Heroes United - Gold Star Families - May 3, 2008
May 4, 2008 11:24:25 GMT -6
Post by Moderator on May 4, 2008 11:24:25 GMT -6
The Minnesota Patriot Guard sponsored the first Heroes United - Gold Star Family Event on Saturday, May 3, 2008. Invitations were extended to Gold Star families who had requested the presence of the Patriot Guard at the funeral, interment, or memorial service for their loved ones who died while serving America on active duty.
The event was held in Saint Cloud, Minnesota. Patriot Guard Riders formed a Flag Line to welcome the families and guests as they arrived. Guests included Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty, Chaplain (Lt. Col.) John Morris of the Minnesota National Guard, and representatives of several Military-support organizations.
Jeff Seeber, founder of the Military Salute Project and a member of the Minnesota Patriot Guard, delivered the keynote address. This is the transcript of his remarks ...
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In early 1970, I promised a buddy that I would visit his family if he did not survive the wounds he suffered in Vietnam. We made our mutual pledge during another endless night that followed another endless day when we both knew there was a bad moon rising ... when we realized one or both of us would soon find out what awaited us on the other side of mortality. By the end of that year, he was a hero who had given his life fighting for the country we loved and a cause we believed in, and I was an honorably-discharged disabled Veteran.
I was ready to honor my promise to my friend in the summer of 1972. It was the first time I would meet a Gold Star family. I had no idea how I would be received by Donnie's parents. I worried that my appearance might cause them additional pain. When I got out of my car and hobbled towards their front door, my intention was to stay for about two hours. I was there for two days. The three of us talked long into the first night about the son they had lost, the man I had known, and the boy all of us missed.
That first visit to a Gold Star family was when I learned about the empty chair. After breakfast the morning of the second day, we were sitting on the front porch and cars began pulling up to the house. Donnie's mom told me she had called nearby relatives to come and meet me. Don's grandparents were the last of the family to arrive. By then, all of the chairs were in use, except for one in the corner of the porch. I automatically rose to give up my seat while motioning that I could use the chair in the corner.
Ten different voices simultaneously told me to stay where I was. Two of the boys gave up their seats. Donnie's dad looked directly at me and said, "That's Donnie's chair. He sat there for hours his last day of leave before he shipped-out to Vietnam. He said he wanted to remember all of this, just in case. We leave it empty now."
Whenever I need to summon the strength to get through an important event, such as today, I create an empty chair in my mind and place one of my buddies in it. I picture him at his best ... in his dress uniform, looking good, standing tall, feeling proud ... knowing he was part of something much larger than himself and much more important than himself.
Standing here before you right now, I imagine an empty chair at each of your tables. Because of the photos you have with you today, I will call on your loved ones instead of my buddies. Your sons and daughters, your spouse, your mom or dad, your brother or sister, earned the privilege to wear their uniforms just as my buddies did. I wish I could have had the honor of serving with them, so today I will imagine they are here taking the point for me.
Because VA Medical Centers have been my home away from home for several decades, and because of a variety of projects I have been involved in since the early 90s, I have met Gold Star families from nearly every conflict America's Military has been involved in from World War Two through today ... parents who buried their children, spouses who buried their husbands or wives, children who were suddenly missing a mom or a dad, and siblings who had lost their role model.
Each family member has his or her own set of questions, however, there is one in particular I hear more than any other, probably because it can cause increasing pain as each year passes. I heard it for the first time sitting on that porch with Donnie's family. His dad looked towards the empty chair, and in a near-whisper asked, "Does anyone else remember him?"
I replied that all of us who served with him will never forget him. He was surrounded by people who cared about him, people who would have traded places with him, people who lost part of themselves when his pain ceased forever as he was taken from us. We wanted to be there with you to say goodbye. We wanted to be there to hear the bugle call that summoned him to join the other heroes who have worn the uniform since this Nation struggled through its birth. If the Star-Spangled Banner is the blood that pumps through the hearts of those who serve, then Taps is the music of our souls.
The moment we realized we could not be there with you is when everything became quiet and still. That's when we began to remember our friend. "Friend" seems like such an inadequate word when used to describe someone who would take a bullet for you or you for them. Only the randomness of war determines which outcome it will be.
I now know my response that day was based on my assumption that time could not diminish his memory because we had been through so much. In contrast, my answer to you here today is based on nearly 40 years of experience. It is based on what I've seen with my own eyes as well as the contacts I've had with Servicemembers and Veterans of the Global War On Terror. For a variety of reasons, you ... the families ... may never be aware of all those who remember your loved ones.
Some might wonder how my war or anything I have seen has any relevance whatsoever to the war your loved ones experienced. It's true that the tanks in this war try to evade camels, while the tanks in my war tried to evade water buffalo. It's also true that "night vision" in this war means the latest in infrared technology, while "night vision" in my war meant raising the plastic windshield up off the hood of a Jeep to reduce the number of bugs colliding with your face in the dark. And, it's true that SPAM in my war meant a meal suitable for breakfast, lunch or dinner that could be served at jungle temperature or cooked on the exhaust manifold of a deuce-and-a-half, while "spam" in this war is something you delete from your inbox.
But from the moment the first missile is launched from a ship at sea, or the first bomb is dropped from the air, or the first mechanized column crosses into hostile territory, or when the first trigger is squeezed by an infantryman, everything that happens after that is the same in any war ... in every war. When buddies start to fall, and when officers in dress uniforms make that slow walk towards the front door of a home that is about to change forever, the randomness, the resolve, the grief, the pride, the longing, the honor, and too many other contradictions to list, are the same in any war ... in every war.
I remember my friends at each of the obvious times throughout the year ... Memorial Day, Veterans Day, the anniversary of their death. I also remember them at other times. Whenever I hear the word "curly" I think of a 19-year-old Marine who sacrificed his life to save another Marine. We called him Curly because he was the baldest human being any of us had ever seen. There are dozens of sounds, words and images that cause their faces to flash before me, even though twice as many years have passed as they spent on this earth. Forgotten? NEVER.
Even though the cards, the letters, and the phone calls eventually taper off, I assure you that others remember your loved ones. Think about the people like me who owe your loved ones more than we can ever repay. The hero sitting in the chair I imagine at each of your tables, along with the men and women he served with, reached back to those of us who served throughout the Cold War, and especially during Vietnam, grabbed us in a bear-hug of camaraderie, and freed us from demons we have been fighting for decades. We who benefited from their service and their sacrifice have no idea why they did it or how they did it, but all of us who survived found ourselves being welcomed home. More importantly, the buddies we lost are now being celebrated as the heroes they were ... at long last.
The hero in that chair made it possible for me to give three of my friends the Military Funeral Honors they earned, deserved, but never received, until my group coordinated EchoTaps at Fort Snelling National Cemetery one year ago this month. A few months later, the hero in that chair made it possible for me to stand in front of a United States Army Forward Surgical Company and thank them as a way to thank their predecessors and their counterparts in the United States Navy and the United States Marine Corps who saved me. Remembered? ALWAYS.
The hero in that empty chair at your table caused a group of Veterans, First Responders and civilians, known as the Patriot Guard Riders, to come together as one to stand watch at his own funeral, and the funerals of others like him, giving us the honor and the privilege to stand for those who stood for us.
The PGR evolved into a coalition never seen in the history of this nation. Bikers, cagers, Veterans of every decade since the 1940s, law enforcement officers, firefighters, patriotic individuals and groups too numerous to mention now stand side-by-side, proudly and silently holding the Stars and Stripes for all to see, to honor the hero in that chair as well as the family that was responsible for instilling in that hero the special quality required to give your own life so that others can be free.
All of us who had the privilege of standing for your loved one hope that someday your grief will be eased when you remember the Flag Line, or when you heard that an eagle soared overhead while you were under that tent at the cemetery, or that one of the doves that were released at the church decided to perch above the doorway your hero passed under instead of flying away, or that a ray of sunshine broke through the clouds while you were being presented the Flag that your hero ... and our hero ... gave his life for. As long as any Patriot Guard Riders are alive, as long as their children who hear their stories about Honor Missions during the first decade of this century are alive, your loved ones will be remembered. Honored? FOREVER.
Someday, somewhere, there will be a national memorial for the Global War On Terror. It will likely have the names of all those who gave their lives during Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom chiseled into it. To some, the names inscribed there will be nothing more than a collection of vowels and consonants.
But to those who benefited from their selfless devotion to Duty ... Honor ... Country, and to those who served before and after them, and especially to those who served with them, or knew them, or stood in a flag-line at their funeral, each name will represent a real-life man or woman who had a family, who had friends, who had dreams and aspirations, and who had lived a collection of experiences that resulted in making a voluntary decision to risk life and limb so that future generations might not have to.
You will likely never know who touches the name of your loved one etched into that memorial or how many times it is touched, but it will be touched, just as the names inscribed on The Wall in Washington are touched every day. Because of your sacrifice and that of the hero in that chair, the names on The Wall are being touched and remembered more now than they have ever been.
Someday, decades from now, someone like me will do what I intend to do next month. I am going to the National Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington with people I have met because of your loved ones. It will be my fourth attempt to stand at that sacred place and reach out to touch my buddies once again. The first three times I tried to do it by myself, but I wasn't strong enough to walk the last few hundred feet.
Because of the hero in that chair, I will have others with me that day, some of whom will also be trying yet again to finally accomplish the mission that they have yearned to complete for most of their adult life. This time it will be different. This time, we will succeed because we will be walking down that path with the right people. Someday, decades from now, someone like me will be drawn to the national memorial where your loved one's name will be etched, and his years of pain and loss will be healed just as your heroes did for me.
Two days later, we will visit Arlington National Cemetery. Some of us will visit the gravesites of the Minnesota heroes who now rest there in eternal peace, some of them the loved ones of families in this room right now. Some endless night when you are wondering if anyone else remembers your hero, I hope you will be comforted knowing that on Thursday 19 June 2008, a small group of strangers who never knew him visited that special place, spent some time thinking about him, thanked him for his service and his sacrifice, and then proudly saluted him before walking away.
It took me almost forty years to find the right people to lean on. You are among the people you can lean on right now. You have created the opportunity to unite this very day to help each other through the next forty years and more. No matter how many people like me try everything we can think of to ease your pain, no matter how many groups like mine try everything we can to reassure you that your loved one will never be forgotten, that chair will, in reality, still be empty. Only you know what's it like to be a Gold Star family. The only people who can possibly know what you know are the people who surround you right now.
I'd like to close by quoting part of an e-mail sent to two of us involved in planning the Honor & Remember Ride To Washington. It's from a Gold Star father from Massachusetts who will be with us at Arlington National Cemetery next month. His words have become my personal Mission Statement. It reads ...
"Your kindness, remembrance, and noble cause for those who sacrificed all in their last measure of will that we might all live in peace with Freedom, is worthy of our most sincere gratitude. So many today find little time to afford a few attended moments to give thought to those who serve, those who return home with shattered dreams, and those who gave all for their country. Much has been written over time to recall the sacrifices of Freedom, Liberty, and Peace, yet none captures the true feeling experienced by those whose loved ones never return. There is tremendous solace knowing there are those as yourself, who without question or hesitation, so willingly, and with dignity, carry the torch of remembrance with hopes that others will, if even for a brief moment, realize that freedom is NOT free."
Thank you.
The event was held in Saint Cloud, Minnesota. Patriot Guard Riders formed a Flag Line to welcome the families and guests as they arrived. Guests included Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty, Chaplain (Lt. Col.) John Morris of the Minnesota National Guard, and representatives of several Military-support organizations.
Jeff Seeber, founder of the Military Salute Project and a member of the Minnesota Patriot Guard, delivered the keynote address. This is the transcript of his remarks ...
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In early 1970, I promised a buddy that I would visit his family if he did not survive the wounds he suffered in Vietnam. We made our mutual pledge during another endless night that followed another endless day when we both knew there was a bad moon rising ... when we realized one or both of us would soon find out what awaited us on the other side of mortality. By the end of that year, he was a hero who had given his life fighting for the country we loved and a cause we believed in, and I was an honorably-discharged disabled Veteran.
I was ready to honor my promise to my friend in the summer of 1972. It was the first time I would meet a Gold Star family. I had no idea how I would be received by Donnie's parents. I worried that my appearance might cause them additional pain. When I got out of my car and hobbled towards their front door, my intention was to stay for about two hours. I was there for two days. The three of us talked long into the first night about the son they had lost, the man I had known, and the boy all of us missed.
That first visit to a Gold Star family was when I learned about the empty chair. After breakfast the morning of the second day, we were sitting on the front porch and cars began pulling up to the house. Donnie's mom told me she had called nearby relatives to come and meet me. Don's grandparents were the last of the family to arrive. By then, all of the chairs were in use, except for one in the corner of the porch. I automatically rose to give up my seat while motioning that I could use the chair in the corner.
Ten different voices simultaneously told me to stay where I was. Two of the boys gave up their seats. Donnie's dad looked directly at me and said, "That's Donnie's chair. He sat there for hours his last day of leave before he shipped-out to Vietnam. He said he wanted to remember all of this, just in case. We leave it empty now."
Whenever I need to summon the strength to get through an important event, such as today, I create an empty chair in my mind and place one of my buddies in it. I picture him at his best ... in his dress uniform, looking good, standing tall, feeling proud ... knowing he was part of something much larger than himself and much more important than himself.
Standing here before you right now, I imagine an empty chair at each of your tables. Because of the photos you have with you today, I will call on your loved ones instead of my buddies. Your sons and daughters, your spouse, your mom or dad, your brother or sister, earned the privilege to wear their uniforms just as my buddies did. I wish I could have had the honor of serving with them, so today I will imagine they are here taking the point for me.
Because VA Medical Centers have been my home away from home for several decades, and because of a variety of projects I have been involved in since the early 90s, I have met Gold Star families from nearly every conflict America's Military has been involved in from World War Two through today ... parents who buried their children, spouses who buried their husbands or wives, children who were suddenly missing a mom or a dad, and siblings who had lost their role model.
Each family member has his or her own set of questions, however, there is one in particular I hear more than any other, probably because it can cause increasing pain as each year passes. I heard it for the first time sitting on that porch with Donnie's family. His dad looked towards the empty chair, and in a near-whisper asked, "Does anyone else remember him?"
I replied that all of us who served with him will never forget him. He was surrounded by people who cared about him, people who would have traded places with him, people who lost part of themselves when his pain ceased forever as he was taken from us. We wanted to be there with you to say goodbye. We wanted to be there to hear the bugle call that summoned him to join the other heroes who have worn the uniform since this Nation struggled through its birth. If the Star-Spangled Banner is the blood that pumps through the hearts of those who serve, then Taps is the music of our souls.
The moment we realized we could not be there with you is when everything became quiet and still. That's when we began to remember our friend. "Friend" seems like such an inadequate word when used to describe someone who would take a bullet for you or you for them. Only the randomness of war determines which outcome it will be.
I now know my response that day was based on my assumption that time could not diminish his memory because we had been through so much. In contrast, my answer to you here today is based on nearly 40 years of experience. It is based on what I've seen with my own eyes as well as the contacts I've had with Servicemembers and Veterans of the Global War On Terror. For a variety of reasons, you ... the families ... may never be aware of all those who remember your loved ones.
Some might wonder how my war or anything I have seen has any relevance whatsoever to the war your loved ones experienced. It's true that the tanks in this war try to evade camels, while the tanks in my war tried to evade water buffalo. It's also true that "night vision" in this war means the latest in infrared technology, while "night vision" in my war meant raising the plastic windshield up off the hood of a Jeep to reduce the number of bugs colliding with your face in the dark. And, it's true that SPAM in my war meant a meal suitable for breakfast, lunch or dinner that could be served at jungle temperature or cooked on the exhaust manifold of a deuce-and-a-half, while "spam" in this war is something you delete from your inbox.
But from the moment the first missile is launched from a ship at sea, or the first bomb is dropped from the air, or the first mechanized column crosses into hostile territory, or when the first trigger is squeezed by an infantryman, everything that happens after that is the same in any war ... in every war. When buddies start to fall, and when officers in dress uniforms make that slow walk towards the front door of a home that is about to change forever, the randomness, the resolve, the grief, the pride, the longing, the honor, and too many other contradictions to list, are the same in any war ... in every war.
I remember my friends at each of the obvious times throughout the year ... Memorial Day, Veterans Day, the anniversary of their death. I also remember them at other times. Whenever I hear the word "curly" I think of a 19-year-old Marine who sacrificed his life to save another Marine. We called him Curly because he was the baldest human being any of us had ever seen. There are dozens of sounds, words and images that cause their faces to flash before me, even though twice as many years have passed as they spent on this earth. Forgotten? NEVER.
Even though the cards, the letters, and the phone calls eventually taper off, I assure you that others remember your loved ones. Think about the people like me who owe your loved ones more than we can ever repay. The hero sitting in the chair I imagine at each of your tables, along with the men and women he served with, reached back to those of us who served throughout the Cold War, and especially during Vietnam, grabbed us in a bear-hug of camaraderie, and freed us from demons we have been fighting for decades. We who benefited from their service and their sacrifice have no idea why they did it or how they did it, but all of us who survived found ourselves being welcomed home. More importantly, the buddies we lost are now being celebrated as the heroes they were ... at long last.
The hero in that chair made it possible for me to give three of my friends the Military Funeral Honors they earned, deserved, but never received, until my group coordinated EchoTaps at Fort Snelling National Cemetery one year ago this month. A few months later, the hero in that chair made it possible for me to stand in front of a United States Army Forward Surgical Company and thank them as a way to thank their predecessors and their counterparts in the United States Navy and the United States Marine Corps who saved me. Remembered? ALWAYS.
The hero in that empty chair at your table caused a group of Veterans, First Responders and civilians, known as the Patriot Guard Riders, to come together as one to stand watch at his own funeral, and the funerals of others like him, giving us the honor and the privilege to stand for those who stood for us.
The PGR evolved into a coalition never seen in the history of this nation. Bikers, cagers, Veterans of every decade since the 1940s, law enforcement officers, firefighters, patriotic individuals and groups too numerous to mention now stand side-by-side, proudly and silently holding the Stars and Stripes for all to see, to honor the hero in that chair as well as the family that was responsible for instilling in that hero the special quality required to give your own life so that others can be free.
All of us who had the privilege of standing for your loved one hope that someday your grief will be eased when you remember the Flag Line, or when you heard that an eagle soared overhead while you were under that tent at the cemetery, or that one of the doves that were released at the church decided to perch above the doorway your hero passed under instead of flying away, or that a ray of sunshine broke through the clouds while you were being presented the Flag that your hero ... and our hero ... gave his life for. As long as any Patriot Guard Riders are alive, as long as their children who hear their stories about Honor Missions during the first decade of this century are alive, your loved ones will be remembered. Honored? FOREVER.
Someday, somewhere, there will be a national memorial for the Global War On Terror. It will likely have the names of all those who gave their lives during Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom chiseled into it. To some, the names inscribed there will be nothing more than a collection of vowels and consonants.
But to those who benefited from their selfless devotion to Duty ... Honor ... Country, and to those who served before and after them, and especially to those who served with them, or knew them, or stood in a flag-line at their funeral, each name will represent a real-life man or woman who had a family, who had friends, who had dreams and aspirations, and who had lived a collection of experiences that resulted in making a voluntary decision to risk life and limb so that future generations might not have to.
You will likely never know who touches the name of your loved one etched into that memorial or how many times it is touched, but it will be touched, just as the names inscribed on The Wall in Washington are touched every day. Because of your sacrifice and that of the hero in that chair, the names on The Wall are being touched and remembered more now than they have ever been.
Someday, decades from now, someone like me will do what I intend to do next month. I am going to the National Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington with people I have met because of your loved ones. It will be my fourth attempt to stand at that sacred place and reach out to touch my buddies once again. The first three times I tried to do it by myself, but I wasn't strong enough to walk the last few hundred feet.
Because of the hero in that chair, I will have others with me that day, some of whom will also be trying yet again to finally accomplish the mission that they have yearned to complete for most of their adult life. This time it will be different. This time, we will succeed because we will be walking down that path with the right people. Someday, decades from now, someone like me will be drawn to the national memorial where your loved one's name will be etched, and his years of pain and loss will be healed just as your heroes did for me.
Two days later, we will visit Arlington National Cemetery. Some of us will visit the gravesites of the Minnesota heroes who now rest there in eternal peace, some of them the loved ones of families in this room right now. Some endless night when you are wondering if anyone else remembers your hero, I hope you will be comforted knowing that on Thursday 19 June 2008, a small group of strangers who never knew him visited that special place, spent some time thinking about him, thanked him for his service and his sacrifice, and then proudly saluted him before walking away.
It took me almost forty years to find the right people to lean on. You are among the people you can lean on right now. You have created the opportunity to unite this very day to help each other through the next forty years and more. No matter how many people like me try everything we can think of to ease your pain, no matter how many groups like mine try everything we can to reassure you that your loved one will never be forgotten, that chair will, in reality, still be empty. Only you know what's it like to be a Gold Star family. The only people who can possibly know what you know are the people who surround you right now.
I'd like to close by quoting part of an e-mail sent to two of us involved in planning the Honor & Remember Ride To Washington. It's from a Gold Star father from Massachusetts who will be with us at Arlington National Cemetery next month. His words have become my personal Mission Statement. It reads ...
"Your kindness, remembrance, and noble cause for those who sacrificed all in their last measure of will that we might all live in peace with Freedom, is worthy of our most sincere gratitude. So many today find little time to afford a few attended moments to give thought to those who serve, those who return home with shattered dreams, and those who gave all for their country. Much has been written over time to recall the sacrifices of Freedom, Liberty, and Peace, yet none captures the true feeling experienced by those whose loved ones never return. There is tremendous solace knowing there are those as yourself, who without question or hesitation, so willingly, and with dignity, carry the torch of remembrance with hopes that others will, if even for a brief moment, realize that freedom is NOT free."
Thank you.