So, today is Memorial Day, a day to remember those we've lost and to honor the people who are still alive.
Before I moved to Massachusetts I didn't really value Memorial day, I viewed it as a three day weekend like many others. When I moved to the town I'm in now I joined the band and every year the band marches in the parade. Every year, since sophomore year, I get real choked up.
This time we had a speaker who had lost a son over in Iraq and it got me thinking, thinking that no parent should have to lose their child. This thought process brings me to my grandfather. My grandfather was in WWII, he was injured, received the purple heart and then went back to the war. He suffered from PTSD which resulted in the ending of his first marriage, his ex-wife couldn't deal. She took his three sons and left. Later he met my grandmother, she dealt, and they had four kids.
My Uncle (my father's half brother) decided that he wanted to join the army, like my grandfather, once the Vietnam war started. My grandfather told him that it was stupid he shouldn't join, that he'd be stupid to join. Going against his father's wishes my uncle joined. He suffered from mass PTSD. He literally drank himself to death, he was such an acoholic that his liver failed and he died at the age of 40-something.
I can't even begin to imagine what my grandfather felt like that day. Unfortunetly it wasn't the first son he lost, it was the second.
I also began to wonder on what my grandfather told my father once my father stated he was joining the Air Force, did he tell him that he was foolish? Even though my father never fought he was in dangerous situations and went overseas three times making him a veteran. He went to Kuwait once when I was one, second when I was nine, and then to South Korea when I was five.
What the speaker said and the emotion you could hear in his voice really hit me. After the parade I even called my grandfather, just to say I love you. And I wonder now on what my own father thinks as my brother tells him that when he turns 18 he wants to join the Air Force.
Apparently its like some sort of weird tradition that one male from every generation joins the military. At least one family member has been a part of every war. So, I'm kinda hoping the tradition breaks, ya know?
