A day to remember ~ May 29, 1986

David Heiller

Graves stretch up the hillside at the Catholic Cemetery in Cork Hollow. The cemetery, with its manicured lawn, is ringed by hardwood trees and cornfields. The dead are Irish here—Graff, Colleran, Sweeney, Corchoran, Quillen. They named this valley after their Irish county of Cork, left behind a hundred years and more ago.

The boy's grandfather.

Around the cemetery, near certain gravestones, small flags flutter in the breeze. American flags mark the veterans, some who died in combat, some of old age. Blue and gold flags mark the ladies from the auxiliary, who served the same cause at home, in a much different way. They sold food at Friday night bingo, or sent care packages to Vietnam. Some raised babies alone while they worked and waited for husbands and brothers, or fathers and sons, to come home.

Cars drove into the cemetery on this hazy spring morning. Men got out, opened their trunks to unfurl flags and take out rifles. They were dressed in khaki, remnants of World War II and Korea. A few of the men wore J. C. Penney. Forty years can cause you to outgrow World War II uniforms.

The women stayed behind the men, dressed in white blouses and blue slacks, not uniforms really but the closest thing to it. They wore VFW pins on their shirts.

The men lined up behind their flag bearers and their commander. The 20-odd spectators stepped to one side. The commander barked his orders. “Attention!” Backs straightened. Stomachs flattened as much as possible, which in some cases wasn’t much. Rifles bounced around from one arm to the other, coming to rest on the right shoulder, as the men came to attention.

“Forward, hunh!” The men moved ahead, left foot first. “Left, left, left-right-left,” the commander said. A few of the men were out of step as they turned to the left and circled to a flag-marked grave. “Company, halt.”

The father, once very young.

Four men with rifles stepped up to the grave, a Vietnam veteran killed in November, 1969. None of these veterans had served in Vietnam. They were remembering the dead from the war many people have tried to forget.

As the chaplain finished his words, a man in the crowd reached over to pick up his three-year-old son “There’s going to be a big noise now,” he whispered. The boy widened his eyes. His small hands cupped his ears. The father inched backward, as four rifles swung upward.

Boom! The guns flared with flame. An explosion echoed up the valley. The boy began to cry. The father moved farther away. Shell casings flew to the ground. Boom! The second report came. The boy cried louder. Heads turned their way. The soldiers kept their spread stance, as more casings clattered to the ground. Boom! The final report. Smoke drifted upward, met with silence, except for a child’s cry.

A bugle’s notes floated down from the hill, playing taps. The child quieted, tears on his cheeks. The father, holding his son, had tears in his eyes too. He remembered taps as a boy, after the explosions as gray haired men stood in khaki over the grave of his own father who had served in World War II and had died eight years later.

The boy around the time of his first 
Memorial Day Service. When he was 
older, he scrambled for the shells.

The bugle stopped. The men reassembled, and several boys crept up to the grave, seeking the brass shell casings ejected from the rifles. One boy was dressed in a Cub Scout uniform, wearing a camouflage hat of Vietnam style, with a gold medal on the front.

The men led the way to a woman’s grave. The prayers were repeated, without gunfire, by a lady in white blouse and blue slacks. Then all marched out through the gate, to the cars. The guns went back into the car trunks, flags were rolled up again. The little boy climbed into a car, next to his father.

A man came to the car window. He had long hair, thin on the top, and a headband. His clothing did not give away the fact that he had served in Vietnam. His son was the boy dressed in Cub Scout shirt and Vietnam hat, who had searched for shell casings. The man reached a hand through the window. His hand opened, showing a brass casing. “Here, this is for you,” he said with a smile.

The little boy’s eyes widened again. His small hand grabbed the shell and held tight. It was his first Memorial Day.