Memorial Day Bozeman.

Posted on May 29, 2012

As I’ve already chronicled, the weather this past holiday weekend left more than a bit to be desired. It rained or snowed almost the entire time. I stood with so many others on the side of main street on in the cold rain and watched the Memorial Day parade pass. It was quiet and solemn. Finally, late Monday, Memorial day, the clouds lifted and the sun shone. It was beautiful.

My father John passed away 40 years ago now and he is buried in my hometown of Rome NY. John was a veteran and I’m sure his gravestone must have one of those small American flags placed by it and I would have loved to been there to see it and honor him. Being 2500 miles away makes this difficult and this got me thinking. I thought that there must be a good number of Veterans buried here in Bozeman whose sons and daughters couldn’t make the trip to honor them just as I couldn’t to honor John. So I went to the cemetery here in Bozeman to honor those men and like to think that maybe something similar was happening with my father in Rome. I was by no means alone here. There were men young and old and women placing flowers next to the flags and keeping things neat, all visiting and honoring those that had served. Overwhelming is the only word I can muster.

To be honest the flood of emotions I felt while walking the rows, reading gravestones and wiping them clean of grass clippings was very powerful. There were hundreds of small American flags waving the the light breeze and sun. It was enlightening to see gravestones with markings and dates showing that the veteran had served and died in the service of his country in all the wars I can think of – WWI, WWII, Korea, Vietnam………. The thought that this same thing was happening all across our country in small towns and big cities suddenly made me, and this place, feel completely connected to the rest of the USA. This doesn’t happen all that often to me as I live in this little isolated corner of the world and it was a very good thing. I brought along my camera and felt compelled to document the day and feeling in some way so that I could better remember the feeling of the moment.

As I walked and paused to think I saw many others doing the same in the late afternoon sun – the only sound being the crows in the trees talking back and forth. It was a beautiful evening.

Thank you to all that have served.

Dave