"The More Names We Carry"

On Memory, Names and Identity

The air is cold. Fog off the Potomac creeps across green grass, trees and white headstones. The smell of fresh rain hangs in the air and a slight breeze tugs at jackets and trousers. The mood is somber and not one person speaks.

The sharp sounds of a rifle inspection are the only things to be heard in the stillness. It is broken by a barked command. Two soldiers exchange places on the black mat, and with that the ceremony closes. The tomb of the unknown soldier, guarded twenty four hours a day, every day.

The white mausoleum glows startlingly white as the sun momentarily breaks through the clouds. Then it is gone again.

I pause on the word: Unknown.

More than their dogtags

The truth is that the men entombed at that place in Arlington were known. The tragedy of their end is that they remain shrouded in mystery of their identity. So we have honored them as best as we are able.

It does not however stop my grief at the idea that there was likely someone out there who missed them. They were not unknown in life. It is sorrowful then that falling in battle meant being unnamed in death.

In 1916 our American military began using dog tags as a means to identify those incapacitated or killed in action. Service members are issued two, one to stay with the body, the second for records. A safe low tech way of keeping track of casualties, and their basic information. A system that has likely kept multitudes of service members from the fate of being buried unknown.

I cannot help but think however, that these men and women are more than their system identifiers. Just as the men inside the tomb of the unknown soldier were more than their own designations. They were sons, perhaps husbands, perhaps fathers. They had dreams, and lives, and friends.

They were known.

Carried forward in memory

I often speak of my dead. I believe it is healthy when they come to mind to honor their impact on my life. I am a collector of stories and a bit of a romantic so perhaps that is why. Their story mattered, their life mattered, their impact has influence.

This Memorial Day I wanted to do something as a tribute. To honor the fallen, to remember more than just their deaths, to remember their legacy that they left.

I reached out to my many friends who are veterans and asked if they would like space to remember a name, and something unique about the person they named. I was honored and privileged to be entrusted with three names who left an impression. Whose lives meant more than just the sum of their death.

“Dave was killed in a mission overseas. We dated off and on for ten years, and while we went on to marry other people. Dave became my best friend.”

“When Spirit03 went down in Desert Storm, I lost several friends. All the gunship guys had come together, sensing that something was wrong even before we heard the news. We lost great men that day, courageous and bold. Paul was the kind of man who makes our country strong.”

“Math was my spotter. I called him Math because he could calculate figures in his head at unbelievable speed. Wind, distance… When the attack on the USS Cole occurred, everyone else was running away, Math ran toward the danger.”

I want to personally thank the individuals who allowed me to include these men and their stories. They sound like amazing people whose lives rippled to touch mine indirectly.

No Man Is An Island

A famous phrase from Meditation XVII in Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions, written by the English poet and cleric John Donne in 1624.

"No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as any manner of thy friends or of thine own were; any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind. And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee."

The prose asserts that no individual is self-sufficient and that every person’s death diminishes the whole of mankind.

I did not have to know these men to thank God for their lives. They touched those who have touched me. Perhaps that is why I am so contemplative this Memorial Day. Perhaps it is my own grief and loss, perhaps it is both.

Whatever the reason, I hope you will take time to carry the names this holiday. Remember them, toast them, and bless them for their sacrifices. I encourage you to say their names. To remember the jokes, the smiles, the fact that they loved pancakes or waffles. Whether they perished in battle, came home wounded, or never quite made it home whole; they loved, they are loved, and they touched you, and in so doing touched the lives of countless others.

I wish you all a safe and blessed Memorial Day.

~ Jess

Title quoted from Jim Darenkamp U.S. NAVY (RET.)