A lone U.S. Army bugler plays Taps at Arlington National Cemetery. DoD photo by Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Chad J. McNeeley/Released
Normally I have to click the little time icon on the screen to see what the date is. The days go by so swiftly that it is hard to keep track.
Not this morning. There is a scrawled note next to the computer that is stark and simple: “MAC, 0815- 0730 in the shower!”
Checking the weather from the balcony at Big Pink, the skies have cleared and the rain has moved out to the open Atlantic to the east. It is clear but downright chilly.
This will be easier in some regards than the day just passed. In my book, any day in Washington that includes time in “Gaithersburg” and “Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling” provides a unique envelopment in the tangled roads of the National Capital.
This morning’s activity will be confined to the local area, but it will be much harder.
I am going to attend a ritual this morning that is horrifically inverted.
One of my old shipmates had a son who followed his footsteps into the Navy- as mine did last year. My pal’s son was doing an “individual augmentation” in Iraq and was in an IED incident that left him with extreme PTSD. Kurt killed himself last summer here in Virginia after being consumed by the trauma.
He left two kids and a woman who loved him. We rightly consider him to be a combat casualty who died on the field.
These Arlington funerals are conducted as a strange two-part iteration. I escorted my 92-year-old buddy Mac to Kurt’s memorial service in Leesburg three months ago, and now it is time for the Old Guard of the 3rd Infantry to take him to his final rest this morning in the Gardens of Stone.
I don’t know how to deal with the loss of a child. I am driving the Admiral to this one as well- he is alive and sharp and as much in the moment as I am.
Or more. He has had some time to think about all this, and I confess I am too busy to stop and consider the magnitude of eternity, and the fleeting moments of our presence.
Mac is such a contrast to my Dad, a naval aviator who once drove his mighty Skyraider across the heavens. Now, four years younger than Mac, Raven is just out of it.
Copyright 2011 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com