There are Simply No Words for Some Things
Memorial Day weekend is always a poignant time for me. I reminisce of times with fellow soldiers, some of whom I have sorely neglected my duty to stay in touch, and some gone - who I think of often. And I can't help thinking of those hundreds of thousands to whom we owe the responsibility of embodying these amazing American rights for which they gave what President Lincoln called "the last full measure of devotion."
Very Special Front Pages
And I say a special prayer for our comrades who, even as I type and you read, stand in the face of the enemies of freedom. Over the decades the New York Times has been America's paper. And every now and then, they run a very special front page - a page that becomes an icon of the event for which it cries and chronicles. One that always comes to mind is the announcement of the attack on Pearl Harbor...
Amazing Feats
And sometimes the headlines trumpet the most amazing feats in the history of mankind. Can you imagine - we stepped foot on that orb that, for the entire history of the world, man has looked at and dreamed of it's magical powers, contemplated God, and wrote poems of love...
Art thou pale for weariness
Of climbing heaven and gazing on the earth,
Wandering companionless
Among the stars that have a different birth, —
And ever changing, like a joyless eye
That finds no object worth its constancy? To the Moon, Percy Bysshe Shelley
Maddening Events
But too often, all too often, the headlines announce, even in our lifetimes, events of which the horror ripples across the decades.
They Were Us
I have been a soldier and seen the waste of humanity, the loss of young men and women on both sides of the battlefield. But we accept that as part of our job as soldiers. And for a couple decades now I have been a nurse, most of my time working in an intensive care unit. I have witnessed the battle of man against disease, with some victories and some defeats. But, and thank God, I (we) have never seen what we are experiencing around the world in 2020. I have no words for this front page:
Be safe out there,
