Author’s Note: This piece was originally published last Memorial Day weekend, but many more of you subscribe now than did then. In revisiting it I realized that I cannot say it any better than I did the first time.
A gathering around the statue of Civil War Gen. John G. Foster for a Memorial Day service in 1937. Photo courtesy of Nashua, New Hampshire Historical Society.
In case you forgot why you have a three-day weekend this Monday is Memorial Day. A national holiday to honor and mourn fighting men and women who died while serving in United States Armed Forces. It was first observed in 1868, as Decoration Day, honoring soldiers who died in the Civil War. After the world wars it became a day of remembrance for all fallen servicemembers. A meaning lost on most Americans. Subsumed by beaches and barbecues, mattress sales and movie premiers.
But a thing I would like you to think about this weekend, which is rarely mentioned, is the disproportionate burden of war on small town rural people. 80% of Americans live in urban areas and 20% live in rural areas. Yet rural areas provide 44% of military recruits. Versus only 14% that come from major cities. There are a few reasons for this. Different values systems, lack of opportunity, and poor or lower middle-class backgrounds. Servicemembers from rural areas are also 60% more likely to die than their urban and suburban counterparts.
The story I am going to tell you is one I first wrote and published on Twitter/X for Veteran's Day in 2023. About a day when whatever illusions I had about war shattered, and I learned what it is all about.
This one is going to be hard to read.
I told myself I joined for college money. But looking back, mostly I was bored. Searching for adventure. What I found was more boredom. Broken by moments of panic. 60+ convoy security missions, and everyone came home. But not everyone lived.
The guy in the picture with me is Matt Dicks. He became my battle buddy early on, because NCOs thought it was hilarious to see two soldiers named "Dicks" and "Head" together. We were with Bravo Company 224th Combat Engineers, attached to the 2nd Marine Division out of Ramadi, in support of OIF III.
We trained as construction equipment operators. Once we got in country though, we found they used civilian contractors for everything. Obstacle section reorganized as the Internal Convoy Escort (ICE) platoon. Up until that point I had rarely been outside the wire. A Fobbit. But it was not long until I found out what was really going on.
We were running a mission at Hurricane Point. We'd heard fighting out in the city, and a short time later, several Humvees came through the gate. They laid a body out on the ground. After a while the activity died down. So, Dicks and I wandered over.
It was an Iraqi man. Killed in the fighting and brought back to identify. I do not know if he was a combatant or a bystander. I never thought to ask. I do not remember a lot of blood. He was laid out face up. Maybe the wounds were on his back. I just kept looking at his face.
"You two want a souvenir?" said one of the Marines standing over the body. He was holding a set of EMT shears. I realized patches of gray hair were missing. "We are good." Dicks said. One of them squatted down, and placed his hand on the dead man's chin, and using his thumb moved the lower lip like a ventriloquist's dummy. Saying in a funny voice "Derka derka hadji jihad."
I laughed. And tasted metal. And suddenly had too much saliva. There was some more conversation I do not remember. I know that all the Marines were younger than me. But they seemed impossibly old to me at that moment. Hardened. I had taken indirect fire more times than I could count, and direct fire once or twice. But this was my first time seeing death up close.
I wish I had said that it was fucked up. Told them to knock it off. I wish I had known the men that we lost better. And that I had not ghosted most of the men I served with, trying to distance myself from the experiences we had. It has been a long time. I do not think about this stuff a lot. Mostly on Memorial Day and Veteran's Day. Dicks is fine by the way. Beautiful wife, kids, and his own business. A few of the men from my platoon have died. None from later deployments.
A Major General in the Army once explained to me why Midwestern National Guard units had a tempo of deployment near that of active Army. The first is cost. Between deployments the Guard are only paid when they are working. One weekend a month, and two weeks a year. So, four Guardsmen cost what one regular Army soldier does. But the other part of it was that the Department of the Army had recognized the Midwestern work ethic as real. And they liked it.
My Army National Guard Battalion was out of Southeast Iowa. Burlington, Fairfield, Ottumwa. Not small towns in themselves. But that was only where the armories were. Most of the soldiers were from outlying areas. We deployed with some soldiers from other places, to bring us up to required strength numbers. Including a whole platoon from Michigan's Upper Peninsula. We lost a handful of soldiers. One from my company. His name was Casey too. Many more were seriously wounded.
We have but one life and die one death. When someone does not come home from war, it is a tragedy for their family. There is no way around that. But such a thing reverberates through a small community in a way it does not where everyone is anonymous. Where there is a shared sense of place, there is a shared sense of loss, and the pain of loss is somehow more realized. Folk in a small town have long memories, and they do not forget the big sacrifices.
Thank you for your service. And thank you for your post.
I came of age in the 60s and 70s in the Boston suburbs. Life was still very community oriented. Everyone knew everyone else in the neighborhood. We shopped in the same stores, went to the same schools, worshipped in the same churches, all within walking distance (well, walking distance then). In a corner of what was the elementary school playground is a memorial to the boys who died fighting in WW II. People knew those boys who went away to fight and never came home. There comrades were our fathers and uncles. If we didn’t know them we knew their families. We knew their names.
Every year a wreath is laid at that memorial. It used to be done on the morning of Memorial Day with a gathering of neighbors. People told stories about those boys who went away and never came home. Many of the story tellers were the boys who did come home.
Now the wreath just shows up. I don’t know if it’s put there by the city or a veteran’s group. There is no gathering. There are no stories. Few if any remember the names.
We have lost our sense of community. We don’t know our neighbors other than to wave or give a nod. We don’t have a shared past. There are no neighborhood schools. Even our churches no longer draw from people who live in the area. We are individuals who happen to live in proximity to one another.
I’m not sure we can regain a sense of community. People are too busy, too mobile. We had it once, even in the big cities. The only place it still exists is in rural areas, small towns, and villages. And we’re in danger of losing them with our misguided sense of success and what’s important. And, saddest of all, we’re in danger of losing ourselves.
Thank you for your service. And thank you for your post.
I came of age in the 60s and 70s in the Boston suburbs. Life was still very community oriented. Everyone knew everyone else in the neighborhood. We shopped in the same stores, went to the same schools, worshipped in the same churches, all within walking distance (well, walking distance then). In a corner of what was the elementary school playground is a memorial to the boys who died fighting in WW II. People knew those boys who went away to fight and never came home. There comrades were our fathers and uncles. If we didn’t know them we knew their families. We knew their names.
Every year a wreath is laid at that memorial. It used to be done on the morning of Memorial Day with a gathering of neighbors. People told stories about those boys who went away and never came home. Many of the story tellers were the boys who did come home.
Now the wreath just shows up. I don’t know if it’s put there by the city or a veteran’s group. There is no gathering. There are no stories. Few if any remember the names.
We have lost our sense of community. We don’t know our neighbors other than to wave or give a nod. We don’t have a shared past. There are no neighborhood schools. Even our churches no longer draw from people who live in the area. We are individuals who happen to live in proximity to one another.
I’m not sure we can regain a sense of community. People are too busy, too mobile. We had it once, even in the big cities. The only place it still exists is in rural areas, small towns, and villages. And we’re in danger of losing them with our misguided sense of success and what’s important. And, saddest of all, we’re in danger of losing ourselves.
Thank you for sharing this!