Where youth and laughter go- Memorial Day

A poem for Memorial Day


You smug-faced crowds with kindling eye
Who cheer when soldier lads march by,
Sneak home and pray you’ll never know
The hell where youth and laughter go.

-Siegfried Sassoon, poet(1886-1967)

Memorial Day 2011, quote 9

Abruptly the poker of memory stirs the ashes of recollection and uncovers a forgotten ember, still smoldering down there, still hot, still glowing, still red as red. –William Manchester, historian, biographer (1922-2004)

Memorial Day 2011, quote 2

One strange feeling, which I remember clearly, was a powerful link with the slain, particularly those that had fallen within the past hour or two. There was so much death around that life seemed almost indecent. Some men’s uniforms were soaked with gobs of blood. The ground was sodden with it. I killed, too. –William Manchester, historian, biographer (1922-2004)

Memorial Day 2011, quote1

Everything up there was spooky, and it would have been that way even if there had been no war. You were in a place where you didn’t belong, where things were glimpsed for which you would have to pay and where things went un-glimpsed for which you would also have to pay, a place where they didn’t play with the mystery but killed you straight off for trespassing. The towns had names that laid a quick, chilly touch on your bones: Kontum, Dak Mak Lop, Dak Roman Peng, Poli Klang, Buon Blech, Pleiku, Pleime, Plei Vi Drin. Just moving through those towns or being based somewhere above them spaced you out, and every time I’d have that vision of myself lying dead somewhere, it was always up there, in the Highlands. –Michael Herr, writer (1940-)

Vietnam Memorial Wall

Below is a link to the Vietnam Memorial Wall. Take the time and remember a fallen soldier, be it an old friend or family member, this Memorial Day Weekend.


Vietnam Memorial Wall


Laudizen

Burial Detail

Here is a Memorial Day story that recalls a time when, at Fort Bragg, I served on a Military Funeral Detail as part of the Honor Guard. The year was 1971, and the actual experience was totally different than anything I had expected.

To read the story of that Burial Detail, follow the link below.

Burial Detail

Laudizen King
Memorial Day, 2008