May 30 – “Memorial Day”

Today is Memorial Day.  I was excited to see the news report the other day about the huge group of people who gathered at the airport to welcome home six different plane loads of veterans with cheers and thanks.  And the field of crosses that church in LaMarque puts up to honor vets is impressive.  It's also really good to see the little flags popping up all over cemeteries.    Are you supposed to fly your flag on the front of the house?  Think I will.  Today we pay homage to the veterans we know who have served in the military for our country.  I never did that.  Serve, I mean.  All through high school in the late 60's I saw news reports of protests and peace rallies.  The Vietnam War was not a popular post-high school activity, to put it mildly.  My older brother got his draft lottery number, and he was pretty close to the top.  But he got a deferment because he was going to college.  They put everybody's birth date on a ping pong ball and put them into a big bingo machine.  The balls came out one at a time, and that was the order in which you were drafted into military service.  Scientific approach, huh?  My draft number was kind of middle of the pack as I recall.  I had one friend who did serve in Vietnam.  He did his best to hide that information from people when he got back.  He was embarrassed to be associated with the war.  Very sad.  It was not a happy time.    It was also at that time that I first became a Christian.  I really struggled with the idea of being a soldier.  I honestly didn't think I could kill anybody, and I wasn't clear on whether or not I should as a Christian.  I even got one of the government's conscientious objector forms and was trying to figure out if that's what I was.  But by the time I graduated, the war had just ended, and the first big change was to abolish the draft.  Even though I didn't serve, it's still difficult for me to talk about that war.  There are several movies that came out about the war that I still haven't seen, even though they won all kinds of awards.  I remember comparing my lack of desire to even talk about it with my Dad's sense of pride at having been there.  He loved the John Wayne war movies.  The first movie he ever took my brother and me to was about John Wayne hitting the beach on D-Day.  I wish my Dad had talked more about his World War II experiences.  He joined the Coast Guard right after high school and ended up working on a troop transport ship ferrying soldiers to the war in the Pacific.  I don't think I ever told him, but … thanks, Dad.   Proverbs 10:7 says, "The memory of the righteous will be a blessing, but the name of the wicked will rot."   Father, honor our memories of people we love who stood up for us to protect and defend.  Watch over the families of those who are doing it now.  Amen.