Note:  I wrote this in February last year.  Seems appropriate to repeat it on Memorial Day.  Afterall, this is what we're supposed to be doing today.  Not roasting hotdogs, making speeches about the glory of war, going to flag-waving ceremonies, or taking a vacation.  Political posturing is inappropriate today.  Today we are supposed to remember.  Remember those who lost their lives for what they believed in.  It doesn't matter what we think.  They did what they thought was important.  And we must honor that.  Tomorrow, I will go back to doing everything I can to decry war in general and the present travesty in specific.  I will go back to doing everything I can to get the Bush administration removed from power.  But today, I'm remembering Denny Crocker.  If I do anything else, I dishonor him, and those who died voluntarily or involuntarily in war and conflict.

Denny

Denny's name hangs on the wall of the living room of my house.  In a simple frame.  For all to see.

Denny was a high school classmate of mine.  He was a year ahead of me, but we were friends.  We did some things together.  We went to the same church.  His Dad knew my Dad.  That kind of stuff.

Funny how you don't see life-changing events until much later.

In the Fall of 1965, Denny ran away from home.  Noone knew why or where he went.  We found out a couple of months later when he returned home with a military escort.  He had run away to join the Army because he wanted to fight in some war in Vietnam.  It was a New War and some of the mystique of the Old War still hung over us.  He wanted to serve his country.  Fight for freedom.  All that.  It still sounded good in those days.  Trouble was, Denny was under age.  He was six months shy of 18 when he ran away to join up.  He lied about his age and the Army took him in.  Got all the way through basic training and something spit his name out and he was discharged and sent home.

Denny's name hangs on the wall of my living room  In a simple frame.  For all to see.

Somehow, after he got home, Denny convinced his Dad to sign off on his enlistment in the Army.  He went back in.  This time with his father's blessing.  He wanted to be in Special Forces.  Now we were getting letters from him, and following his progress.  He didn't make it into Special Forces and wound up in the infantry and shipped out to Vietnam soon after Christmas.

In May, he returned.  In a coffin.  He was the first in our town to die in a war we didn't know anything about.

Denny's name hangs on the wall of my living room.  In a simple frame.  For all to see.

We were stunned at the news...announced over the school PA one morning during class.  A pall fell over the place for the rest of the day.  We were let out of school the day of his funeral.  A military honor guard stood around the flag-draped coffin.  The church was packed.  I sang in the choir then and nobody didn't cry.  Denny's mother and father looked very old. 

Denny's name hangs on the wall of my living room.  In a simple frame.  For all to see.

Nothing was ever the same for us after that.  We started hearing more and more about the war and well...you know the rest.  I met Denny's father last May at a wedding in my home town.  It was the first time I had seen him since that May back in '66.  I told him I had been to the Wall, with my children.  I told him I had made a rubbing of Denny's name on a piece of paper and my children asked me why I was crying.

I told him that it hangs on the wall of my living room.  In a simple frame.  For all to see.

After thirty-six years, he still cries.

9:48:16 AM   Lay some on me []