Armistice Day/Veterans Day 2010

OS has a most busy day ahead, and will be brief.

OS has the prospect of this busy day because so many young men and women left everything behind to face down the forces of darkness, especially between 1914 and 1954--let's not forget Korea, on either side of the pond.

OS was a tourist in Cambridge in 2006, and visited as many of the colleges as he could, as were open to outsiders. It was heart-wrenching to see the lists of names on the memorials, in each chapel, to the boys lost in those years. The sheer length of the lists was staggering, given that the colleges are so small, as is the country.

Likewise, to drive through a small Canadian village in the prairie, and see dozens of names on the monument was heartbreaking.

Closer to home, OS's own mother lost two of her best high-school friends, one in North Africa, and one on D-Day. Tom, lost on D-Day, OS suspects, was the love of her young life. She never admits to it, but the mention of his name brings tears of grief even today. She was so very pretty and bright in the 1940's, and the loss killed something inside of her as well. She married a Marine who survived the Marianas Campaign, and was spared Okinawa; and here OS sits, typing away, still attempting to sort out all that history, the tapestry of so many untold stories that shaped him and in many ways bedevil him even today.

My father, now gone these two years, lived a life built around the friendships from his Marine company. He outlived them all, and lived his last few years in profound loneliness. He never would open up and tell his stories, refused the invitations to return to the Marianas with the vets organizations. He could have afforded it, and would have helped him so much.

Alas.

So, onward to a busy day of meetings and the list of small duties and large projects that define this good life.

Thank you, all of you, if you served the cause of freedom for the US or Commonwealth.
OS hopes to repay by living a life worthy of your example.