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Memorial Day Presentation
Dr. Steve Mickelson

May 28, 2007

Good Morning - I would like to thank Commander Norm Brunkow and honored members of the Fall Creek American Legion and the American Legion Auxiliary for doing the preparations necessary to make sure that Memorial Day is properly observed here in Fall Creek. Your work is truly appreciated!

Thank you for allowing me to make this short talk. I realize that it is a break from tradition for non-military person to do this. It is a privilege I do not take lightly.

We are here today to remember our fallen heroes, men and women of the armed forces that died in the service of our country. However, there are many here today, who but for providence or fate, did not get the call to make that ultimate sacrifice, though they would have been willing to do so. Let us begin by thanking those who served our country well and are here with us now.

If you are here today as a member of the armed forces of the United Stated or if you formerly served honorably in the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, or Coast Guard, I would humble ask that you take one small step forward and please stand at attention for a moment.

Please join me in thanking these men and women who have stepped forward today. (Applause) Ladies and Gentlemen of our military, please step back into your ranks and stand - at ease.

A few blocks from this cemetery lives a young mother: Wendy Travis and her very intelligent son Kaleb. Wendy’s Grandmother, Delillah, had a cousin named John. John was an Army Artillery Captain and Surgeon in WWI. One particularly harrowing day, John sat taking a much needed break from the horrific work of an army field surgeon.

He was in a very pensive mood having lost a very close friend the day before. He scribbled a couple of lines on a piece of paper to vent his feelings, but being dissatisfied with his effort, discarded his poem, only to have it retrieved by a fellow soldier and sent to Punch Magazine where is was first published in 1918.

From the pen of that Surgeon, who with the most basic of equipment and supplies probably saw more severe trauma in a week, than most large hospitals see today in a year, came a poem about flowers, birds, and war. It was that poem that inspired the sale of the buddy poppy, with the motto “to honor the dead by helping the living”. I’m sure you’ve seen the young ladies selling buddy poppies in front of businesses this week. It was this poem, memorized by millions, that has been dedicated to those who have died in places like Flanders Fields.

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
between the crosses, row on row
that mark our place; and in the sky
the larks, still bravely singing, fly
scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
we shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

We stand here today not in Flanders Fields, but on the hallowed ground of St. James Cemetery. On this small building to my right is a list on all the veterans, from the civil war thru Vietnam, that have been buried here. Their grave sites are marked with the flag that they so proudly served.

I believe it would be worthwhile for anyone interested; to read that list, find a name or two that you recognize or even someone that you never heard of. Take a moment to visit their grave site and say - thank you. While it is true that most of the veterans here had a chance to live their lives out following their military careers, many of their compatriots across this country did not. We say they paid the ultimate sacrifice. There were lives that were not lived. Little boys and girls who will grow up without a dad, sisters who will never know a brother, a daughter that won’t be coming home for Christmas, a wife that will be without a husband.

Today is the day we remember those we have lost and we mourn. When one thinks of the tears that have been shed in this place and even this week as we lost a great citizen of Fall Creek, (Harvey Kuhnert) it would be easy to question why such grief must be endured. The Scriptures say there is an appointed time for everything: a time to weep and a time to mourn. They also tell us: Blessed are those who mourn for they shall be comforted.

I walked a mile with pleasure
She chattered all the way
But left me none the wiser
For all she had to say

I walked a mile with sorrow
And ne’er a word said she
But oh the things I learned from her
When sorrow walked with me.

In 1943, an American air Crewman stationed in England had a one-in-three chance of surviving the twenty-five required missions. My Father, Aaron Mickelson, enlisted in the Army Air Corp in the early 40’s and began flying as a member of the 390th Bomb group 1944. One wonders why so many of the young men volunteered for that kind of dangerous service. Certainly for most it was duty and country.

One of the most popular poets of that time was WB Yates, I wonder how many of those young men read and identified with his poem An Irish Airman Foresees His Death, which in part goes:

I know that I shall meet my fate
Somewhere among the clouds above;
Those that I fight I do not hate
.....
Nor law, nor duty bade me fight,
Nor public man, nor cheering crowds,
A lonely impulse of delight
Drove to this tumult in the clouds;
I balanced all, brought all to mind,
The years to come seemed waste of breath,
A waste of breath the years behind
In balance with this life, this death.

For six months after my father had been shot down, the only news my grandparents had regarding there oldest son was that he was missing in action. How many parents have had that burden over the years, how many parents have been brought to tears and brought to prayer by the overwhelming news from war? How many have seen that automobile from the war department roll up their driveway with the news that they dread to hear. Perhaps that is why letters from war, written by Mark Shultz and Cindy Morgan was the number one requested song on Armed Services Radio for the last two years.

She went to the mailbox
On that bright summers day
Found a letter from her son
In a war far away

He spoke of the weather
And good friends that he'd made
Said I'd been thinking 'bout dad
And the life that he had
That’s why I'm here today
And at the end he said
You are what I'm fighting for
It was the first of his letters from war


She started writing
You are good
And you're brave
What a father that you'll be someday
Make it home
Make it safe
She wrote every night as she prayed


Late in December
A day she'll not forget
Her tears stained the paper
With every word that she read

It said "I was up on a hill
I was out there alone
When the shots all rang out
And bombs were exploding
And that's when I saw him
He came back for me
And though he was captured
A man set me free
And that man was your son
He asked me to write to you
I told him I would, that I swore"
It was the last of the letters from war


And she prayed he was living
Kept on believing
And wrote every night just to say


You are good
And you're brave
What a father that you'll be someday.
Make it home
Make it safe
Still she kept writing each day


Then two years later
Autumn leaves all around
A car pulled in the driveway
And she fell to the ground

And out stepped a captain
Where her boy used to stand
He Said, "Mom I'm following orders
From all of your letters
And I've come home again"
He ran into hold her
And dropped his bags on the floor
Holding all of her letters from war

I imagine that was the feeling my grandparents experienced when my father returned home 1 year after he had been reported missing in action. There are letters that make us smile and there are letters like this one, to a mother by a president. This president, during his term in office, had the distraction of being the most unpopular president ever. He was the commander and chief of an army that was involved with a bloody and very unpopular war. Many of the decisions he made literally forced him to his knees in prayer to God, for it is said that he had very few friends in government, not even in his own Cabinet. However, his steadfast determination and commitment to principle literally saved this country when it was about to come apart and his inspired mastery of the English language brought about healing thru word like these:

Dear Madam,

I have been shown in the files of the War Department a statement of the Adjutant General of Massachusetts, that you are the mother of five sons who have died gloriously on the field of battle. I feel how weak and fruitless must be any word of mine which should attempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming. But I cannot refrain from tendering to you the consolation that may be found in the thanks of the Republic they died to save.


I pray that our Heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement, and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours, to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of Freedom.

Yours, very sincerely and respectfully,

A. Lincoln

In closing, while this is a day to honor the dead, I would also like to say a word for the disabled America Veteran. Let us never forget that many have come back with impairments both mental and physical, and many of those impairments have led to severe disability. While you take a moment today to remember the dead, say a prayer for those who lived, but whose lives have been permanently changed by injury of war.

May God bless and protect our young men and women serving in the military, who at this very moment, may be in a dangerous combat situation. And may God continue to bless the United Stated of America!