Memorial Day, of course, warrants a post to the blog. When I sat down to write about it, I thought about all the people in all the different wars and decided to write a little piece on each one, what significance it has on me as a woman in 2018. So I began compiling a list: The Revolutionary War, the Mexican War, the Civil War, World War I, the Korean War, WWII, the Vietnam War, The Gulf War, and of course the War on Afghanistan. I didn’t want to leave anyone out that had slipped my mind, so, like everybody does in this day and age, I turned to Google.

And the results were staggering. I hadn’t touched the iceberg. I was barely in the right ocean. Many Indian wars, Shays’ Rebellion, Whiskey Rebellion (??? and it lasted almost four YEARS), Quasi War (with a “co-belligerant” of Great Britain), First AND Second Barbary Wars….did I even GO to history class? The list went on and on as my eyes got bigger and bigger. The wiki details are nominal, it doesn’t even list casualties, but one thing is clear: you can depend on the United States to have its finger and gun in everything coming and going. We’re a nosy nation. Movies glamorize our involvement, but there’s nothing pretty about death and destruction. There are no rock stars for background music as you run with your weapon through unfamiliar territory.

All these sacrifices, all these people with stories. How often do we hear, “Oh, Cousin Charlie was killed in the war. Becky had just had Raymond when she heard, it was hard on everybody. ‘Course, I was just a child myself and didn’t know…” I keep thinking of all the people that go to war, but aren’t on the lines. They’ve stepped up to the plate for little glory. They’re in communications, or they’re healing the fallen, or they’re reporting what they see or can find out to the families and citizens back home that depend on it. Spies: all guts, no glory. Because if they’re decorated, if they boast, they cannot be useful again. None are safe. The unseen, the ones not in the limelight get attacked, and more often that not, that’s the end of that. How much do we hear? And when we do hear it, for me anyway, it’s so commonplace it doesn’t even register. Just another line on the nightly news: “Eleven killed tonight in a surprise bombing in Syria…” It’s not a surprise to me. It’s something every day. But there are eleven lives lost, eleven families left grieving for a person that is no more. Someone who left here, probably fully intending to return home fully intact. Maybe the ol’ noggin would be a little rattled from the things seen, heard, and done, but that’s just part of it. But no. God and some Arab said no. And so there are eleven caskets with eleven flags on a plane bound for the States, to meet eleven widows and eleven mothers who will shed eleven thousand tears on their birthday, Christmas, anniversary, Thanksgiving, children’s birthdays, Memorial Day, and a hundred days in between. Every time they lay down at night. Every time there’s a reminder.

Everyone is entitled to an opinion. And that’s thanks to our American soldiers that enforce it, and the Constitution that insists on it. But I have a hard time swallowing back the rage that boils in me when someone says we don’t have to fight. Yes we do.

YES WE DO.

Darkness can’t be driven out with kind words and picnics. You can’t trust a handshake of someone in a bathrobe. I wish it were so, I wish the sacrifice wasn’t so extreme, but that’s not the way crazy works. And if you want to don your burka and go see for yourself, I strongly encourage you to do so. We’ll throw you a big party first, because it will likely be your last.

I hope you’ve had a relaxing Memorial Day. And I hope you appreciate why. I’m thankful for the rain. It’s like tears from Heaven.

America, America, God shed His grace on thee.