Finishing an unfinished post about an unfinished life

I started a new post and realized that I began this one on November 18, 2009.  I suppose I meant to go into detail about the ceremony on the flight line, the massive groups of volunteers the Army sent and our own Airmen provided, and my thoughts on it all, but didn't have the strength.  Please indulge me: I wanted to finish it, even if it was only for my own benefit.

Those mornings at the flight line were short, but very emotional.  They are among the most special moments of my life.  Though I did nothing but stand and sniffle (I totally admit it), I felt like I was giving back something to families who had paid a very high price for something their loved ones believed in.  Watching them suffer, I found it necessary to believe, too.

Each time we met there and put out chairs and bottled waters to keep family members comfortable, every time we directed to their places service members who had volunteered to stand in formation in freezing cold or blistering heat (once it was so hot, an Airman actually fainted) to salute the casket, and every time we lined the streets, I thought about life's and love's preciousness.  I thought a lot about the poem "Dulce et Decorum est," by Wilford Owen and wondered what, exactly, we are fighting for in Afghanistan and Iraq.

We have said for years that these vibrant men and women are fighting and dying for our freedoms, but with each flag-draped casket, I couldn't help thinking that this person could have lived to get married or to see their first-born child, and I could probably still be free.  The sacrifices being made by our service members mean everything to me; I don't know if I would be strong enough to make them.  But I have to be honest -- every time I saw a mother's, father's, spouse's, sibling's or grandparent's face, I would not have been able to tell them why this separation was necessary.  However, I miss being able to support them during these heartbreaking reunions.  Even now, I'm conflicted.

Anyway, what I began to say in November 2009, but never finished, was this:

I spent my morning honoring a fallen Army paratrooper.  He was Specialist Benjamin Sherman.  He was 21 years old, and he was married to the woman he fell in love with in 8th grade.  Their first child will be born in March.

Watching Spc. Sherman's pregnant widow, I thought of my maternal grandparents, who also fell in love in 8th grade, married and were separated for a time during war. But my grandpa returned. They had 4 children and were married more than 50 years before death parted them. If only I could rewrite history, give the Shermans a similar ending.

There have been nearly 20 mornings like this since early 2007, when the fallen began returning to their loved ones in Massachusetts through our care.  They are the most uplifting and most heartbreaking mornings of my life.