On this somber coronavirus Memorial Day let’s reflect on what keeps America free | Opinion
Our Johnny never came home from Vietnam.
His body did, but not his mind.
The last memory I hold of this tall, handsome young man, a childhood neighbor, is of Johnny languishing on a sofa, after a long awaited return from war, speaking to himself in guttural sounds not of this world.
Then, one day, Johnny simply left, vanished, lost forever to the family who loved him and searched for him for decades, from homeless shelters in New York City to an apartment in Daytona Beach, until they could no more.
He didn’t want to be found. He couldn’t go home.
Perhaps our lost Johnny is not what Gen. John A. Logan of the Grand Army of the Republic, an organization of Union sailors and soldiers, had in mind when he observed the first Memorial Day on May 30, 1868, to recognize with a proclamation the ultimate sacrifices of Civil War soldiers.
But I like to think it was the unseen casualties of war who General Logan didn’t want forgotten.
I think of Johnny, his real name, not just a soldier in an old song, every Memorial Day holiday and every Veterans Day, too, when I reflect on bravery, sacrifice, and the politically shifting idea of what it means to be American, to be patriotic, to be free.
All the more this year, when all we and the world knows has been overturned by the civilian casualties of a war against a deadly virus, in which, as we were during Vietnam, the nation seems irreparably divided.
This year, perhaps, Americans will be engaging in a more somber Memorial Day as the coronavirus pandemic continues its deadly path through the country and remembrance ceremonies shift from political picnics and barbecues to virtual commemorations.
Or, maybe not.
Maybe, in the name of personal freedom, the holiday will turn into the usual big party, social distancing and mask-wearing be damned.
In South Florida, beaches are closed, there’s stormy weather in the forecast, but open marinas mean boaters packing the waterways.
Earlier this week an angler erected a lone American flag in the waters of Biscayne Bay, a beautiful tribute to the men and women who died in the name of the freedom we enjoy, those we honor and remember this holiday.
Shopping malls are open for the first time in months, and what’s more American than consumerism in the Sunshine State? All the more relevant now that supporting businesses in a COVID-19 devastated economy is being embraced with the fervor of patriotic duty.
Patriotism.
This year, the word evokes a new kind of hero, the healthcare workers on the front lines fighting COVID-19.
They are 2020’s soldiers.
The flyby national salutes to heroes are for them, too, this year.
Our Johnny was a patriot, although he didn’t believe it, didn’t think he deserved it.
He was the brother drafted while the younger two were spared.
He didn’t try to get out of serving in the military as some did, including our president, and that should count for something.
I know he suffered. I know he saw and most likely was forced to do horrible things, unspeakable things that left emotional wounds so deep he was unable to return to the world he left.
Barely a teenager then, I didn’t fully understand what a Cuban refugee boy was doing in a war on a side of the world so foreign to us, but I was told he was fighting communism, the type all of us Cubans in the neighborhood had fled.
It was a comforting explanation. He was a hero, and in that context, his and his family’s sacrifice made sense at the time.
I still think Johnny and all the young men who fought in the unwinnable war in Vietnam — whether they wanted to or not — are, in the most basic of ways, heroic.
They and all the soldiers who lost their lives in wars made the ultimate sacrifice for us to live in a country that protects, not imperils, freedom of speech. They died so we could live in a truly democratic country of checks and balances where no politician, not even the president, is above the law. They died to preserve the right of all Americans to vote and elect their leaders, not for the system to be used to suppress some Americans.
They didn’t die for a party.
They died for a nation.
Some who survived the battlefield died a different kind of way while living.
Johnny’s parents died one after the other of old-age ailments longing to see their son, then a younger brother died of cancer — and Johnny never turned up for any of the funerals.
The last time I heard of him his sister had tracked him down in upstate Florida, but as soon as he learned he had been found, he disappeared again.
Wherever you are Johnny, this Memorial Day I honor your service.
This story was originally published May 22, 2020 at 10:28 AM.
