This is a collection of writings, thoughts, and other things that seemed appropriate for Veterans Day - in loving memory of veterans no longer with us, and in appreciation toward those who are.

     I didn't know the 24-year-old Marine who was killed in the Philippines during World War II, but I think of him often; and think of him each year as Memorial Day approaches. Tucked away in drawers and treasure boxes are photographs, U.S. Marine memorabilia, and souvenirs this young man brought back from his first tour of duty. I had been ten years old when I first heard of him. I'd like to tell you his name, but somehow I feel I don't have a right to share personal information about this person I feel I know but know I never did.

     He had been married to my mother but wasn't my father. He was the husband she had in her "first life" - before that life ended when EL was killed in the line of duty during the war. They were 23 years old when they got married, and the photographs show a young, handsome, Marine in a dress uniform and my pretty mother in her wedding dress.

     I was ten and sitting on the chair next to the stove when my mother decided it would be a good time to tell me about her first husband. She said, "There's something you should know, and I think you're old enough now." She said, "I was married to someone besides Dad when I was young, but he was killed in the war." My first question was whether he was my sister's father, but once it was cleared up that he wasn't the revelation didn't seem like much of a big deal to me. I was, as I said, ten. She explained that she didn't marry my father until five years after EL had been killed - long enough for her to even think about dating or marrying someone else. I did ask why she never went to a cemetery (because we regularly visited her mother's grave), and she told me he was not buried in the U.S.

     Over the years to follow, though, my mother would talk more about her first husband; and as I matured, I realized the impact having and losing him had had on her. It wasn't that she dwelled on her past, but it was a big enough thing that she would mention it from time to time. She had said how she had felt as if she had one life, had it end, and then went on to have a second life. She talked about arguments between her and her first husband's mother, resentments, and the house she and her husband had that she didn't want to live in after he was killed. She talked about how horrible it was to lose him; and once I was older, her sisters would occasionally mention something about that horrible time in all of their lives. My mother would occasionally mention how all the couple's plans had disintegrated in a moment, how difficult it was to imagine her healthy young husband dead, and how difficult it was to think about how he had come home safely once - only to be called back to his death.

     EL was a quiet presence as I grew up, but he was someone who was not mentioned frequently.
Instead, mentions of him came in small but powerful doses. His existence, marriage to my mother, and death did not amount to a cloud of my childhood. It was more a matter of my being aware that my mother had a cloud over her existence.

     Her marriage to my father was, as she described it, a quiet one. Because she had been married before, and because my father was Catholic, their marriage was a private, back-of-the-church, type of thing. There was no wedding dress, and only my father's Catholic brother and sister-in-law attended. My mother said she had grown to love my father because he was such a kind person. He had been through the war, and he understood loss. I was grown when she commented that my father had probably made a much better father than her first husband ever would have. She talked about how much (and how differently) she had loved her first husband
and how much (and how deeply) she loved my father. More than once, though, there was that mention of a previous life and a previous her. She once said how she was happy to have the life she had but how it would be impossible to just pretend the previous life and loss hadn't existed.

     My siblings and I grew up looking at the remnants of World War II - my father's history, the story of my mother's first husand, and stories of an uncle who had been injured as a Marine. When my father died the belongings through which we sorted contained items left from his days as a soldier. When my mother died, among her belongings were not just reminders of my father's World War II days but reminders of that first life of which we had never been a part - reminders of a young Marine, a mystery to us, just one casualty, among thousands and thousands, of a war before my time.

     My mother died before home computers became popular. About three years ago, though, as I was thinking of EL as Memorial Day approached, it occurred to me that had he not been killed I wouldn't exist. My two biological children would not exist, and my adopted son would be a different person. My brother and sister would not exist, neither would my sister's three children or three grandchildren. Although his death wasn't planned this way, it occurred to me that we all exist because of it. That's what made me think of looking up information about EL online, although as I got into it I realized it was as if I was doing something for my mother.

     I found the record of EL's death and information about his burial in the US Military cemetery. I found a picture of the cemetery, and there - on the screen of the computer in my home office area - were the rows of white crosses across an expanse of green grass. I wished my mother could have seen the white crosses that could be so easily accessed from a home computer or the information available about World War II casualties. I wished she could have seen EL's name appear more than once on the screen, and I wished she were here so I could say, "Mum, guess what I found out about EL!"

     She had been gone a few years by the time I was able to make EL a more real person to me and by the time it had finally hit me that none of the people who came from my mother's marriage to my father would have ever existed if EL had not been killed. After spending a few days returning to the World War II sites it occurred to me that it was kind of pointless. After all, my mother was gone. It shouldn't matter at this point. Still it did. For some reason, it just kind of really, really, mattered.

     Today, five of the six grandchildren of EL's wife are older than he was when he was left among the white crosses in Manila. As my sister and I realize now exactly how young 24 really is, and as we live in a time when people younger than that are being sent into horrible places, we may just now be realizing the reality of the existence, and the extent of the loss, of the young man we never knew.

     I don't quite know how or why, but when my mother died she left behind a piece of that cloud that loomed over her life since before I was born. Being able to see where the remains of EL rest, in whatever peace comes when the pain of life and the promise of the future have been extinguished, gave me some type of closure that I apparently needed.

     I know he had a sister, and there's a chance she could still be alive. There's also the chance she had children and told them about her brother. For some reason, I somehow wish I could let them know that all these decades later I am here - thinking about the person they lost, the person some of them never got to know, and the cloud over my mother's life that didn't quite die when she did.

When my son was in third grade (about 20 years ago or so) he entered an essay contest for Flag Day. The children were asked to write about why they should respect the flag. The winner would receive a $50 US Savings Bond and would read his/her essay at the Flag Day ceremonies on the town common.

My third-grade child wrote about how even though the flag is "a piece of cloth" it "represents America". He went on to talk about how "in some countries boys my age can't play because they have army men in the streets" and about how if he got "hungry in the night" all he had to do was go to the kitchen and get something to eat, while other children in the world are not so "lucky" (his word). He wrote about how he had a nice school to go to. He also mentioned having a nice, warm, house and a nice bed.

As the mother of this child (and his siblings), who, in fact, has always had a peaceful place to call home, plenty to eat, and all those other basic but important things he mentioned in his essay; and as someone who grew up with the same things, I have to say that those are things that make me proud to be an American, because those things did not happen by accident, without thought, or without extraordinary cost in human life.

My son's essay won first prize in the contest, but the Flag Day ceremonies were held when a lot of traffic was passing the town common. My shy son's little voice - with all those important thoughts to share - could not be heard above the bustling traffic - but that's America too. So, there by the gazebo in front of the brick town hall, my son's prize-winning thoughts about America and the flag went unheard. That doesn't mean, though, that they weren't thought by an eight-year-old child when he wrote them; or that similar thoughts have not been thought by millions of Americans of all ages throughout the history of the nation.

Maybe the point of my little story is not whether my son's words were ever heard or not, but is, instead, the idea that even if we don't hear certain words as often as we should, that doesn't mean they aren't felt across the nation, and on all kinds of otherwise ordinary days.

Our nation will always have its pessimists, incapable of imagining a bright future. It will always have its enemies, foreign and domestic; who hope the United States will not or cannot survive as a nation. There will always even be people who are neither pessimists nor enemies, but who have resentment and/or distrust or success, wealth, and achievement. These people, too, will not want to believe that the United States, as a nation, will or can survive.

I, on the other hand, am not among any of the aforementioned types of people. I believe the United States, as a nation, will not only still exist 100 years from now; I believe it will be stronger than it has ever been.

One of the reasons I believe this could be that I am old enough to realize how short a time 100 years really is. Just last evening I was searching the popular website that allows viewers to see street views of city streets around the world. After my virtual visit to my childhood neighborhood

I decided to visit my parents' childhood neighborhoods, as well. I remembered the name of the street on which my father was born 97 years ago, and I remembered my father's and my grandfather's both saying it was a very short street.

Before I clicked on the street I realized that 97 years is a long time, and there was a chance this street had become a site for a shopping mall or corporation. When I clicked on, however, there it was - a very short street with a very few, very old, houses on it. There was also some vacant property between the cluster of houses and the other end of the street. I tried to guess which, if any, of the houses may have been the one in which my father had been born, and the one in which my grandfather, who was born in 1881, had grown up. Guessing, however, didn't make any sense; because that's not how history is supposed to be recorded. My point is that the very short street in the suburb of Boston, Massachusetts, still exists. There is no shopping mall. There is no corporate conglomerate. There aren't even any woods that have grown in place of buildings that no longer exist.

Besides being mature enough to realize how short a time 100 years really is (I can remember the days when people believed there would be flying cars in the year, 2000), it is, perhaps, having grown up in historical Massachusetts that has given me particular respect for, and awareness of, the durability of a nation that has been built on, and with, the principles which gave birth to the United States of America.

I live within a commuter-rail ride from things like Paul Revere's house, the Old North Church, and the U.S.S. Constitution. Every year there are people in my area who, in the pre-dawn hours of Patriot's Day, visit the site of the Battle at Lexington Green, to watch a re-enactment of the battle that took place on April 19, 1775. I have family members who spend a lot of time in Plymouth, where the unimpressive-looking Plymouth Rock marks the land onto which the Pilgrims disembarked from The Mayflower in 1620 (over 400 years ago). Historical houses and sites are so common in Massachusetts those of us who have grown up here and live here can sometimes take for granted the idea that what existed a couple of centuries ago (or so) often still stands.

Maybe this has led me to have more optimism about the future of the nation than I should, but it can be quite difficult to disregard all the history around me and the awareness of the fact that what has been carefully built, hard-fought-for, and carefully preserved more often than not can, and does, endure.

While the history surrounding the nation's beginnings is about its birth and early growth, U.S. history that has been made after that, and into more recent times, can bring to mind a parallel between the birth and growth of a nation and the birth and growth of a human being. In its beginnings the United States could be compared to an infant. It had much development to accomplish and was at high risk of succumbing to something like an "infant mortality rate". As it grew it became heartier and better developed, but it was still a very young nation and subject to the kind of mistakes and ills that children can be.

It could be said that the age of the Industrial Revolution moved the United States into its adolescence, a time when it's maturity would no longer be compared to a young child but when, like a young adolescent, it still needed to find its direction and was still prone to mistakes associated with that phase of development.

The nation, as it had been built, was, of course, threatened at the time of the Civil War. It survived when so many believed it would not.

By the end of World War II, the United States had emerged from its adolescence and could be compared, at that point, more to a young adult. Still not even 200 years old, the United States of America was a fully grown but still youthful nation. It was a nation with history and a nation of hope. Like human beings in their early twenties, it had much brilliance and potential but still lacked a certain amount of the kind of wisdom that can only come with more maturity. Like people at that particular stage of life, the mature-but-still-young U.S. had gotten past its growing pains, had accomplished much of its growth, appeared to have its whole future ahead of it, and was, at times, guilty of recklessness. Like many young people, the nation was also, at times, guilty of believing it knew everything even when it didn't. Also like many young people, the nation also enjoyed an innocence.

In the 1960's, driven by the wish to right wrongs, and a contempt for old moralities that were sometimes associated with hypocrisy (and other times only perceived that way), the nation faced changes (for good and bad) that moved it from both its innocence and old imperfections. It emerged in the 1970's, a newer version of its old self. In 1976 (the year my oldest son was born) the United States of America celebrated its 200th birthday. There used to be television commercials for cigarettes designed for women, and those of us over a certain age are familiar with the famous line from those commercials, "You've come a long way, Baby." By the time it celebrated its 200th birthday the United States of America had certainly "come a long way, Baby" from the days when a ragtag bunch of Revolutionary soldiers stood, ready to fight for the freedom of the colonists; and from the time when the Founding Fathers deliberated long and hard in their efforts to define the principles of the newly independent nation.

All the way back to the days when Washington's soldiers had no appropriate footwear, this nation has not been a perfect nation. It has, however, been a strong nation - even when it was threatened - because only a strong nation could have survived all the threats and remained intact, with its principles of freedom for all and government by the people.

Over the last three decades, technology, knowledge, and information have grown exponentially. With all growth comes wisdom, new questions, and even new threats. Advances in understanding and knowledge both prove old beliefs wrong and up-end some conventional wisdom. These advances, however, also open up whole new worlds of possibilities. Rapid growth and change bring new promise but also new uncertainties.

Our nation has, in ways, entered a maturity that could be compared to people's middle years. It has the vibrancy and confidence of the middle years of life, and the wisdom it has gained continues to grow. Like people of middle age, however, the nation has had its mistakes to regret and its share of loss to grieve. Like middle-aged people, it also shows some signs of aging; but like people at that stage of life, it is far less likely to change at its core and very unlikely to repeat the mistakes of youth.

Comparing the nation to the aging of people, of course, would lead one to ask if the middle years will be followed by old age and inevitably followed by death. Nations are not, though, people. The world has seen that in nations that have survived for centuries. The world has also seen that some nations do not reach maturity, some die prematurely, and some - lacking a sufficient core - never grow at all. Growth is one thing. Lifespan is another. The parallel doesn't necessarily need to extend to lifespan. Human life ends. Nations, on the other hand, are passed from one generation to the next. The United States, as a nation "conceived in freedom and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal" (Abraham Lincoln, Gettysburg Address, November 19, 1863), is a nation that has retained at its core the original principles on which it was founded.

In his Gettysburg Address, Abraham Lincoln acknowledged the war-dead and the fact that the nation faced a test of its ability to endure. He talked about how the world would not forget those who died at Gettysburg while he (incorrectly) asserted it would not likely remember the words spoken at Gettysburg that day. Lincoln's address included the following words:

"..It is rather for us the living, we here be dedicated to the great task remaining before us-that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they here gave the last full measure of devotion-that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth."

President Lincoln was wrong. As we, in the 21st century, think about the United States as a nation, we have not forgotten the words spoken that day. The United States has grown because its people have remained committed to that resolve that those who died for this nation and its principles, not just at Gettysburg but throughout history, will not have died in vain; and that the nation shall not perish from the Earth.

In its maturity, the United States is wiser and stronger than it has ever been. Like any human endeavor, particularly those involving large numbers of people, the nation is not immune to its mistakes, losses, or tests of endurance; but in a time when man has more knowledge and understanding than ever before in history, I believe the United States, as a nation, will not only still exist 100 years from now, but will continue to thrive.

In his verse, "Concord Hymn" (which is, as you may know, about the Battle at Lexington Green), Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote the line, "..where once embattled farmers stood and fired the shot heard 'round the world". The first shot fired in the Revolutionary War was not just heard around the world. It was heard into the 21st century and beyond.

Americans have the principles of their nation in their "moral DNA" because the nation was born of something that is, in fact, in the "moral DNA" of all people. Americans don't share a heritage through their shared ethnicity, the way citizens of many countries do. Americans share a nation that was built on the spirit that comes with being alive, provided that spirit has not been killed by oppression and ignorance.

Whether or not the words I have written here today will be read 100 years from now is something I'll never know, but I wish I could be here to see whether or not my prediction has been correct. I believe that 100 years from now the United States, as a nation, will be stronger and better than it has ever been. I believe that this nation, conceived in freedom and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal, will not perish from this Earth.

(For Dad, Mum, and Everyone Of "The Greatest Generation" - Wherever You May Be)