The Responsibility of Patriots
©2015 C. Henry Martens
My wife and I walk graveyards as often as we find them. There are stories there, etched and carved in stone.
Recently we found an obscure burial ground hidden and ill cared for on a lonely back road. We stopped as we usually do, to stretch our legs, allow the dog to run, and read the tombstones. It wasn’t long before we came to realize that there was a strange tragedy in this place, this hallowed yet forgotten ground.
Beyond the entrance there were a few markers like any other cemetery with various surnames, genders, and dates… but beyond a certain point the names became exclusively male, and many revealed just enough years between them that it became apparent the dead were fathers and sons, or brothers. A date in common, March 8th, 1924 was the last day etched into every marker as the date of death. A date, and story, obscured by time for most of us. A mining disaster.
The names reflected the truly American nature of the immigrant population of the early century, with Scots and Englishmen working alongside Japanese, Greeks, Italians, and Slavs. One hundred seventy-one men that had journeyed, tired, poor, and huddled together, to these tempest tossed shores to enter the golden door that liberty and freedom offer in the United States of America.
In ambling through these carven memories of the past, you have to contemplate the lives and times of those who passed before us. When you see a springtime that is filled with an unusual number of similar dates, and then equate those dates with the Spanish flu epidemic, you have to wonder at the trials and efforts that these people made to make a life for themselves and those they loved. What were their motivations, their dreams, their triumphs?
In the course of our travels we have found the occasional military burial ground. These places hold a more reverent feeling for us than others. The names and dates reflect tough choices and huge sacrifice in the interest of our nation. The tears and dreams of individuals, but also families, lie unrealized beneath the soil. Whether we feel the wars were more than justified, or not, we hold these fallen to our hearts and thank them for protecting the principles that this republic was founded on.
And we wonder what the patriots of the past would have to say about the current times and troubles of the present. What would the men at Bataan have said to us about water boarding? Would the earliest graves hold opinions about lobbyists and taxation without representation? How would the Irish casualties of WW1 have commented on immigration? The dead black heroes of Vietnam, living in the civil rights era, might have something to say about racism in America today.
The thing is these dead have already spoken. They have laid down their lives, and their futures, to be sacrificed in order that we who are left behind have a better story to tell. Although I’m sure that every one of the deceased warriors would gripe if they could about the food, the footwear, and the officers in charge, and might argue over the particulars of any one situation or issue, just as we all do, I am pretty damn sure they would be proud of their service and the nation they have made.
Sometimes I wonder though… Do they shake their heads at the discord? At the hostility? At the mean spirited, I’m-not-gonna-listen, it’s my way or the highway, I’m right and you’re wrong, entrenched, politicized, polarized, dissention?
You see, when all is over and done with, we citizens have a responsibility, too. If we are to honor the patriots before us, those sons and daughters who made the ultimate sacrifice, then we owe something to them. Not just that we can live our lives in relative harmony, make the American dream real, or have the right to do whatever we choose… but also to listen to our neighbors and change our minds when they speak the truth. To agree with reason, logic, and evidence rather than the loudest angry mouth. We, those of us who have never been in harm’s way, have as great a responsibility to this nation as those lying under the earth with flags on their graves. We have to make it work. We have to make it better. We owe a debt. A great and burdensome debt if we fail, but an easy load if we make our nation and the world better.
Go visit a cemetery. If you can, visit one with flags flying. And think about the thoughts that are silenced beneath the grass.
Click HERE to receive these blog posts in your inbox.
www.readmota.com
My wife and I walk graveyards as often as we find them. There are stories there, etched and carved in stone.
Recently we found an obscure burial ground hidden and ill cared for on a lonely back road. We stopped as we usually do, to stretch our legs, allow the dog to run, and read the tombstones. It wasn’t long before we came to realize that there was a strange tragedy in this place, this hallowed yet forgotten ground.
Beyond the entrance there were a few markers like any other cemetery with various surnames, genders, and dates… but beyond a certain point the names became exclusively male, and many revealed just enough years between them that it became apparent the dead were fathers and sons, or brothers. A date in common, March 8th, 1924 was the last day etched into every marker as the date of death. A date, and story, obscured by time for most of us. A mining disaster.
The names reflected the truly American nature of the immigrant population of the early century, with Scots and Englishmen working alongside Japanese, Greeks, Italians, and Slavs. One hundred seventy-one men that had journeyed, tired, poor, and huddled together, to these tempest tossed shores to enter the golden door that liberty and freedom offer in the United States of America.
In ambling through these carven memories of the past, you have to contemplate the lives and times of those who passed before us. When you see a springtime that is filled with an unusual number of similar dates, and then equate those dates with the Spanish flu epidemic, you have to wonder at the trials and efforts that these people made to make a life for themselves and those they loved. What were their motivations, their dreams, their triumphs?
In the course of our travels we have found the occasional military burial ground. These places hold a more reverent feeling for us than others. The names and dates reflect tough choices and huge sacrifice in the interest of our nation. The tears and dreams of individuals, but also families, lie unrealized beneath the soil. Whether we feel the wars were more than justified, or not, we hold these fallen to our hearts and thank them for protecting the principles that this republic was founded on.
And we wonder what the patriots of the past would have to say about the current times and troubles of the present. What would the men at Bataan have said to us about water boarding? Would the earliest graves hold opinions about lobbyists and taxation without representation? How would the Irish casualties of WW1 have commented on immigration? The dead black heroes of Vietnam, living in the civil rights era, might have something to say about racism in America today.
The thing is these dead have already spoken. They have laid down their lives, and their futures, to be sacrificed in order that we who are left behind have a better story to tell. Although I’m sure that every one of the deceased warriors would gripe if they could about the food, the footwear, and the officers in charge, and might argue over the particulars of any one situation or issue, just as we all do, I am pretty damn sure they would be proud of their service and the nation they have made.
Sometimes I wonder though… Do they shake their heads at the discord? At the hostility? At the mean spirited, I’m-not-gonna-listen, it’s my way or the highway, I’m right and you’re wrong, entrenched, politicized, polarized, dissention?
You see, when all is over and done with, we citizens have a responsibility, too. If we are to honor the patriots before us, those sons and daughters who made the ultimate sacrifice, then we owe something to them. Not just that we can live our lives in relative harmony, make the American dream real, or have the right to do whatever we choose… but also to listen to our neighbors and change our minds when they speak the truth. To agree with reason, logic, and evidence rather than the loudest angry mouth. We, those of us who have never been in harm’s way, have as great a responsibility to this nation as those lying under the earth with flags on their graves. We have to make it work. We have to make it better. We owe a debt. A great and burdensome debt if we fail, but an easy load if we make our nation and the world better.
Go visit a cemetery. If you can, visit one with flags flying. And think about the thoughts that are silenced beneath the grass.
Click HERE to receive these blog posts in your inbox.
www.readmota.com
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