Memorial Day 2026
- Mike Dickey
- 38 minutes ago
- 2 min read
And when they ask us,
How dangerous it was.
Oh! We’ll never tell them,
No, we’ll never tell them.
We spent our pay in some cafe.
And fought wild women night and day,
T’was the cushiest job we ever had.
And when they ask us,
And they’re certainly going to ask us.
The reason why we didn’t win the Croix de Guerre.
Oh! We’ll never tell them,
No! We’ll never tell them.
There was a front but damned if we knew where.
In years past, I tried to make a point of remembering them all, the guys who aren't here this morning. At first it wasn't so difficult, but over time the list grew. And what to do about the ones who died flying after they left the Air Force? My friend Hoss, addictive Game Boy player of the Gulf War, flew an L-39 into the side of a canyon while they were filming a movie in California. Flash joined an aerobatic team flying T-28s, and one day in West Virginia he attempted a loop with a little less altitude than the maneuver required.
Or the guys whose demise was almost certainly related to the toxic stew in which we served, but weren't acknowledged as service deaths? Karbo brought something like ALS back from the war, and was dead within a few months. Rev died of heart sack cancer in his 40s. Bam Bam beat cancer once, then it came back and took him.
No harm in remembering them all, I guess. Old friends.
The link below is to the final scene of Oh What a Lovely War!, a deeply flawed movie from over five decades ago. But that song at the end, and the imagery, always chokes me up. Watching this young man run out of the smoke into brilliant blue sky, shedding kit and uniform as he sprints obliviously past his widow and child enjoying a picnic, then down through a hillside of poppies to lie in the lushest grass you ever saw with his mates, then the song.
Personally I don't much want to spend eternity with the brothers in Valhalla. That was all a time and a place, and old age reflection has made me into such a pacifist that I wince at all the military hagiography that goes with this day. War is stupid, always. As Eisenhower once observed, the greatest tribute we could give to those we've lost is to make sure there's never a next conflagration that consumes another generation.
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