Memorial Day came and went, and as this version was far different than those previous, it affected me in a new way. The change came through an encounter at Nica’s Market on Orange Street, where two generations met, where war and politics were discussed, and where I decided in the interest of harmony and respect to bury my own feelings.
“Thank you for your service,” said the husky man waiting outside to enter. He saw me at a table, waiting for my wife, Suzanne, to emerge from inside with the food to make dinner. He had seen my Vietnam veteran cap, and was reacting to it.
It hadn’t occurred to me by that point that I was wearing it on a day of special significance. It’s just a habit of mine. But then, I thought, well, yes, it’s the day we remember and honor our war dead, and perhaps the observant fellow is commenting on that.
When I looked up, I saw that he was in uniform. A member, obviously, of the New Haven Police Department. He was cordial, and easy to talk to. He didn’t mention at first that he too is a military veteran. His service was in the Marines, in the Iraq War.
When he finally revealed this, I asked him, “What do you think these days when people debate getting into that war.” I didn’t mention specifically the phantom weapons of mass destruction. And I was aware, of course, that as a cop he might have a wildly different view than my own, and I was right.
“This country was attacked. Something had to be done.” I wanted to say, “But it wasn’t attacked by Iraq,” but didn’t.
He said, “Anyway, it’s better to fight the enemy over there than here.” This, of course, was a position often taken back then. That we could prevent any danger to the United States by regionalizing military action, stopping enemies at the source, putting an end to all possibilities of domestic cataclysm.
This view, certainly, has run its course, at least in my mind. And in these days of the pandemic, in which borders don’t mean a thing, and when terrorists and potential terrorists also find ways to cross them, it seems obvious that there are no safe boundaries. Just a couple of weeks ago, for example, the Justice Department announced significant developments in the investigation involving a terrorist who last year killed three U.S. sailors in Pensacola.
Thomas Breen Photo
I did not, however, challenge the policeman’s view. I respected his service overseas, and his efforts in the NHPD to protect us all. It wasn’t an opportunity, as during a wine-soaked dinner party, to present a view that could make other guests choke on their tarragon chicken.
If we have learned anything in the course of the last few years, it’s that shrillness and hostility will never succeed in changing the other person’s point of view. And, after all, I had earned in the mind of the cop the role of elder statesman.
He said, “The days when armies wear uniforms are over,” meaning, I think correctly, that we are in for unconventional conflict. Enemies of the United States will not send shiploads of sailors and soldiers to invade San Francisco or Miami. More likely, at least in my imagination as a result of writing a book, The Test of Our Times, with Tom Ridge, the country’s first secretary of homeland security, that a civilian cargo ship with an atomic bomb aboard would slip into New York harbor.
I didn’t present that prospect in our conversation, and we moved on. The policeman asked if I had been to the Vietnam memorial in DC, as it was a place meaningful to him. I replied that I had, many times. On each occasion, I had looked for and found a name in section H, that of a childhood friend whose body was not found until forty years after he disappeared.
“You know,” he said, “that memorial was designed in New Haven.”
“Yes,” I said. “Maya Lin, a Yale architecture student. There was a lot of controversy about it. First, that a student won instead of any of the 20,000 professionals who entered the competition Also that it was meant to be placed in low setting. But much of it was because of her heritage, Asian.”
The policeman seemed to dismiss the latter notion, but went on to describe the power of what she had done.
I said, “I always look at the very last name on the memorial wall, the very last person to die in our war, even as peace was being declared. As John Kerry said before Congress in 1971,”How do you ask the last man to die for a mistake?”
The policeman said, “I don’t care what John Kerry said, a man who threw away his combat medals.”
I wanted to say, in response, “Well, we have a president who avoided the war because he had a bone spur, but can’t remember what foot it was in. I myself had a bone spur but went to the war anyway. And John Kerry had every right to protest, and to persuade Washington to stop the insanity and death.”
But I didn’t. I wanted, at long last, to keep the peace.
And the two of us did. We chatted about Nica’s meatballs and the nature of the quarantine (not a big sacrifice considering what we both did on behalf of our country). What a nice bury-the-hatchet ending to a Memorial Day.