It is Memorial Day. I did something today that I have not done in a while.
I turned on the History Channel and tuned into the War with Germany .... better known as WWII.
It took the better part of the day, but I hung in there for most of the battles, and especially the end.
Roger would have been tuned in - not like he did not have that war memorized beginning to end.
It brought such a range of emotions. Thankfulness for those men, mostly really young men, who left homes, farms, cities, from across the nation to answer the call to serve. The enemy was really big.
Roger's dad fought in Europe. My dad fought in the Pacific. We both have many relatives who did the same. His Aunt was a nurse and had her ship blown out from under her. I watched the U-boats and wolf-packs this afternoon. There is no way we can come close to imagining life as it was in that time period. Daddy would say that he went because it was important to keep evil 'on the other side of the pond' - meaning that he did not want to see it in his homeland, so he would go and fight over there.
Roger's fascination with that war stemmed from the people who he cared about who were in it. While scanning things this week, I found a letter his dad sent to his mother from Germany. And the telegram that said simply "civilian again, meet me at......terminal"
Treasures. Yet neither of our fathers talked enough about that war that we have any real idea of where they were or what they were doing much less what they were feeling or the horror they saw. They would say that it was too much to talk about. (From the images on tv today, I would have to agree - they interviewed some Vets - wow - there are few left from WWII)
Roger also saw the bigger picture. He saw the immense evil - flesh and blood, yes, but lead by the powers of darkness in this world. All wars - all criminal activity is that, after all. Roger could point to the spiritual darkness in high places throughout history, and even in the history we are living. He was pretty insightful.
Another interesting point I discerned today was creativity. Need drove men to be creative and inventive and to come up with new ideas in order to have the equipment needed to get the job done. In and out. It did not even take a decade.
Wow, life is so fast paced today, yet so much is so slow - so much red tape - war / conflicts take so long. And young men, and women, still serve, because they feel that call to keep us free. There is no draft these days, so I think that those who choose to serve have much bigger hearts than at any time in history. Because they don't HAVE to do it.
I also spent time today thinking about lives lost. I re-lived D-Day (on TV) - and the open targets. Having walked those beach-heads gave me a new appreciation for what I was watching today. Learning more about the plan as an adult, gave me more insight and appreciation that when I was studying it for a grade. Good reason to travel to places that mean something to you!
I always wanted to do that tour with Roger. It is one thing I wish I had pushed for instead of agreeing to wait until he retired.
It's been well over a year, and there are still things that I have not packed away. I've been working on that this week. I've had this weird need to scan practically everything he ever touched and everything that was written to us about him. I have a new appreciation for cards. In Feb 2104 when the cards started rolling in, I read each one, cried often, laughed, thanked God for each person in his life. And I put them in a basket. I've seen that basket of cards almost every day for over a year.
Today I read each one again as I scanned the messages. They made me thankful. They made me think of each writer and Roger's connection with them. It also made me think that those same cards could have been written only yesterday, and might have said the exact same thing. Because lives intertwined in some unusual, sometimes miraculous, way.
Roger did not live a long life by today's standards. 85-90 is not all that unusual today. I read of someone celebrating 116 this past week.Yikes! No, 71 was still way too young in our minds. It makes no difference that his dad was 70 and his mother was 90. Roger never seemed more than 60! (Young wife, he always claimed!)
But he did live a full life and an happy and eventful life. And those messages reflected that over and over - and it made me very, very thankful to read them.
I'm not the world's greatest at getting cards out in a timely manner, but I do know this....telling a story about how you interacted with the person who recently passed, is a most remarkable gift to leave for the family. Those stories never get old. Those cards stay around, or get scanned, and in my case, I am hoping they make it into a photo book of Roger's remarkable life.
Roger's Lesson: It is not the things you do, it is the people you meet. Meet as many as you can, be sure that they know that Heaven is a option for their eternal home, and you'll have a great time for eternity for there will be a whole lot of people up there that you know!
Not a bad plan at all, Roger!
And I am pretty sure he will meet a lot of Civil War and WWII folks up there that he has read a lot about - for he found them to be the most interesting conflicts of earthly history for his personal life story.
For all who served, lived, and died for the freedoms we still enjoy today, I am thankful.
And it is something we must never take for granted.
I also hung a new flag today. I removed the one that I hung for Roger a year ago. It has weathered the storms of life and I will not have a tattered flag flying. It will be properly retired. The new one would make Roger proud. It is for Matthew. He does not HAVE to serve. But he is. And I pray for him and his safety every single day. I pray that God places a hedge of protection around him and he stands in the gap for us. All of us. Even the ones who don't care about what it takes to be free.
Memorial Day. Memories of those who died for our freedoms.
Memorial Day. Prayers for those who serve and who need God's strength and strong faith in order to do it.
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