This post was written for Memorial Day 2006, but still holds true.  The number of brave men and women our nation has lost in Afghanistan and Iraq has increased to more than 3,800 -- among them 386 Californians.
 
I started out to write something on Memorial Day – sort of a what’s it all about, how it got started and what it means today, knowing of course that I wanted to make a point about the war in Iraq and the growing number of men and women who have paid the ultimate sacrifice.  During my research, I found this website on the historical background of the holiday, and I found myself listening to “Taps” and reading the words to that song, which really do capture so poignantly what Memorial Day should be about:

Day is done
Gone the sun
From the hills
From the lake
From the skies,
All is well
Safely rest
God is nigh.
Go to sleep
Peaceful sleep
May the soldier or sailor
God keep.

On the land
Or the deep
Safe in sleep
Love, good night
Must thou go
When the day
And the night
Need thee so
All is well
Speedeth all
To their rest
Fades the light
And a far Goeth day
And the stars
Shineth bright
Fare thee well
Day has gone
Night is on
Thanks and praise
For our days
'Neath the sun
'Neath the stars
'Neath the sky
As we go
This we know
God is nigh.

So I decided to post the names of all the men and women from California who have died in the Iraq War, all 254 of them.  It was easy enough to find – there’s a whole website that tracks this information – you can find lists by name, date of death, state, etc.  I pulled up the California list of casualties, noticing that we have more than any other state in the nation, and did a copy and paste into Word where I could make it just be one long list for pasting into the website program.   

It was a long list.  And the list was full of names, and those names used to be real people. 

As I worked formatting the list, scrolling down from page to page, I became increasingly sadder -- seeing the names of the cities they came from, like the ironically named “Freedom,” and seeing someone from Sacramento with the same last name as mine -- because this wasn’t just a list of statistics, but a list of lives lost, families destroyed, futures forever altered. 

And as odd as this might seem, it became so important to me that I make this list look as nice as I could – my own small way of making a memorial to these 254 dead. 

I searched in my clipart collection and found a poppy – not because it’s our state flower, but because it’s a symbol of war inspired by the poem, “In Flanders’ Fields” written by John McCrae in 1915:   

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

We don’t really have a “Flanders Field” – these men and women are buried among the more than 150 towns and cities across California represented on this list.  Along with the other 2,309 from other states, they make up the 2,463 American men and women who have died in the Iraq War – as of today, May 25, 2006.   

We all know this list will get longer.  And the number of families who will spend future Memorial Days visiting a gravesite, laying down a wreath, remembering a loved one – that list too will continue to grow as well.

During this Memorial Day weekend, take a moment to remember this list of 254 – you might know someone on it or see a name from your hometown, perhaps someone who could have grown up down the street from you, but died half a world away.

Comments

[Michael P. Garofalo]

28th Amendment Proposal
War Powers Authorization by Public Vote

When we have a military and political situation that is not an immediate and direct threat to the safety and security of the People of the United States of America, then:

1. The proposal to take military action (War) must be put to a popular vote. At least 66% of the voters must approve the ballot measure to begin military action (War).

2. If less than 50% of the registered voters actually vote in a War Powers Authorization ballot, then the United States will not enter into War.

3. If approved, then all adults over 18 years of age living in the United States will pay an annual War Tax for four years. Congress will set the War Tax.

4. If approved, then we will dramatically improve the short term and long term pay and benefits for those in military service during the approved military action (War) and support our Armed Forces with more than adequate manpower, equipment, and supplies.

5. The approved military action (War) will be only for a four year period.

Maybe the above change would save the lives of soldiers and the victims of war.