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Memorial Day Speech Given at the Veterans' Memorial, Kirbyville, Texas, 2018
Mayor George, Judge Folk, Mr. Chandler, Mrs. Herrin,
Mrs. Freeman, Mr. Smith, Mr. Ozan, Mr. Kyle, Mr. Wood, Mrs. Bush, Doc Stanley, Chaplain Wiltshire, Mrs. Adams, Mr. Tibbits, veterans, honored guests, and all here today who love our nation.
Thank you for the honor of being with you today, and for asking me to speak very briefly.
Memorial Day is said to have begun during the Civil War as Decoration Day, when the fresh graves of the war dead were decorated with flowers in their memory. Numerous towns, north and south, claim to have begun the tradition of decorating the graves of all soldiers of both sides. Wherever this noble custom began, honoring those who served is what civilized nations do.
Today we honor the loyal departed, both our home folks and all American servicemen and servicewomen everywhere.
Last month, a C130 of the Puerto Rico Air National Guard went down with the loss of its entire crew.
These fine young men recently served our nation throughout the Caribbean in evacuation and supply duties for months after Hurricane Maria.
As we now know, they were flying their aging C130 to Tucson to be scrapped. Some sources say the plane was 40 years old; some say 50 and some say 60. What we do know is that the plane was older than any of its crew.
I want to recognize these fine young men:
Major José Rosado, pilot
Major Carlos Serra, navigator
1st Lieutenant David Albandoz, co-pilot
Senior Master Sgt. Jan Paravisini, mechanic
Master Sgt. Jean Audriffred
Master Sgt. Mario Braña, flight engineer
Master Sgt. Víctor Colón
Master Sgt. Eric Circuns, loadmaster
Senior Airman Roberto Espada
We did not know these young men who died for us, but let us praise them now, and honor them, and let us remember these three things about them:
1. All of these young men served in the Air National Guard – you know, that allegedly safe duty. For decades some who never made the first day of recruit training have claimed that the Reserves and the National Guard are easy billets, a nice soft way of avoiding hazardous duty.
Rupert Brooke wrote in 1914 “If I should die, think only this of me / There is some corner of a foreign field that is forever England.”
Well, we can write that there are lots of corners of lots of foreign fields that are forever American Reserves and National Guard.
2. All of these young men were millennials – you know, that generation of delicate snowflakes who just lay around the house playing video games and who won’t demonstrate initiative. The reality is that our military, our emergency and police services, our workforce – they’re millennials, the generation that came of age at the turn of the century and who now are entering early middle age.
3. And they were not eligible to vote in federal elections. Residents of Puerto Rico have been, since 1917, citizens of the United States, and yet they may not vote in federal elections. These nine young men, as part of their oath of enlistment, pledged personal loyalty to their president, and they could not, by law, vote for their president. They could not vote for the government of the nation for which they died in active military service.
I think we should do something about that.
I return to Senior Airman Roberto Espada – how old was he? 21? 22? – who is survived only by his grandmother, his meemaw. We can infer that his meemaw raised him. And she raised a good young man. And he won’t be going home to her. And yet some are pleased to dismiss Roberto as a millennial, a snowflake. His meemaw knows better, and we do too.
In closing (and let the people say “At last!”), a few words from Lawrence Binyon, who in 1914 was in his fifties and so was too old to enlist. However, Mr. Binyon volunteered as a medical orderly, and served in forward hospitals up against the front, within artillery range.
Mr. Binyon was a writer, an art critic, and a good man, but he was perhaps not a very good poet. In 1914 he wrote “For the Fallen,” and most of it is forgettable, florid, late-Victorian parlor poetry. However, within this poem there are four brilliant lines, as brilliant as sharpened steel, which we have all heard. And they are worth hearing again now:
They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old;
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn
At the going down of the sun, and in the morning
We will remember them.
Thank you.
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