A Soldier Speaks - Memorial Day by Lee H. Houston

 Memorial Day

Old soldiers cry when alone in the night because the hurt never leaves. By the summer of 1967, our unit, the 199th Light Infantry, had suffered several casualties, decreasing our strength by about a quarter. Our first replacements began arriving; among them was Private Locklear. Private Locklear was a Lumbee Indian from Robeson County, North Carolina. He had finished high school, turned eighteen, and been drafted. In the Army for less than six months, he had completed both basic training and infantry training, had a couple of weeks of leave, and then was sent to Vietnam. He was a handsome, muscular man standing more than six feet four, maybe six feet five. On the tenth day in our unit, Private Locklear lost his life. He would never have a wife, never have a family, and never know the joy of having grandchildren. His Mother, Father, and family suddenly had a huge hole in their lives. Private Locklear is one of the 1.2 million men and women who made the ultimate sacrifice for our Nation. They were real people but remained mostly anonymous, with nothing more than a stone slab to mark their burial place. 

Who were they? They were young men and women whose lives were just beginning to bloom, but because of their loyalty to our Nation lost their lives.

On Memorial Day, we mourn the loss of those who made the ultimate sacrifice for America since 1775. This remembrance is all-inclusive, spanning 250 years and some 62 military actions that claimed 1.2 million lives. Most Americans are familiar with the major wars: the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, the Mexican War, the Civil War, the Spanish-American War, WWI, WWII, Korea, Vietnam, the Persian Gulf, Iraq, and Afghanistan. However, few think of those killed in lesser-known engagements.

Examples of the lesser-known actions range from the Franco-American Naval War (1798-1800) to Grenada, the tragedy of the USS Cole (2000), to the recent death in the Philippines. No American death is too insignificant to remember when lost at the behest of society. GIs do not choose when or where they serve or what foreign policy they must enforce. The death of a sailor in the Persian Gulf is every bit as important as one in the Pacific during WWII. All distinctions are irrelevant.

These men and women have remained anonymous except to the families who loved them. Who were they? They were relatives, friends, and neighbors who melded together to perform a service for our entire society. They came from all walks of life, all religious paths, and every region of our country. Nevertheless, they all had one thing in common, a love of and loyalty to God and Country.

They were the Nation’s defenders. They fought not for glory, nor for wealth, nor honor, but only and alone for freedom which no good man surrenders but with his life. Far too often, many in our nation take for granted the freedoms we enjoy. Freedoms paid for by the lives few of us know. On Memorial Day, it is fitting to say, “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.”

__by Lee H. Houston, Author
"An Enlisted Man's Point of View: Lessons Learned in the 199th 1966-1967"

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