lived with us, the cost of patriotism transformed our world into a mine-field, peppered with uncertainty, anxiety and a precarious sort of jagged orbiting of who my father had turned into.  It was the sudden shock of being woken by his screams when he slept.  It was the vast distance of the thousand-yard stare which would take root in his eyes as he was carried off -mid-conversation- somewhere we couldn't comprehend but could see he didn't want to be.  It was explosive bursts of stress and anger which would erupt at the slightest provocation and end with one of us sobbing.  It was the agony he suffered as he was forced to accept who he had been was gone forever.  It was his fear this new man would wind up hurting his family in a fit of rage and the open wound created by the constant, cold rejection of his pleas for help from the Government he had served.

Despite what you might think given my experiences, I am proud of my father.  I suppose most would gauge that statement as more recognizable to how we collectively define patriotism, but it isn't.  I am proud, but not for the reasons mainstream America has been taught to be proud of her men and women in uniform.  I appreciate being the daughter of a man who remained true to his ideals of responsibility, commitment and loyalty, even when forced to face the unimaginable.  I feel honored to belong to the bloodline of someone with the courage and fortitude to take that first step onto a plane which would take him to a foreign land where he might die because he thought what he was doing was right.  I even see the value of being witness to his struggle to live some semblance of a life after his return because it made the cost of hollow patriotism and war more poignant and starkly genuine for me than any movie, book or television commercial could have.

Despite that - or maybe because of it, I also share the balance I feel we each owe the men and women of his ilk.  But it doesn't arise for the idea that they are fighting for me, my way of life, or God, mother and country as I have been instructed by the classical definition of patriotism.  The debt I carry comes from what I owe another human being who has been hurt, who has been battered and scared, who has watched hope, optimism and faith die in front of them.  It is the debt created by being a member of the human tribe and I know it isn't paid by roasting weenies and waving flags or buying red, white and blue paper plates.

As a nation we have turned 'patriotic' into garish comedies of consumerism, lip-service, empty gestures and work-free revelries.  We use it as a synthetic excuse for copious amounts of posturing and braggadocio, tri-colored, party favors and self-centered, over-indulgence.  But patriotism is not a time to cut loose and get stupid.  It's a heavy burden, a responsibility taken on by citizens which carries a profoundly steep price. Being the daughter of a career solider taught me this.  War leaves a bloody streak on every soul it touches and no one marches out of it unchanged.  Active-duty service always ends in a dying of one sort or another and if we could grasp the reality of that as individuals, as a nation, then perhaps we wouldn't be so ridiculously thoughtless of the sacrifice of others. 

In my mind, patriotism should have a vastly different flavor than the one we have fashioned for it.  First off, if we are so determined to make war, both overtly and covertly, the reality of it should be a part of our daily lives. It should be about tending neglected, forgotten graves and burying the flag-draped coffins we're not supposed to think about on any day but the last Monday in May.  It should be about helping the service-men and women who move through our culture struggling to rejoin society and healing the soldiers who return suffering wounds, amputations and life-altering traumas.  Instead of barbecue, beer and brats, it should taste more like compassion, humility, accountability and respect for the fragility of human life.  

For me, patriotism came at a very steep cost; shouldering pain born from sacrifice.  Meeting that debt can only be found in aiding those who come home wounded: emotionally, physically, and psychologically.  In giving up the funds, housing our disenfranchised, homeless veterans and fighting for legislation to care for those our politicians have so impersonally used and neglected.  It's paid by showing compassion for the families and loved ones left behind with whatever help you can give.  It is holding our politicians responsible for approaching foreign affairs like an endless game of Risk®, demanding transparency from our Government, and agreeing to making sacrifice in the name of conflict ONLY when we agree there is no other way to protect our homes, our families and our lives.