Marjorie K. Eastman

Opinion contributor

It was in May 2000 when I first walked through the hallowed grounds of Arlington National Cemetery. I was a young, hungry college intern spending a semester in our nation’s capital. If we had Fitbits back then, mine would have tracked miles in flip-flops. Then again, we didn’t track our steps for a record; I was skinny as a rail, saving money by walking the endless and mostly free sites and museums with my friends.

This pilgrimage to Arlington came long before Osama bin Laden was a household name. It was a lifetime before I could have ever imagined I’d wear our nation’s uniform, stand in the ranks of legends, be in the company of heroes. I was a carefree twentysomething (aside from ugly college debt), enjoying the life-changing experience of a Washington internship and on my way to becoming the second in my family to graduate from college. My solid upbringing and civics classes taught me to prioritize visiting this stunning cemetery; I knew I hadn’t gotten here on my own.

Someone else gave me this sweet privilege of freedom, to live my little life to the fullest. Someone else did. They gave their life for it. And I must never forget this. I must honor them, make a difference in my own way — and make it count.

The following year and a few months after my graduation, 9/11 happened. When I told close family and friends that I was considering enlisting in the military, I encountered a lot of surprise, resistance and questions: Why? Wouldn’t someone else do it? It didn’t have to be me. Even my dear mother cried, saying, “You shouldn’t have to go — you have your college degree.” She was coming from a different generation’s point of view. I countered every concerned Why? with Why not? This was my country, it was attacked, and the force would need to expand in order to take on this new threat. Why not me? One friend bluntly replied, “Why not? Because you don’t want to die. You are joining the military during a time of war. People die in war.”

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Yes, they do. And the fear of dying should not stifle our will to live. Fear of living is the enemy.

My life changed when I raised my right hand, rose to the challenge of our time, and became part of the Frontline Generation. Of the less than 1% of Americans who have worn a uniform since the Sept. 11 attacks, at least 6,926 men and women have died in combat operations. Now, on Memorial Day 2017, that someone else has a name I know. The men and women at Arlington once were by my side — to my left and to my right. Now I have the perspective of having rendered a 4-second delayed salute to our fallen heroes, having stood at a heart-wrenching ramp ceremony, often at sunrise, on a tarmac in the Middle East, watching a flag-draped coffin carried onto an aircraft for the hero’s final flight home. Someone else has a name: Chris, David, Billie Jean, Gabe, and so on.

My experience of May and Memorial Day took on another new dimension when I had a son. It was in 2013 that his little blue eyes began to watch me. Now what would I do on Memorial Day? Shopping? Barbecues? Host friends and family gatherings to enjoy a long weekend? Yes. And he needed to see me take a knee. He needed to see the action of honoring someone else.

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That’s when the idea came to me and my husband (who is also a veteran) that the street sign we drive by every day, the one to our little town’s park, meant something more. We knew what it usually meant when a name like LCpl. Gabe Raney was on a street sign: Gabe didn’t come home. And although my husband and I personally knew other fallen heroes, we didn’t know Gabe or his family. That didn’t stop us. We decided, again, not to wait for someone else to do it. And we didn't ask for official approval. We just put a full-size American flag on his sign.

In 2015, we received funding from The Mission Continues, a veterans service organization, to erect an actual flagpole in the park in honor of this fallen Marine. That was when we knew we needed to seek permission from the city — and expose our history with the sign and our plan to take it up a level. I was nervous when I walked into the council meeting, unsure whether I was going to walk out with two years’ worth of citations. Instead, the town unanimously rallied, and the seed of a flagpole for Gabe turned into the city’s cherished Veterans Memorial. My neighbors in Pleasant View, Tenn., did not wait for someone else to do it.

Marjorie K. Eastman, a 2017 National Independent Publisher Award winning author ofThe Frontline Generation: How We Served Post 9/11, served 10 years in the Army Reserve, including two combat deployments. She received a Bronze Star and Combat Action Badge.

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