Who Were These Americans?

Memorial Day 2010

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning.
We will remember them.

– From “For the Fallen” by Laurence Binyon

THEY WERE THE LOVED AND LOST

Fathers, mothers, daughters, sons, wives, husbands, cousins, nephews, nieces, all.

NOT BY ACCIDENT

They passed on not by accident, not by bodily deterioration brought on by the mean ravages of time, but because they had a special job.

A job that ended a too-brief sojourn on this blue-green magical wonder called earth.

A job they chose.

SO COSTLY A SACRIFICE

They were  American soldiers.

A step ahead.  A step behind.  A look left, instead of right.  Right, instead of left.  Up instead of down. Down instead of up.

A blink of the eye at the wrong time.

And … it was over.

WHAT IS LIFE?

It is the flash of a firefly in the night. It is the breath of a buffalo in the wintertime.

It is the little shadow that runs across the grass and loses itself in the sunset.

– Crowfoot, Native American Blackfoot warrior and orator

The fleeting flash of a firefly in the night … gone.

But not.

Not these Americans.

THEIR EFFULGENT LIGHT …

… echoes eternally throughout the music of the spheres like heavenly bagpipes playing Amazing Grace … across the unfathomable unknowable on their way to The Last Post.

WHO WERE THESE FIREFLIES IN THE NIGHT?

Who were these shadows that ran across the grass riding a Sonata of Moonlight on an Ode to Joy – to living, giving and life?

Who were these shadows that ran across the grass into the arms of an …

ANGEL

On the way to their “Last Post?”

HERE’S WHO THEY WERE … AND ARE