Half Mast

Shrewsbury is a small town, used to be a farming town, now it’s a bedroom community for high end folks who work elsewhere and live here to have a safe and quiet place to raise the future shakers and movers. But some of the old fashioned stuff still pops up its head once in a while.

Memorial Day is one of those once in a while’s. The girl scouts march with the flags. The school band plays a medley of patriotic songs, fourth graders sliding trombones always makes me proud. It’s a long story. I stand with the firemen, the Rev and the boys. We stand behind the cops, next to the ambulance folks. One of the firemen who happens to be a woman sings the national anthem. She’s pretty good. Then a sixth, a seventh, and an eighth grader each reads an essay that speaks to What Memorial Day means to me. Then they read a list of the one’s we’ve lost, starting in the Revolutionary War and working all the way past Vietnam. Then they raise the stars and stripes and lower it again to half mast, while the pipes play “The flowers of the field ha’ all wiede away, followed by Amazing Grace” Then I say the benediction.

I always appreciate the whole thing. There’s something so real about it. But this year while they read the list, I started to tear up. The pipes put me over the top. Why? Each name seemed to be a personal loss, a tragedy. The terrible price of war stood up and spoke those names. And then it was my turn to talk, to send them out.

I climbed up next to the flag pole and looked over the crowd. They were waiting for something. People do that. They know something is about to happen, something that fits into the normality and might actually mean something. They wait for it.

“Tecumseh Sherman, hero of the Civil War, savior of the nation was asked to speak at the graduation of West Point the year after the war ended. They expected a two hour speech. He came to the podium and looked over the eager cadets and said three words. ‘War is Hell.’ He sat and looked at his shoes.

“Sherman knew. Every one of the people whose names we read died in Hell. They suffered and paid a terrible price so that we can live in peace. Now claim what they have paid for. Live in peace, each day, every day, live in peace. It has been bought with a terrible price. Amen.”

I don’t know if that was normal enough for everybody, but about twenty people told me that it made sense. Maybe that’s all we can hope for.

Sherman hung out with the guy who used to own my house. They drank bourbon in my dining room with another guy who’d been to Hell, Grant. I hope it was good stuff, they deserved it.