How I Look At Memorial Day

When I was five years old, my mother made the entire family dress up in our best clothes and loaded us in the family car. We crammed into our green Chrysler New Yorker for a ride. No one had mentioned the destination, but everyone was quiet, so I sat quietly with my two brothers and two sisters in the family car as we rode. It wasn’t a long ride and before long the car stopped at a graveyard in a small Pennsylvania town. My father parked the car on the road beside some of the gravesites and we all unloaded. My older sister Cynthia, nineteen years old at the time, was dressed in a black dress and sunglasses. I just followed the group and watched as my sister knelt to touch the grave marker. She started to cry and tears appeared on her cheeks from behind the sunglasses. I looked at my other family members because I wasn’t sure why my sister was upset and until this point in my young life, I had never seen her cry. While I was a little boy, I remember it hurt me immensely that my sister was upset and I didn’t know why.

After visiting the grave, we loaded quietly into the car and returned to my grandparent’s house. Later, I asked my mother who was buried in the grave we had visited and she quietly bent over and whispered, Scott. Scott was someone that had visited about six month prior and I remember he had taken time to play with me and seemed like a really nice person. Scott was also a soldier. My sister was engaged to him and several months earlier he’d been sent to Vietnam. According to my mother he had died in combat. Apparently, he’d been wounded and asked to stay behind and keep fighting with his fellow soldiers and died from his wounds.

About a year later, my grandfather passed away and that was the first time I had seen a full military funeral. Even as a child the sound of taps was difficult to hear. My grandfather had served in WWI and I still have his mess kit with his initials scratched onto it. My uncle flew bombers over Germany and I have his first set of wings that he’d given to my father for taking care of his family while he was away. These items are priceless to me. Luckily, these relatives made it through and seemed fine, but knowing they had been in harms way changed my view of war. It took away all the glamour of the old WWII movies and helped me understand the reality of war.

It could be a soldier in 1917 that heard the sound of a whistle that signaled him to climb from a trench into the face of enemy machine gun fire. Perhaps it was a sailor defending his floating home from a Japanese pilot or a Marine told to hold a position in Iraq. These people place themselves between the American people and the enemies that want to harm us.

So, when you go out and celebrate Memorial Day with your family, take a minute to reflect. Look around and understand that your way of life is not free, because at some point in time someone had to fight to defend it. Many people don’t support the wars we must fight and it’s their right to protest, but I hope they understand that someone died so they could have that right as well. Whatever your belief or whatever your political affiliation, each of us needs to look past that on Memorial Day. We need to realize the holiday is not about picnics or festivals, but it is the recognition of the sacrifices of our military heroes.

Memorial Day means many things to many people, but to me the meaning is simple; it is my sister standing over a grave looking down at the person she loved who had died for his country. Maybe it’s because I was so young but that event will always be with me and serve as my reminder of the meaning of Memorial Day.


Glenn P Clinger III
Author –Greenville, SC
www.glennpclingeriii.com