As our idiotic, deranged, draft-dodging commander in chief makes a mockery of the United States as well as any notion of sacrifice in the name of the greater good, I have stood back from recognizing key events on our patriotic calendar, including Memorial Day. I am disgusted that he has turned both the occasions of the West Point graduation and the laying of a wreath on the Tomb of the Unknowns into opportunities to roll out his grievance politics and gin up his uninformed, moronic base. That base lacks the heart to empathize with anybody; instead, it prefers to indulge in complaining, hating, and hurting. It grieves me that I have family members who count themselves among that group.
They claim the same ancestors as I do, but they disgrace, rather than honor, them. Our ancestors Eliab and William Isbell fought in the Revolution. They came to Woodbury as entrepreneurs and farmers game to see what the world had to offer. They brought into the world new generations of farmers and entrepreneurs, some of who traveled west as they charted a new course in the name of opportunity. The sons and daughters who stayed local invested deeply in the world they knew. When the time came, the men registered for military service and served. Some came back; some did not.
One who did not come back is a child of Woodbury who grew up in Darien, Laurence Harvey Isbell--though the War Department spelled his name Lawrence. Laurence was my grandmother's younger brother, and he signed up to be a submariner for the US Navy during World War II. He served valiantly until the Japanese sank his boat, the USS Herring, off the coast of Japan in 1945.
Laurence could have enjoyed another year of being a boy before Uncle Sam called him to service. Instead, he accepted adult responsibility, signed up, and went. My Uncle Bud, Allan J. H. Isbell, who served in the Army during the Second World War, was a camera buff who captured Laurence in his Navy whites when his brother and best man was home on leave. As a result, I have spent my life knowing of a beautiful young man who cared for his country more than himself and signed up to fight in the name of democracy out of love for his family.
It's that simple. That's Memorial Day.
That's my understanding of service. As a public school teacher, though, I take issue with the veterans who blather on at Memorial Day events about how we should thank a veteran if we enjoy civil liberties. We enjoy civil liberties because soldiers have fought for them, for sure, but we enjoy them in times of peace because other public servants protect them as a matter of course. I am thinking of school teachers, civil servants, elected officials. Democracy is a complex, many-layered thing, and we need to honor all of the layers and celebrate the complexity.
My dad dropped out of high school and joined the Army to get away from his mother. The Army took him in. They made him talk to his mother, thanks to the Red Cross. Later, he earned his GED. This paragraph is why I am a patriot. This paragraph is how I understand opportunity. Nobody gave my dad anything. He saw things for what they were and made the most of them. He taught me to do the same.
How many Boomers made their way into their professional lives after serving in the military? We should know this. We should understand the value of this. We might then better understand the people who show up on time to work hard and who don't leave until the job is done.
The Revolution is a work in progress.
0 Comments
Thanks for being here.