Welcome Home Heroes

It’s easy to become a cynic when something bad happens in your life:  infertility, job-loss, divorce, money-trouble, babyloss…etc.

I fight with it most days.

We heard that there was to be a Welcome Home Heroes Parade in St. Louis this past weekend, the first parade of its kind to welcome home new post-911 war veterans and show them the how grateful we are for their service.  It was not to be a ticker-tape, “We beat up a whole lotta people” parade (which the Pentagon has, of course, discouraged)…but a remembrance of all the sacrifices that the serviceman/woman of our country have made…even the forever-sacrifice of not coming home at all.

I knew instantly that I wanted to go when I heard about it…and I was so glad that Mark agreed with me that we should do this.   We made signs out of bargain manilla paper I had bought for Sam’s craft projects.  He chattered while we made signs and asked a lot of difficult questions about the wars and why there were people in other countries who didn’t like us.  We answered the best we could…though it was not easy, as I always want to protect my kids from the reality of the world.

So we bundled up and rode the Metrolink downtown, trundling in and out of many dark tunnels before emerging into the brightness of the most brilliant winter’s day.  We found our first spot on the steps of the giant post office, climbing higher to try to see beyond the thick wall of people lining Market street.  Two enormous fire trucks spread their ladders like goal posts at a near intersection, spanning a line and a huge billowing American flag above the street.  There were signs, and flags, and banners, and lots of cheering and thank you’s as servicemen and women walked by or road on truck-beds or a few hastily-put-together floats.  Sam covered his ears as VFW groups road growling Harleys past with huge flags blowing behind them.

As the parade drew on, we were able to squeeze our way down to the road, pressing up against the metal barricades, and feeling the buzz of the crowd as they burst into cheers each time another group went by.  It was a parade to remember…no flashy blasts of glitter, no obnoxious flying candy for children to scramble towards.   No angry protestors or drunken football players.  No political agendas.

Just people from all walks of life, standing shoulder to shoulder with the purpose of seeing something good out of something so awful. 

What especially got me were the families of the fallen soldiers, leading the parade, clinging to large posters or framed pictures of their loved ones, marching with tears streaming down their faces.  People clapped, soldiers saluted, people shouted ”we won’t forget”.

I read a few hundred comments on news sites after the parade, and was struck to hear the responses from people around the country.  Most said, “thank you”, as well.  But some could only see the politics of war.  One veteran’s comments struck me deeply.  He seemed to be deeply troubled by the simplemindedness of the American public’s sentiment.  He was angry that so many were lost in a war he felt was purely fueled by corporate greed.  He said that one parade was not enough to make up for the public’s lack of acknowledgement.

And I get this.

Not because I have lost a loved one in the recent wars, I have not.  Though my step-brother served in Iraq and my brother-in-law is an officer in the Navy.  I do not know this man’s pain.  What I get is the feeling that you are forgotten, that your loved one is forgotten.

And what I would say to this man is that, on January the 28th, those at the parade didn’t forget.  But for a fleeting moment, we remembered and were grateful.  And though it is not enough…it will never be enough.

I have learned that even when people acknowledge our loss, it is not enough…but those fleeting moments and unexpected cards, letters, or acts of thoughtfulness are all we have.

100,000 people went back to their ordinary lives after the parade.  And the streets were eerily quiet with so many people milling around.  There was a huge resource ‘village’ set up at the Old Union Station, and active military, veterans and their families had lots of agencies there to help them look for work, receive counseling, etc.  There was a huge wall display with thousands of pictures of military members, labeled, “Wall of the Fallen”.  Sam and Abby munched on Fruit Loops in ziplock baggies as Mark and I watched people crowd around the wall, people touching the pictures and taking pictures of someone they knew.  

I watched one man huddle around one picture for the whole time we were there…as if he was standing beside his lost loved one (I read in the paper later, it was his son-in-law).  And I did not know his hurt exactly, but enough to know that there was good in all this public remembering for him.

And I was glad to be a part of it.