In Memory of the Casualties of War: Memorial Day

Memorial Day weekend has rolled around again with a record number of Americans hitting the highways headed to beaches and other get away places.  The three day weekend has become a symbol of the beginning of summer ever since the commemoration day was changed in 1968 to create a long weekend.  Unfortunately, somewhere, somehow, the significance of this day has been lost.  Now there is some sort of foggy understanding that it is a patriotic time to honor all our veterans, eat lots of barbecue, and get our first good sunburn of the season.

Time was when this day was not celebrated in this part of the country.  This was "Yankee Memorial Day" not to be confused with "Decoration Day" when families visited cemeteries, cleaned grave sites, and put out flowers to commemorate the Southern war dead.  That has changed down through the years and I think the change was good.  The War has been over now for nearly 150 years.  It is time for it to be over.

Never has a soldier served in combat without being a casualty of sorts.  Some come home missing limbs; others come home irrevocably changed in mind and spirit.  But the ones we commemorate now are those who paid the ultimate sacrifice, giving their lives in service to our country.

Too often, we abstract war in our minds.  We do not want to face up to what it really is when we are filled with patriotic rhetoric and resolve to take care of business. We don't want to think of real people hurt, real people maimed, and real people killed.  Now that the draft is gone, it has become abstract for whole groups of people.  When every able bodied man of 18 had to register and knew that he had a strong chance of being called up, it was much more of a reality.

I grew up with war and unfortunately, a long list of "conflict" have dotted the historic landscape of my life.  My first real memory of war was watching the airplanes fly overhead in the early forties when ,my father had disappeared to some place called "Camp Blanding" and later to a place called the Philippines and Japan.  Two of my uncles were also gone:  one ultimately to Europe to slog through the Battle of the Bulge, the other to the Pacific aboard an air craft carrier.  Four of Aunt Effie's boys, some lying about their age to join up, were scattered across the globe.  She would walk the fields late at night praying for their safety.  All of our men came home, but in some of them there were scars of the spirit which never healed.

We are still in war.  I fear that too often the majority of the people in this country are more concerned with who is on reality TV and how much the price of gas is than on the cost of this war to individuals and families.  I am not interested in getting into the political/global reasons for being in the war.  I am interested in the fact that we, as Americans, need to understand that this is not just the war of those serving.  It is our war.

So, as we complete this weekend, we can't do much for those who lost their lives fighting for this country other than trying to do everything we can for those other casualties of the many wars we have so nobly fought.  I am talking about looking around, being aware, and taking responsibility for this country of ours.

       Surgery was Friday.  I spent a fair amount of time in the "holding area" before I went in.  I don't remember much after I got to the OR until about four hours later.  It took we a while to climb out of the fog and back to reality in the recovery room.  I can assure you that it was as close to a psychedilic experience as I ever want to have.  Soon after awareness set in, I was in the room with a stream if visitors coming in.

     Fortunately I did not know what I looked like until the next morning.  There is something a little lacking in "hospital" hair!  The nose tube doesn't do much for my looks either.  I spent the afternoon with Rob and Klep pretty much in lala land.  I stupidly felt I should go  as long as I could between pain medicine and by midnight the blood pressure was doing its thing heading upwards.  I came to my senses at that point and started using the Demorol regularly.

     Saturday I was up and walking a little.  Sunday I walked more and sat up for two hours in the chair.  Today I am aiming for six walks.  The pain is much less, the incision looks good; what we need now is for the intestinal tract to go to work.

     I have met some of the most wonderful people in here.  There is Khady who is from Senegal.  There is Cassandra, a tall, slim but strong young lady.  Most of all, though, I have appreiated my night time angel Tonya who just went off her twelve hour shift.  This morning she will take two of her kids to school and then go to her second job.  This will be her last week with the second job.  She has been accepted into the nursing program.  She and I purely had church here in the room the other night when the blood pressure finally leveled off!  Anyway, she goes off duty for seven days, so I probably will not see her again.  There have been lots of others:  Brittany, Tim, Vicky, Judy.  The list goes on and on.  Oh, and there is Marcus who appears at three o'clock in the morning to draw blood so that the results will be ready for the doctors when they do rounds.

Best Laid Plans

The best laid plans are just that -- plans.  When I left home for my routine five year colonoscopy, I fully expected to be enjoying the largest milkshake in Valdosta before noon and to float lazily around the pool in the afternoon while the last vestiges of my meds wore off.

Not so!  Dr. Pennington found a polyp too large to be taken out with a scope.  We had two choices:  go home and start all over getting ready or go into the hospital and have the surgery.  We opted for the second.  So, as the day winds down, I am in room 303 of the surgical wing.  The afternoon has been full of questions, x-rays, blood tests, and telephone calls.

Tomorrow morning is the surgery.  I will not be at my best with a tube down my nose, so I am discouraging visitors until my intestinal tract starts working again.  I do covet your prayers as I go through this.

I have a peace about this whole thing.  The preliminary lab report is that it is benign.  We pray that this is what the next test will show, too.

So, the milkshake will be put on hold for a week.  If everything goes well, I hope to be home by this time next week.