Memorial Day is upon us.
The “unofficial” beginning of summer.
Party time at the lake, the park, or the back yard. Time to drink a few “barley pops” and watch
the Indianapolis 500. I love the Indy
500. I’ve watched or listened to it regularly since I was a boy. There’s
something mystical about really fast cars.
Nothing against the NASCAR people, but I’m pretty sure that when Thomas
Jefferson talked about “the pursuit of
happiness”, he meant open wheel racing at great speed.
Anyway, on Memorial Day weekend in 1989 I was fortunate
enough to be able to take my young sons to “The Race”. It was a long, hot, tiring, and ultimately
bittersweet day as we watched the great Emerson Fittipaldi beat our favorite,
Al Unser, Jr. (Little Al) in the last two laps of the race. Still, it was a good day. An All-American Day.
Fourteen years later in 2003, those boys were not on Turn
2. One was sitting just south of the DMZ
in South Korea, and the other was sitting somewhere south of Baghdad,
Iraq while Gil de Ferran was winning that
year’s race.
Today, the son who was in Iraq is my guest blogger. He left the Marine Corps, got a Master’s
Degree, and now serves as a Special Investigator with the Naval Criminal
Investigative Service (NCIS). While a
student at OU he had a story published in the Spring 2012 edition of The Collegiate Scholar. This Memorial Day weekend we want to share
that story with you.
Field of Stones
A Slice of Life
By Brendan Horner
University of
Oklahoma
There’s a neighborhood of white stone. It is a place of peace, of mercy, of
faith. Only those who transcend
sacrifice reside there. I have been
there to walk on the green grass, feel the warm sun and gentle breeze. I have heard the echoes of eternity
there. It is a place of serenity because
I am welcomed with an open spirit by those who inhabit the grounds. One day I may be here too. My place reserved beside those immortal
souls. This is not about me though. It is about a friend. He lives in the neighborhood of stones,
gleaming marble edifices that serve as pillars that mark all that is great
about humanity.
The military builds a special bond that goes beyond a casual
life connection. It is a mutual
understanding that defies race, creed, color, gender or religion. Alan and I didn’t know each other until we
served together. He was my engineer, I
was his communications tech. I called
him a “grease monkey”, and he called me “commie”. There was the time that we shared a butt
chewing from the First Sergeant for ordering a pizza to be delivered to us in
the woods on a field exercise. We shared
the same dirty water from a North Carolina creek on maneuvers, suffered through
cold nights of arctic frost on watch, and drank the sweet water of life we
called beer. We were brothers, we are brothers.
In January of 2003 we were called to go forth into the great
unknown…to war. I don’t want to dwell on
our time there or what we did. The days
were filled with boredom interspersed with brief moments of sheer terror. I do remember that we both laughed the first time
we felt and saw incoming rounds. Was
anyone really dumb enough to shoot at us?
At the US Marines?
“During this period, I
Marine Expeditionary Forced conducted the longest sequence of coordinated
combined arms overland attacks in the history of the Marine Corps…Utilizing the
devastating combat power…and maintaining momentum through the herculean
efforts..I MEF destroyed nine Iraqi Divisions.
During the 33 days of combat…I MEF sustained a tempo of operations never
before seen on the modern battlefield…By their outstanding courage, aggressive
fighting spirit, and untiring devotion to duty, the officers and enlisted
personnel of I MEF reflected great credit upon themselves and upheld the
highest traditions of the Marine Corps and the United States Naval Service.”
--Presidential
Unit Citation, issued 3 Nov 2003
That pretty much sums it up.
It was hot, dirty, dangerous work.
After achieving our objectives at Baghdad we set up just south of the
city at Al Kut, an old Iraqi air base long since forgotten by time itself. We were tired and letting other have their
turn up front while we rested. The term
“rested” being a relative term. There
was gear to clean, patrols to mount, equipment to inventory, and always something
needed to be repaired.
It was a cool evening with the temperature hovering in the
low nineties. I had just finished up my
shift on guard duty and was stretching sore muscles when Doc Ace came up. I thought he wanted to start a late night poker
poker game, or check on me after a bout of heat stroke I’d suffered
earlier. No such luck that night.
“Hey, I wanted to let you know. It’s a bad thing man. Alan got hit tonight. An RPG.
He didn’t make it.”
Doc spoke softly because he knew we’d been friends. I nodded and mumbled thanks for letting me
know. I remember turning and watching
the very last rays of pink disappear over the horizon with the setting
sun. In a moment of pure poetic anguish
when the last rays of the sun disappeared the tears of anguish welled and
spilled down my dirty face. They mingled
with the dust and sand to create slender streaks of mud, etching into my soul
the pain of loss.
Lance Corporal Alan Lam died on April 22, 2003 in Al Kut,
Iraq. He gave his life for many
things: America, his fellow Marines,
you, me, his fiancée, and his family. I
lost a piece of innocence that day, perhaps the last remaining bit I had
left. Perhaps I thought that we would
all make it through unscathed, perhaps I was a fool. I think about Alan a lot, I miss him. He lives at Arlington now, and will
forever.
It’s a good place to visit if you’re ever in the
neighborhood. Alan resides just south of
York Avenue and a little north of Bradley Drive. Stop by and say hello to him or anyone else
there. I’m sure they’d like that. Tell them an old friend sent you and that
I’ll come home one day.
