Honoring country's heroes on Memorial Day

As this Memorial Day weekend approaches, I think of you more often. Although I was not born when World War II was fought, I always knew you through the stories told by your friend and fellow soldier, my uncle. He missed you greatly after Okinawa, and now he, too, is gone.

I knew Korea as the DMZ and Camp Red Cloud in the 1970s and '80s, but I know of your sacrifices during the Korean War through the memories of your surviving comrades who often speak about you at the American Legion and the Veterans of Foreign Wars. I feel that if you walked into a room, I could pick you out of the crowd. I wish I could have talked to you about Vietnam before you left us too soon. You were the older cousin I was so proud of. Not until your death from your injuries long after the war's end did I know of the lives of the men that you saved when your convoy was ambushed.

Patrolling the Iron Curtain, the Fulda Gap and garrison life in the "kasernes" of Germany. The missions had to go on despite the weather and fatigue. I sometimes awake at night from the explosion of your Sheridan armored vehicle.

We were soldiers then and young, and we had never heard of Grenada. Panama was a place to go for jungle training; it was not a war zone. Lebanon, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Iraq were in the Middle East. Who could ever know that we would soon scan the casualty reports and look for friends among them? Bosnia, Kosovo and 9/11. Now Iraq and Afghanistan. They look so young in their uniforms.

This Memorial Day weekend we will remember you with many emotions: sadness at your loss, pride in having served with you, joy at the good times we shared, guilt because we came home and you didn't, anger because for many Americans your special day is a day for sales and not for remembering you, and resentment that your survivors and wounded comrades must fight for their benefits from a government that seems so eager to spend money on everyone but its fighting men and women.

We will commemorate your death at monuments to you and march in parades in your honor knowing that you are in our ranks. We will rededicate ourselves to the great values of love, honor, courage and sacrifice - the soldier values. But most of all we will celebrate your lives and thank God that we had the honor of knowing you.

Stanley Drwal

retired lieutenant colonel

U.S. Army

member

Sayreville Borough Council