Voices ...

The Mrs. and I were at Long Island National Cemetery this morning, paying our respects to those who've served before and after I did. We do this most every year but this morning was unique.

On Memorial Day, all of the graves are decorated with small American flags, placed by volunteers. As we walked through, I noticed a flag on one of the graves had fallen over and went to right it. It was then I heard it, nothing mystical, just a voice in my head.

Hey, Sarge, pick mine up too.

And I saw one in front of the grave of a Navy corpsman. And I made it right.

Hey, lady, what about me?

And I saw the Mrs walk over to right a flag near the headstone of a Coastie.

Yo, Wingwiper, I heard an old Marine say. I'm not squared away either, light a fire under it.

Hey, honey, me too, an Army Air Corps pilot said and Mrs. F moved on.

Hey, brother, don't forget me, an Air Force troop, who was stationed at the same place on the DMZ I was, said.

And we went on, row to row, an unintended, unspoken mission, and after an hour we'd covered an acre, and moved on to the next. And when we finally finished with the small area of the cemetery, we walked back to the car, hand in hand, the stains of tears on both our faces.

"You heard them?" Mrs. F asked me when one of us felt we could speak.

"Yeah," I said.

And I realized our mission was a futile one for there were just two of us and 175 acres of marble headstones, row upon row of those who fought and sacrificed, row upon row of small American flags.

And today the mission in Iraq seems the most futile of all. There will be many more headstones, many more small American flags, and many more memorials to the fallen, to those who have served and sacrificed, to those who have fought and died in the service of the nation I love.

The warmongers and the clueless in this nation see the headstones, just as we do, but they don't hear the voices. They somehow don't get or don't care there is a voice attached to each marker. There was a person with hopes and dreams, family and friends, someone who had opinions and beliefs and a sense of duty. They see faceless automatons with rifles. As faceless as the plain, white headstones.

There should be a law in this country that any President who wants to go to war must first spend a day walking through a military cemetery, listening to the voices. They must read the headstones, the names, the branch of service, the battles; Cuba, the Bulge, Remagen, Iwo Jima, Coral Sea, Anzio, Seoul, Inch On, Khe Sanh, Tet, Hue, I Trang, Panama, Grenada, Kosovo, Srebrenica, Baghdad, Fallujah.

There are too many headstones, too many voices ...