Today is Memorial Day 2006

I can’t say why, but I feel strongly a need to post about Memorial Day. Perhaps it was those times as a little child seeing the Memorial Day parades. Perhaps it was playing in the band in the parades and then the ceremonies. Perhaps it connects me with my Grandfather Eastman who served in WWI, lived to tell about it, and was active in the VFW. Perhaps it connects me with my father, Gordon Carlisle who like so many lied about his age to get into the Navy to do his part in WWII. Perhaps it connects me with all the WWII veterans I have buried here in Wadley; hearing and knowing their stories, being with them through their last days, and then watching the flag ceremony, hearing taps played, seeing the tears of their loved ones.


I don’t know. I do know that we are fighting a horrible war, if you can call it that, a war that has seen more use of Reserves and National Guard than ever before. I do know that I found out that my sweet nephew, Michael Tobin has enlisted into the Marines, enlisted; the boy had a huge scholarship to college, and turned it down! The boy could have gone ROTC. The boy is a sweet boy; I just don’t think he knows what he is getting himself into. I hope he doesn’t come home in a coffin if he is sent to one of the war zones, or that he gets himself into trouble like so many over there have, including the latest about the marines.


I hate war, even though I played war with the kids in the neighborhood; it was never like real war. I hate war even though I am married to a retired Army CW3, who served in the Special Forces in Viet Nam. I hate war for what it does to everyone involved, how it divides the country, the killings, the wounded, the nightmares, the unresolved memories. I hate war. I do so pray for the day when we do know peace, real peace.

God, today as I stop and reflect on war, the military who gave their lives for peace and freedom, the leaders who went into battle, help us to know that we cannot know real peace unless we know you.

God even today as we remember all the peace treaties, all the ways that people have tried to find peace to bring it to where there is no peace, that our peace is in you.

God I thank you for the men and women I have known who have served their country in battle and did not return home. I know that in a sense they are at peace. God we look for the day when we will no longer beat sword into plowshares and we will study war no more, when the son of man will appear again.

God be with our soldiers who are fighting in war zones, putting their lives at risk, be with their families, and their friends. And God be with the young persons who have signed up for military duty right out of high school, protect them. And God especially watch over my sweet young nephew Michael.