Distinguished guests, honored brothers and sisters in arms, my family—Kelly, Patrick, Victor, Taylor, and Ashton—fellow citizens of America …
I am grateful to be standing before you this Memorial Day, May 25, 2015.
Memorial Day is the day citizens can still freely gather to honor those men and women, a father or a mother, a son or a daughter, a brother or a sister who sacrificed everything in this world, so that we can continue our American way of life each day: a way of life safe from the horror of suicide bombers; secure from the brutality of snipers, car bombers, and thoughtless mines; unthreatened by indiscriminate mortars and the savagery of IEDs—a way of life that provides opportunity to learn without terror, to worship without judgment, to nourish without want, to love without labels, and to speak without fear.
Each of us present today believes, acts, and teaches the continuum of noblesse oblige.
A simple question: Why so few?
Memorial Day is a day of acknowledgment.
Places woven into the historical fabric of our nation. The citizen-soldier ran to the pealing of the alarm bell to Lexington and Concord, Valley Forge and Yorktown; Tripoli—courageous sailors and marines; Baltimore—the origin of our national anthem; Antietam—the worst of ourselves; Manila Bay and Cuba—the dawning of a world power; Argonne Forest—the war to end ALL wars; Siberia; Pearl Harbor and Bataan and Corregidor, Kasserine Pass, Anzio, Utah and Omaha beaches, Bastogne and Malmedy; Guadalcanal, Bloody Tarawa, New Guinea, Mandalay, Calcutta, Leyte, Mount Suribachi—the greatest photograph of unity of strength; Pusan, Inchon, Chosin Reservoir, Pork Chop Hill, Toko-Ri—bleak days; Mekong, Pleiku, Hue, Khe Sanh, Ia Drang, Cu Chi, Parrot’s Beak, Plain of Jars, Son Tay; Koh Tang Island; Grenada; Beirut; Panama; Khafji, burning wells, Kuwait City, Safwan; Mogadishu; Slavonski Brod, Sarajevo, Tuzla; Kosovo; and since September 11, 2001, Mazar-e-Sharif, Kabul, Khandahar, Tora Bora, Gardez.
I beseech you to add Falluja, Ramadi, Tikrit, Baqubah, Baghdad, An Najaf, Al Hilla, and Kerbala to the long list of place names where Americans bled, suffered, and died for causes greater than self.
A question: Where next?
A day of memories and emotions
Memorial Day is a day of memories and emotions.
On August 27, 2003, a native son of Deerfield, Massachusetts, died in Al Hilla, Iraq. A roadside bomb, detonated by cowards, murdered 24-year-old Sgt. Gregory Belanger—a chef, a son, a fellow citizen-soldier. The chef could not prepare a four-star, candlelit, romantic meal for two in a cozy apartment for a broken-hearted fiancée. The son did not get the chance to pass on his winning smile and impish tricks to a child that would make grandparents laugh and carry on the family name. The nation lost a generous citizen-soldier who shared his tent with me and willingly left behind school, family, the love of his life, when he heard the clarion.
On September 20, 2003, a brutal insurgent mortar attack targeting Iraqi prisoners killed 26-year-old Sgt. David Travis Friedrich. Travis Friedrich, the student, studied with fabled Dr. Henry Lee to become a forensic scientist. Sgt. Friedrich, the citizen-soldier, blended his skills, discipline, and humanity to go after the biggest group of criminals since World War II. Travis’s light was prematurely snuffed out before his brilliance could illuminate the darkness of crime.
These are only two small stories about Americans killed in a combat zone.
When will they end?
On MassLive, reporter Fred Contrada wrote about U.S. Army Capt. Roselle M. Hoffmaster, a Smith College graduate. Hoffmaster, a surgeon assigned to Iraq, died under “non-combat-related” circumstances in September 2007, according to the army. Sixteen months later, a government report concluded that Roselle took her own life.
In a May 6, 2014, article, the Boston Globe reported that Jeffrey Lucey, a USMC veteran, committed suicide on June 22, 2004. The Globe also photographed members of the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America placing 1,892 flags representing veterans and service members who have died by suicide.
These are only two short stories about Americans dying in a safety zone.
The statistics from various studies, government agencies, and independent researchers reveal that the suicide rate of veterans exceeds the suicide rate of civilians for the first time.
I simply ask: Why so many?
Cost is for others to decide
I cannot speak to you today on whether the cost is too much, the pain too deep, the grief too heavy.
That is for others to decide.
I can only observe and note. Japan is currently one of the most prosperous and peaceful countries in the Pacific. Germany is once again whole, is free, and is democratic. European wars are nearly nonexistent. The genocidal lunacy in the Balkans has been stopped for 20 years. Grenada, Panama, Haiti are no longer enslaved with the chains of despots.
My fellow citizens, my service in uniform ended but my noblesse oblige has not. I am forever duty-bound and committed, while I am able to draw breath, to carry the torch for those who cannot be among us.
I only ask: Who will continue when I am gone?
I conclude my remarks with the lyrics of the song “Gone Away” from the band The Offspring.
Maybe in another life
I could find you there
Pulled away before your time
I can’t deal it’s so unfair
And it feels and it feels like
Heaven’s so far away
And it feels, yeah it feels like
The world has grown cold
Now that you’ve gone away
Leaving flowers on your grave
Show that I still care
[Geraniums and gun volleys]
Can’t bring back what’s taken from me
I reach to the sky
And call out your name
And if I could trade, I would
And it feels and it feels like
Heaven’s so far away
And it stings, yeah it stings now
The world is so cold
Now that you’ve gone away
God bless the men and women of the U.S. Army, U.S. Air Force, U.S. Navy, U.S. Marine Corps, U.S. Coast Guard, and U.S. Merchant Marine of the past, present, and future.
God bless America.
Dennis Lyddy is the former Veterans’ Agent for the town of Harvard.
