Palavras lidas #587

On Memorial day

They were so young

Garrison Keillor

Memorial Day and the old folks come
And stand in the sun feeling sad and dumb.
The boys in the ground—there are so many,
They’re eighteen, nineteen, maybe twenty—

They just moved out of a boy’s bedroom
And went to war, now they lie in a tomb
Old people come on Memorial Day
And people speak but what’s there to say?
The dead would trade it all for the chance
To find a girl and ask her to dance.

Ticonderoga, Hamburger Hill,
Young men marching out to kill.
Manassas, Shiloh, Chancellorsville,
They fell down and they lie there still.

World War I: they picked up their arms
And marched to Ypres and the Battle of the Marne
Vimy Ridge, Passchendaele, the Somme,
Midwestern boys far from home.
On ninety acres near Ardennes
Five thousand 162 men
Who left the U.S.A. to strike
Down the wickedness of the Third Reich.

Eight thousand near Henri-Chapelle,
Outside London, in northern France,
Lie men who served their country well
And fought to liberate foreign lands.
On land and sea, in the air they fought,
Landed in France, advanced to the Rhine,
Ferocious battles along the line.
In a terrifying moment, died
And now they lie in a narrow lot,
Head to foot and side by side

Far from Ohio, New York, P.A.
And now their families are fading away,
And memories fade,
And how many visitors come around
To visit this or that burial ground?

So on one day at the end of May
We pause and think of what we owe
To those who lie here row after row
Who fought for freedom long ago.

Iwo Jima and Normandy,
Anzio and the Coral Sea,
The Battle of the Bulge, the Korean War,
Pork Chop Hill, the Chosin Reservoir,
Loc Ninh, Dak To, the siege of Khe Sanh,
The Tet Offensive and the battle of Saigon:
Young men running and young men fall,
Their names are inscribed on a long stone wall.

Iraq, Afghanistan, again and again,
The story repeated of elderly men
Wary of appearing weak,
Needing heroic lines to speak,
Sent the soldiers out to die,
Leaving the mothers and sisters to cry.

Tragic mistakes were made, it’s true.
Generals sent young men to do
What shouldn’t be done,
What couldn’t be won.
At a terrible cost,
The mission failed, young men were lost.

History will not ignore
The screw-ups that are a part of war.
Presidents, senators, leaders will be
Closely examined by history,

And on 9/11 in the terrible hours
When the fires burned in the twin towers
Men and women of the emergency force
Came racing through the downtown streets,
Cops and firemen and EMTs
Dragged equipment through the doors
And headed for the upper floors.
Knowing this was no accident.
Up the smoky stairs they went
With every reason to assume
That this building would be their tomb.
And those who suffered and fell will be heard,
And history will have the last word.

But all we say on Memorial Day
As bells are rung, hymns are sung,
Flowers are brought and strewed among
The stones and crosses in this yard,
The graves of those who did their part.
All we say is, it breaks your heart:
They were so young.
They were so young.
They were so young.
They missed out on so many years

So after you decorate the grave,
After the speeches and the tears,
Enjoy this land they died to save.
Enjoy your life, see your friends,

Put the hamburgers on the grill,
Toss a salad, eat your fill,
Let the festivity commence,
Take a walk, go for a run,
Let jokes be told and songs be sung,
Do the things they would’ve done,
Those who died too young.