Not in Vain...

I well remember the Memorial Day (we called it Decoration Day back then) rituals of the small town in which I grew up.  An assembly of the whole community at the park near the auditorium began the day.  With the old howitzer on the pedestal, the school band assembled to play the National Anthem (I directed one year), and the rows upon rows of white crosses decorated with American flags... I still remember my Dad in his army hat orchestrating much of the action.  And the kids.  Children upon children lined up to carry each a cross to every veteran's grave in the cemeteries of the community.  It was a big deal... The white crosses represented the grandfathers, fathers, and sons of this small town on the Nebraska prairie.  They would not be forgotten and they were remembered -- all together at least one day a year.  The final noble act was the playing of taps -- usually the best trumpeter in the band.  In the solemn silence of that moment, aged vets still living, some squeezed into their old service uniforms, some younger veterans of a war no one seemed to remember and a few from the first great war, all at the same time raised a crooked, broken, wrinkled, wounded, young and straight hand in salute.  Those who lived and died for the cause of our nation did not live in vain or die in vain.  I remember the tears flowing down cheeks of men and women, the aged and the children.  I remember the jerk of my neck to each volley of the gun salute.  I remember running over to where these men stood and shot their weapons -- to pick up the spent brass shells.  Not in vain did they live or fight or die... not in vain...  In towns across America the old ritual of Memorial Day took place.  The VFW and American Legion saw to it.  So did the people whose grandfathers, fathers, and sons left waving their hands only to return in boxes covered with flags.  Not in vain, no sir, they did not die in vain... This weekend I thought of it all and tears filled my eyes... a part of me wanted to be back there fifty years ago, led by my Dad and people like him, to remember with white crosses, solemn salutes, cracks of rifles, and the sad but noble strains of Taps... remembering and never forgetting the men (and women) who served our nation by making the greatest of sacrifices... for you... for me...