The Journey Continues: Commemorating Memorial Day
My journey this week takes me back to a memory of a mother’s love that has forever stuck in my heart. I witnessed this on a Memorial Day over 50 years ago at the Fort Bliss National Cemetery in El Paso. I saw a mother on her knees, leaning over a military grave marker with her arms clasping the cold stone for support. I saw a literal puddle of tears on the red dirt below the marker from her weeping so hard — her son was dead. Memories…
Ed Leach was a pilot with an aviation unit under OPCON to 5th Special Forces Delta Project in Vietnam, and this Memorial Day, I share his journey: “As a child I saw many Western movies — in which the actors playing ‘Indians’ were called ‘Braves,’ while the man playing their Indian leader was called a ‘Warrior’ because of his skill and courage ( he always rode a horse with a handprint on its rump to designate his status). Well, I’ve heard We Are Warriors at every level of my Army service from cadet to colonel, but I feel most soldiers are ‘braves’…
“I have had the privilege of knowing a few warriors. One was a Special Forces Master Sergeant team leader I dropped off in an area that no westerner had been in since the French army. I will call him MSG Grey, and his team bailed out of the chopper and disappeared into the tall elephant grass as a recon mission. Unfortunately the following day, a North Vietnamese unit ambushed them and the team escaped with one mortally-wounded member. MSG Grey initiated escape and evasion tactics splitting the team into two groups to help outwit the NVAs local Montagnard trackers. At mid-morning of the following day, the bleeding warrior said, ‘I can’t go any further.’ MSG Grey told his group, ‘Here we will stand,’ staying with the wounded man. Hidden behind an outcropping of rocks, soon the wounded warrior died, and his body is there today, buried under layers of stones placed there by MSG Grey.
“In the meantime, our support choppers were airborne, searching the area of operations for a visual. In the late afternoon of day three, I spotted a bright orange panel in the matteddown elephant grass. I called for gun support and made a power descent hovering over MSG Grey. Within seconds, my gunner pulled the exhausted warrior on board. As we gained altitude, I saw a satisfied grin on his face that said, ‘Enemy, I came to your house and took all that you could throw at me.’
“He was a warrior, and I knew it. I flew over nine hundred combat missions in two tours in Vietnam. I was decorated for valor three times, but I learned that I was not a ‘warrior,’ just a ‘brave’ who responded to duty’s call. I never hesitated, even when called to extract a hardened ‘warrior’ from a hot landing zone.
“Once, surrounded by hard, godless Special Forces NCOs, I broke down and cried like a baby over the KIA of Dave Flanders, fellow-pilot from South Carolina who was a righteous man and whom I loved like a brother. I felt ashamed of my tears at that time, but now I have an understanding that our Lord was pleased that I displayed a soft heart even in the presence of hard warriors.” Memories...
Ed and I know: “There are causalities on battlefields still today. Their spilt blood may have dried and faded but it still stains the hearts of old comrades and loving families who continue life’s journeys without them: Service to the Nation. Memories.
John 15:13: “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”
