Tuesday Voice: Rememorial Day

Ortega on the left and me on the right;
we flank a soldier whose name I can't spell

By Ed Rogers

I come from a military family. We have had a member in every war this Nation has fought. Not bragging, just stating a fact that explains why as a child Memorial Day was special to us. I grew up on bases in Texas, Wyoming, New Mexico, Alaska, France, and California. We were stationed in some of those states more than once.
    No matter where the duty station was, come Memorial Day, my father would put on his dress uniform and he and his company would join the parade of soldiers who marched down streets in a town filled with strangers. Although these towns were not our homes and most of the time their people complained about the military, on that day they stood on the sidewalks waving flags and cheering for the home team.
    As my father passed I would wave as hard as I could and scream, “Daddy, daddy!” He never looked my way. As a true soldier he held his eyes to the front, but I could see the smile come to his face. He went through two wars and died in 1959. We buried him at Fort Sam Houston, San Antonio, Texas. He was 43 years old.

There is another group of people who never march in parades, never hear the cheering crowd, and never see their children hollering their name. Yet these men and women are due the respect and honor of Memorial Days as much as any soldier. They are the reporters who rush to the sound of the cannon armed with nothing but a notepad and a camera. These are the men and women who, while bullets fly and soldiers die, lay their lives on the line to get the picture, to record the last words young soldiers want their mother to hear. The soldiers fight and die but their story is kept alive by these brave and willing men and women.
    Unlike my father, who is buried with his comrades in hallowed ground, with their country’s flag flying over their graves, the reporters are accorded no such honor. They get no taps, no Honor Guard, no 21-gun salute, no flag over their coffin to be carried home. They were there but nobody cares. There’s no grateful Nation for them, only a byline in an old newspaper.
    The number of these unarmed men and women, who are not asked or forced to risk their lives, is unknown. They come from many countries and speak languages most of us have never heard. But they are brothers and sisters with the reporters here; they too have chosen to face death for the honor of telling a story. How many of us can picture ourselves running toward a firefight armed with only a camera? I can’t see myself doing it. It takes a special kind of person to do that.

Robert L. Howard,
"the most decorated soldier in Vietnam"

Yesterday I saluted those unsung heroes, those brave few who willingly laid down their lives for us. They are the ones who tell us what is happening around the world, yet only a small few of them have a name. The others work, love, and die unknown, and upon their death few remember what they gave to the world.
    I said yesterday to all our men and women in uniform that it was their day and we were proud of their service. And I thanked them, and those who run along beside them.
    I thank them still today.
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Copyright © 2013 by Ed Rogers

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