Reflection: Memorial Day

Today we remember those men and women who served our country. They made the “ultimate sacrifice” in losing their lives for the preservation of our freedoms. They are remembered as mothers and fathers, as sons and daughters, as friends and lovers, as grandmothers and grandfathers, as aunts and uncles, that served our country and our fellow Americans. They were brave and courageous, they were unselfish in their giving, and we thank them for their sacrifice. But there are still a multitude of others that served and sacrificed.

They lost limbs, suffered severe wounds, had their brains bounced around inside their skulls, all creating an unknowable trauma. They saw themselves, their friends, buddies and fellow soldiers torn apart by manufactured weapons and improvised explosions. With these dark clouds hanging over them they returned home and attempted to fit into the life they left. Some were relatively successful and others were terribly not. They moved through their remaining years with horrendous memories, traumatic dreams, and a destructive reality that implodes upon them, sometimes randomly at uncontrollable moments other times continuously. They sit in silence, they talk to doctors, they talk to friends, and they take medications to dull the pain.

Are those that died really the ones that made the “ultimate sacrifice”? Or, are those that survived, the ones that really made an ultimate sacrifice? We praise those that died while we fail to realize the multitude that died inside their soul and are condemned to relive the horrendous reality that they have faced. They were there. Were they not as brave and courageous and sacrificing as those killed outright? They are facing a future riddled with the past. They are stumbling down the road, knowing not where they’re going, wishing they could escape the torture.

On this Memorial Day we remember those that physically died. Let us also remember those whose souls were scarred and damaged beyond repair. And realize that they too, gave the “ultimate sacrifice” in their service to the rest of us.