TheBanyanTree: Memorial Day

[NancyIee at aol.com]

On another Memorial Day, a few years past, I had just met a new friend who 
had been a United States Marine, a Gunnery Sergeant. She wanted to march in the 
Memorial Day parade in our town.  It had been decades since she wore her 
uniform, but she went anyway, carrying her little American Flag, and marched in the 
part of the parade where the military groups were formed. I ran alongside and 
got a hundred photos of my new friend, short and middle aged,  looking more 
like someones mom than a woman who served many months in  'Nam.

This year, my friend and I missed the parade.  Other things occupied our day. 
However, in our driving about, we were stopped at a traffic light, and in 
those moments of waiting, we noticed what appeared to be a homeless man at the 
road's edge holding a sign: "will work for food."

Possibly he saw our "Marine" bumper sticker, for he waved and saluted. We had 
just come from a drive-through, where we intended eating our lunch on our way 
to our next appointment.

My friend put down the window. "Were you in the military?" she asked him.  
"'Nam," he replied. Then they exchanged a small conversation on where, when, and 
some word-pictures of their experiences. They connected in a common bond of 
all those who had been there, clearly out of the understanding of us who had 
not.  We passed our uneaten lunches to this man, this forgotten hero, just as 
the light turned green.

A Memorial Day moment. Thank you to all who served whereever and whenever you 
went.