Monday, May 29, 2006


Memorial Day is one of those "small" holidays for us--big enough to mean there's no school, but too short to travel to have a picnic with family or to plant the geraniums on Grandma and Grandpa H.'s cemetery plot (what we always did when I was a kid).

So it's just our little family.

Last year, we visited a cemetery in a small town east of here. It's an old one, overgrown, and it's filled with wildflowers. This year, we went again, mostly to see the wildflowers, but also to visit a cemetery on this appropriate day.

Lots of the grave markers are worn so badly that they're hard to read, but some still tell a story. "Sarah E.," one said, "aged 29 years 4 months. Devoted wife, loving mother, trusted friend." She died mid-19th century, probably after childbirth, I'd guess.

Another monument was labeled with 4 names, all babies who died before they were a year old.

There were a few veterans' graves, marked with little flags, probably put there by the local VFW. This one said the soldier had fought in Korea.

It all made me think about soldiers and warriors. Many martial arts commentators and writers say that we are learning to be warriors. We certainly are learning to fight. And I've chosen this way, this "do"--to learn how to fight, though I'm far from being an aggressive person.

What about soldiers? Are they warriors?

After we visited the cemetery, we visited a museum that had an exhibit on the 1960s. There were photos and posters showing American soldiers in Viet Nam. One in particular caught my eye. The soldier was in full uniform, with some kind of ammunition on him and a gun; he wore a helmet. But his face--it was young. He didn't look aggressive or brave. He looked dazed. He was probably the age of my college students--the average age of soldiers in that war was 22. So he might have been younger, too, the age of Justin or Cavio (Cavio says she's going to join the army).

The guy in the poster didn't look like a warrior. He looked like a young man doing a job he was told to do, a scary job.

Ms. Pryor says her older son, a high school junior now, wants to join the Marines. She's not happy about it.

"But you were in the service--why not him?" I ask. Ms. Pryor was in the army, someone told me.

"There's a war on now," she reminds me. "A stupid war. Of course, he's 17. He doesn't think he'll get killed."

And that's what most armies need, isn't it? Is that a mark of a warrior, too?

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