Memorial Day 2012: Waist Deep in the Big Muddy

Pete Seeger will seem an odd choice to some for Memorial Day, but it is perhaps the best tribute to the old military saying: "Every soldier is entitled to a competent command."



This goes out to:

• My high school friend Traci's son Lucas who will be commissioned in the U.S. Marine Corps after graduating from the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis tomorrow. Semper Fi and God be with you.
• My cousin Justin who graduated from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in spring 2011, and served on active duty for 10 years with more deployments than I could keep track of. This will be his first Memorial Day as a veteran.
• My cousin Bud, an Army Air Corps pilot who died when he was shot down over Belgium on December 24, 1944 during the Battle of the Bulge. His name is carved in an arch at Virginia Military Institute where he took his officer's training.
  
• My severals-great uncle Isaac Lee, a private in the Iowa Volunteers who was mortally wounded and taken prisoner at Jenkins Ferry, Arkansas on April 30, 1864, died in hospital a week later, and is buried beneath the southern pines.