Memorial Day 2024
A view from the vet.
Memorial Day 2024
Hey Space Cadets, today I want to step away from the speculative fiction goodness that normally inhabits this website and talk about the elephant in the room. I know that many of you live in the US just like I do, and it’s Memorial Day. A day where we remember those who died for freedom, mourn their deaths, while celebrating their lives.
This day has always been a special time to me, I’m a military brat from a long line of veterans. I was told tales about heroic veterans from an early age, but they never quite felt real. They were just stories that were great adventures, but they weren’t tangible for me. Sadly, that all changed after Iraq.
Now they weren’t just strange adventure tales, they were my stories. My friends. My ghosts. So yeah, now I unashamedly weep for the fallen because I was privileged to have some of those heroes become my friends. My chosen family.
These names that we celebrate are no longer just abstract and esoteric, they’re people I served with. I knew them, heard stories of their lives, saw pictures of their families. I met their significant others; wives, girlfriends, husbands, boyfriends. I held their kids at unit functions and argued with them over bad calls on mandatory fun sporting events.
Every day is Memorial Day now, but on this specific holiday I make an effort to remember them in a more tangible manner. I show their pictures to my kids, tell their stories and touch the shared mementos of our service. I firmly believe that if we tell their stories, then they’re not really gone. As long as we keep their memories alive, we honor what they sacrificed.
I put a little bit of them into every novel I write, because those brave warriors deserve the eternal life that only remembrance can bring. Maybe they can be used as cautionary tales for politicians of all stripes and nationalities who always seem so eager for a war they’ll never physically have to endure. It’s changed me in innumerable ways. I’ve launched a one-man war to save their stories from the vagaries of fickle memories.
Why do I do this? Because of everything they gave up; birthdays they’ll never have, kids they’ll never get to meet and every traffic jam they won’t cuss about. Even that’s a gift from where they lay, in what I hope is a peaceful slumber. I’ll continue to make my yearly pilgrimage to their families so I can pass on a little something of who they were to the children they never got to meet. It’s the least I can do… because some promises are eternal.
But until my circle completes itself, Rest Easy My Brothers and Sisters. Until we meet again in Valhalla.
Until next time, stay frosty and don’t forget to keep your powder dry!
J. R. Handley
Sergeant, Infantry, US Army
Operation Iraqi Freedom I & III