Memorial Day

Several years ago my friend Becky Gjendem solicited entries on the subject of "What Memorial Day Means to Me" for her blog. She was kind enough to post my entry: 

To some military musicians and ceremonial guardsmen, every day is Memorial Day.

I'm a military musician in Washington, DC. Where I work, the main mission is rendering final honors to the dead at Arlington National Cemetery. Though performing is not my primary duty (I'm usually off in the corner where they keep the creative types), I am occasionally called on as an extra or substitute drummer for a funeral. 

Even for a stand-in like me, it is all too easy to regard the job with a sense of routine. A military funeral is, after all, a ritual that has changed little over the centuries, and the troops who perform it are professionals whose principal job is to perform it as many as four times a day. Services are virtually identical from one to the next. It is rare for members of the ceremonial unit even to know the name of the deceased. 

Photo by Rob Mesite 

But even though the services may blur together in a performer’s memory—indeed may seldom have any distinctive resonance as little as a day later—the performers know, every time, that for the family and friends gathered to honor their loved one, it is a singular occasion of immeasurable significance, and it will be remembered.

I know what it's like to get a "thank you" for—to my thinking at the moment—just doing my job. When a boss or supervisor says it, I often blow it off and keep on working. But when it comes from someone who is genuinely moved by the solemn spectacle of the military's most fundamental honor, that is something else entirely. I know that for Memorial Days to come, they will recall the funeral as a fitting and proper tribute to someone who deserved nothing less.