Memorial Day: If you’re reading this…
I’ve posted this song before, but I think it bears repeating, especially on Memorial Day.
It’s Tim McGraw’s extraordinarily moving song “If You’re Reading This:”
If you’re readin’ this
My momma’s sittin’ there
Looks like I only got a one way ticket over here.
I sure wish I could give you one more kiss
War was just a game we played when we were kids
Well I’m layin’ down my gun
I’m hanging up my boots
I’m up here with God and we’re both watchin’ over youSo lay me down
In that open field out on the edge of town
And know my soul
Is where my momma always prayed that it would go.
If you’re readin’ this I’m already home.If you’re readin’ this
Half way around the world
I won’t be there to see the birth of our little girl
I hope she looks like you
I hope she fights like me
And stands up for the innocent and the weak
I’m layin’ down my gun,
I’m hanging up my boots
Tell dad I don’t regret that I followed in his shoes…
The first time I ever heard the song I got the chills as the lyrics unfolded and I realized what it was about, and then again and again as the heartstrings were jerked harder and harder as the song went on.
I say “the heartstrings were jerked,” which sounds as though I’m being critical and the song is manipulative. Well, it’s manipulative in the sense that it means to affect the listener emotionally, and it means to sell songs. But I see nothing wrong with that, if the emotion is sincere and deep. Most of us do, or should, feel a very strong gratitude to the young men and women who sacrificed their lives to defend liberty here and abroad, and a very strong sorrow that it was necessary. On Memorial Day, we thank them.
Amen.
I have a friend, now dying of cancer, who looks forward to seeing the husband she lost so many years ago in Vietnam. May the reunion be joyful.
neo: Beautiful. I see nothing necessarily wrong with “heartstrings” songs either.
The McGraw song reminded me quite a lot, in melody and feel, of an Australian country song Beccy Cole wrote for her country’s soldiers in Iraq about the same time. In some ways it’s the other side of McGraw.
Cole had done a concert tour in Iraq and received an anguished letter from a fan who decided he couldn’t stand her anymore because of it.
Poster Girl (Wrong Side of the World)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0BZ6aqgvdFI
you won’t listen to my songs anymore
you ripped my poster off the wall
because I’m a singer that went to the war
you see no good in me at all
well pardon me if I believe
I haven’t got it wrong
and before you turn your back on me
I’ll sing you one more song
because I shook hands with a digger
on the wrong side of the world
with a wife at home who holds her breath
and brand new baby girl
and a digger fights for freedom
in a job that must be done
and I let go of his hand so proud to be Australian
and if unlike me you feel no pride at all
then go ahead and take me off your wall
because I prefer to be a poster girl
on the wrong side of the world
–Beccy Cole
There are more lyrics but that’s the gist of it. I put the song and lyrics on my church email list when it was being dominated by a strident, anti-war vet who presumed to speak for all soldiers for all time. No one replied.
I attended a service today at the Cemetery where my Mom and Dad are. Dad, WWII Navy vet, from Pearl to the end. Mom worked in ammunition plant in SF. Miss them.
The service closed with TAPS. From the Civil War to today.
We owe a debt.
We can only pay that debt by building on their sacrifice, not resting on it.
Maybe not germane, but some years back, an NVA general was asked about the enemies he’d fought. ,from the Japanese through the Chinese. He said Americans were the most skilled and most fanatical. When asked about the latter, he said Americans had so much to live for that they were willing to die to protect it.
McGraw is lefty jackass but he can sing to the heart. I will have to give the young Aussie girl a try as well.
Ever notice the “anti-war vets” are bestowed with higher moral authority? Smedley Butlers’ s scam is lionized.
For me, I mourn my buddies, better men than I and still proud of them.
I know the reunion was joyful when my Italian Coastie dad met up with his Marine Corps friend and his Irish Chaplain.
The gin and tonic was flowing that night.
You do bow your heads when you head south on the I-5 and pass the Basilone road exit as you pass Camp Pendleton?
https://www.amazon.com/Im-Staying-My-Boys-Basilone/dp/0312611447
I memory of my brother, 2nd Lt. Thomas G. Dineen, Jr., USMC. Never forgotten.
Indeed. Thank you for posting. May all those that fought and died for us be remembered today. They gave so much, everything really.
There’s also Tim McGraw’s 2004 song “Live Like You Were Dying.” “This song is often associated with McGraw’s father, Tug McGraw, who was hospitalized with a brain tumor on March 12, 2003. It was revealed that he had cancer. He was given three weeks to live by the doctors, but surprisingly survived nine months. He died on January 5, 2004.”
Yeah, there are those of us who will never forget Tug’s little dance on the mound after striking out Willie Wilson in Game 6 of the 1980 World Series. It comes at the end of this video version of “Live Like You Were Dying.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d1c6045n7v4&ab_channel=Sun-Daze
Considering that it took Tug seven years to acknowledge Tim as his son after Tim discovered his birth certificate in 1978, the song is a remarkable example of forgiveness and the healing that comes with it.
Here’s a lovely Memorial Day Tribute featuring an intro by Ronald Reagan:
_____________________________________________________
“Mansions of the Lord”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cL-xDkxg8pc
To fallen soldiers let us sing,
Where no rockets fly nor bullets wing,
Our broken brothers let us bring
To the Mansions of the Lord
No more weeping,
No more fight,
No friends bleeding through the night,
Just Divine embrace,
Eternal light,
In the Mansions of the Lord
Where no mothers cry
And no children weep,
We shall stand and guard
Though the angels sleep,
Oh, through the ages let us keep
The Mansions of the Lord
_____________________________________________________
I first heard “Mansions” in the film “We Were Soldiers” and was moved by it. I assumed it was an old classic like “For Those in Peril on the Sea,” but actually it was written for the film in 2002. The song was used in Reagan’s funeral a few years later.
I’m probably supposed to care. I really don’t. Like Melania.
Yeah, I care. I gave at the office.
Hats off to the Lowe’s store in Gilroy CA. During my shopping experience there, an announcement was made over the loudspeaker that all employees would participate in a moment of silence in unity with and in respect for our fallen. and strongly urged their customers to participate during the playing of “Taps” which we all gladly did.