By Pegi A. Laufhutte

The sun streamed down in a haze through the trees; everything seemed surreal.

My closest friend, Joyce, and I stood at Arlington National Cemetery in full view of her husband Jim’s flag-draped casket accompanied by the traditional military honor guard.

The memorial ceremony ended with a 21-gun salute and a solemn playing of taps.

The honor guard then respectfully handed Joyce the U.S. flag carefully folded in a triangle to honor Jim as a fallen hero.

It was May of 1969, and it was the middle of the war in Vietnam.
The war that had seemed so remote and distant before wasn’t so any more.

My mind flashed back to the times Joyce and I spent teaching and traveling together, Jim and Joyce’s lovely church wedding and the birth of their beautiful daughter, Ann, who would never know her father.

After the ceremony, we left the cemetery in a daze. As young adults, we knew the war and the draft were always with us.

But this was different! I now knew how it really felt! This brave young man was gone — so vital, so full of life.

Jim believed in what he was doing, and wanted to honor his father by following in his footsteps. Joyce knew he wanted to serve when she married him.

As summer came and went under tropical skies, we felt for fleeting moments that he was just away on a mission, and would be coming home soon.

However, the cold, hard, dull ache of reality and loss always returned; he wasn’t coming home.

I had to keep reminding myself that we were fighting for freedom — or were we really?

And now, as another Memorial Day approaches, more questions than answers fill my mind.

Have those like Jim who lost their lives in battle after having taken an oath to defend the Constitution of the United States against enemies, foreign and domestic died in vain?

To those generations who have gone before us and those generations yet to come, we must continue to honor, preserve and protect the Constitution of our great nation. The United States is still the last, best hope for the free world!

— Pegi A. Laufhutte is a Davis resident.

GravestonesW

American flags wave in the breeze in front of headstones at Arlington National Cemetery. BigStock photo

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