By E. Lee Ball
They are playing that song again. I don’t think there is a song that I both love and hate with all my being simultaneous than that song. Its melody is so hauntingly familiar while its lyrics are scarcely recognizable. To some, it’s playing means that the day is done, that work is through and it is time to go home to family, or friends, or whomever there is to go home to; to others, it means that someone is never coming home again, except in the photos and memories of those still waiting. They wait in their living rooms, on their front porches, in their yards, on the street, and a thousand other places; they wait, in sorrow, and in vain, for the return of one gone beyond this mortal coil.
To me and those around me, it means we will never be forgotten. It fills us with pride for a job well done, a duty fulfilled, and a sacrifice made. It also fills us with memories of our own. When I hear that tune, played out on the far side of the hill on a solitary bugle, I remember the cries of “Medic, medic” mingled with the popping of rifles expressing themselves in voices of death. I taste again the mixture of salt water and sand on Omaha. The aroma of burning flesh and uniform assaults my nose every single time it plays.
And it isn’t just the playing of the song that stirs our emotions, it is the reason the melody drifts over the places we rest. It means that our ranks are growing, that one more plot of land is being occupied.
Some years, we are fortunate enough to hear the song only on special occasions, not that it isn’t a special, although sad, occasion each time it is played, but at times of remembrance. Don’t get me wrong. Our ranks still grow in these years, but it is because members of our uniformed family have reached the end of a long life, or been the tragic victims of domestic misfortune. The other years are the ones that get to us. It is the years of war when we see our ranks filled by young men and women dozens at a time.
In addition to the pride and the memories the song evokes, we feel the futility. Whether on the beaches, in the trenches, scattered across open fields, in the air, or surrounded by crashing waves as far as the eye could see, we made our sacrifices so that those who came after us wouldn’t have to…and, yet, the young still come. Like bricks in a wall of peace that will one day make the song unnecessary, they pile their hopes and their sacrifices upon ours, just as we piled ours on those who came before us.
It doesn’t really matter where we are, be it Arlington, or of one of the other cemeteries throughout the world that embrace the sacred bones of freedom’s defenders, when the first note rings, we all know it. Invisibly, we rise, standing at attention. Our once-strong hands cover our once-beating hearts and our voices, now nothing more than whispers of the wind, join together and we sing the song of welcome.
“Day is done, gone the sun
From the lakes, from the hills, from the sky
All is well, safely rest
God is nigh.
Fading light dims the sight
And a star gems the sky, gleaming bright
From afar, drawing near
Falls the night.
Thanks and praise for our days
Neath the sun, neath the stars, neath the sky
As we go, this we know
God is nigh.”
And as that final note fades, we all join together in unspoken prayer that today, “Taps” will welcome another soldier home for the last time.
The End
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