I know by the time you read this, it will be well after Memorial Day. But that’s okay. I couldn’t write about what I had experienced until after I experienced it, right?
Little Juda had not only a Civil War soldier who finally got his tombstone, not only a traditional Memorial Day service in the cemetery, but also a bringing home of a WWII soldier who died at Pearl Harbor. And folks turned up to recognize, remember, and celebrate what we have because of these brave soldiers.
I heard the story of William H. Harrington for the first time on Memorial Day out in the cemetery. Hazel Matzke, Deborah Krauss Smith, and others helped to get the information needed for the Green County Veteran’s Service Office to order a tombstone for Private Harrington.
There was a program held for Seaman Second Class David J. Riley’s program at the Juda School and Mt. Vernon Cemetery, with approximately 300 people in attendance. What an honor! What a way to show our support — not support of war and killing — but of men and women like you and I who went and served, left their families, left their homes…and lost their lives doing it. And then on Monday at the cemetery, Peggy Matzke (wearing her father’s naval uniform) told us more of the life of David. It’s a good thing to put a face to the name, as most of the people who gathered wouldn’t have known him personally.
But what really hit me the most was when I was talking to a young woman on Tuesday. She said that her daughter’s school really didn’t tell the kids anything ABOUT Memorial Day and that her daughter had asked her about it. When Mom described to daughter, the daughter said, “Shouldn’t we remember them EVERY day?” Wow! Yes. Yes, we should.
I think because we don’t have any military bases in our backyards that sometimes we lose sight of what our military personnel give up for us. Luke 9:58 says: “Jesus replied, ‘Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.’” When I think that my Lord and Savior called men to follow him and had to tell them that he was essentially homeless, I think of our soldiers. I think of pictures that I’ve seen of soldiers trying to rest in 100+ degree temperatures lying in the shade of a Jeep. I think of stories that I heard my grandfather tell me of WWII in Belgium when it was so cold that soldiers fought over blankets so they wouldn’t freeze. I think of a movie I saw recently that showed soldiers in the trenches with bombs going off overhead. How does one sleep?
When one gets called up for service, one gives up a lot. One (temporarily hopefully) gives up family, a comfortable home with doors to shut for privacy, the sense of safety that most of us walk around with day-to-day, and a lot of personal choices.
We talk in the church a lot about “serving God”. The earliest of disciples understood that they were walking away from their families, their homes, their livelihoods. We’ve cleaned up what “service” looks like in much of our experience. It’s when we go to serve in areas that aren’t familiar to us — impoverished areas, areas where our safety is in question, areas where housing is nothing like what we live in here, areas where food and water might be questionable — that we start… just start… to get an inkling of what REAL service might look like. And I thank God that so many military personnel have stepped out in service to their country. “Shouldn’t we remember them every day?” Yes! We should! God bless!
— Reflections appears regularly on the religion page. The column features a variety of local writers, coordinated through the Monroe Area Clergy Group. Kelly Jahn is pastor of the Juda Zion and Oakley Union United Methodist Churches.
