By M. Scott Carter
The Moore American
July 03, 2008 10:14 am
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By the time you read this, the Fourth of July — American Independence Day — will, for all practical purposes, be here.
And while most of us will pause for barbecue, beer and the festive, red white and blue picnic — complete with T-shirts courtesy of Old Navy — there’s a little more to the holiday than just fireworks and the standard political speech.
Don’t believe me?
Ask someone like Dana Blazer.
This Independence Day, like every other one since 2005, Dana will celebrate without her husband, Marine Staff Sgt. Melvin L. Blazer.
Sgt. Blazer died in Iraq in December of 2004 — just months before he was set to return home.
“We were such wonderful friends for many, many years,” she said. “That friendship blossomed into a wonderful love. The stuff fairy tales are made of.”
She, like the more than 4,000 other families, take a deep breath every Independence Day and face, once again, that intense sense of longing and pain.
They are the families who lost loved ones in the Iraq war.
And it’s these Oklahomans — and the men and women they represent — who know just how costly human freedom can be.
When I was a kid, the Fourth was all about fireworks.
In fact, when I was just 14 and a good friend and I operated a fireworks stand — which is every 14-year-old boy’s dream. We were good businessmen, we made money and provided the entire town of Yale, Oklahoma, with enough fireworks for several celebrations.
But we didn’t understand.
It wasn’t until one particularly lonely July 4th that I managed to get my head around the real meaning of Independence Day.
It was years ago, I was in college — summer school — and had to work the holiday.
My shift over, I headed home. I’d missed the fireworks, the beer and the red white and blue picnic and late that evening I ended up at a small roadside tavern located in one of Oklahoma’s smaller towns.
It was there I met a weary, battle-scarred veteran.
At first he wasn’t much for small talk.
We both drank and in silence and pretended to listen to the ancient, whiny jukebox in the back play the one Hank Williams Jr. record that wasn’t scratched.
But slowly, over several bowls of peanuts, the veteran’s story came out. He’d served in Korea, then Vietnam.
He’d been stabbed and shot.
He’d earned ribbons, honors, a Purple Heart and even a letter from his Congressman praising him for his duty to his country.
But here he was in a two-bit pub, nursing a cold beer and just trying to forget the day.
We began to talk and we talked for hours.
He told me how he returned from Vietnam and was called a “baby killer.” He told me how he had to fight the VA for help.
He told me how his wife left and the bills piled up.
Then he told me about the flag.
“It belonged to a buddy,” he said, tenderly showing me a jagged piece of a torn and stained American Flag.
“We were in ’Nam. We were pinned down, under fire when I heard him call my name, by the time I got back there it was too late. He was gone.”
His friend had been killed. The veteran reached to grab his friend’s dog tags when he spied the piece of flag stuffed in his pocket. “He always told me it was his connection to home; to Oklahoma,” he said. “He said it reminded him why he was here.”
I watched the veteran fold the piece of flag and gently put it back in his pocket.
“It was all about the flag,” he said. “And what it meant.”
The veteran told me how, since then, on every Fourth of July, he’d gone to a quiet bar, found a dark spot in the back and quietly honored the memory of his fallen friend.
“I just want to make sure one person remembers him,” he said.
Funny thing, that’s the same statement that Dana Blazer said about her husband. “I just want people to remember him,” she said.
So this Fourth of July I will.
This Fourth of July, Dana, I’ll pause to honor your husband. And all those who have served, lived and died in Iraq.
And Friday, somewhere in Oklahoma, I hope that old veteran has found his quiet little pub. Because if he can, I know he’ll sit there, holding that fragile piece of flag and remember a friend who fell many years ago.
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