Some thoughts on Memorial Day, 2009

If you are able, save for them a place inside of you
and save one backward glance when you are leaving
for the places they can no longer go.

Be not ashamed to say you loved them,
though you may or may not have always.
Take what they have taught you with their dying and keep it with your own.

And in that time when men decide and feel safe to call the war insane,
take one moment to embrace those gentle heroes you left behind.

MAJ Michael Davis O'Donnell, "Remember Them"
written 1 January 1970, Dak To, Vietnam

Only in this picture I see something else; I hear different music. Because I know that at this moment, this orchestra is playing neither a festive march nor a glorifying hymn. It is playing honest music, in memory of those who have been killed.

Vladislav Tamarov, reflecting on his service in Afghanistan