The observance of Memorial Day was born of compassion and empathy in 1863. As the Civil War raged, grieving mothers, wives, daughters, sisters, and other loved ones were cleaning confederate soldiers’ graves in Columbus, Mississippi, placing flowers on them. They noticed nearby the union soldiers’ graves, dusty and overgrown with weeds. Grieving for their own fallen soldiers, the confederate women understood that the dead union soldiers buried nearby were the cherished loved ones of families and communities far away, so they cleared the tangled brush and mud from those graves as well as their own soldiers’ graves and laid flowers on them too.
Soon the tradition of a “Decoration Day” for the graves of fallen soldiers spread. On May 5,1866, when the Civil War was over, Henry Welles of Waterloo, New York, closed his drugstore and suggested that all other shops in town also close up for a day to honor all soldiers killed in the Civil War, union and confederate alike. It was a gesture of healing and reconciliation in a land ripped apart by the conflict.
Sixteen years later, in 1882, the nation observed its first official Memorial Day, a day set aside to remember and honor the sacrifice of those who died in all our nation’s wars.
For decades, Memorial Day was a day in our nation when stores closed and communities gathered together for a day of parades and other celebrations with a patriotic theme. Memorial Day meant ceremonies at cemeteries around the country, speeches honoring those who gave their lives, the laying of wreaths, the playing of Taps.
In some places, such ceremonies continue. But fewer and fewer Americans are in touch with the true meaning of Memorial Day – to honor our fallen comrades and to honor the ideals and values those soldiers stood for and died defending.
Sadly, too many Americans have lost this connection with their history. For a growing percentage of the American people, Memorial Day has come to mean simply a three-day weekend or a major shopping day. Families might still gather for picnics, but for many of them, the patriotic core – the spirit of remembrance – is absent.
Perhaps the sheer collective number of those who have made the ultimate sacrifice blur from us their faces, and hence lessen the impact of their sacrifice and loss. If that is so, then maybe if we remove the fog of the many and concentrate on only one face, we will better see all of their faces more clearly. To that end, let me share with you the story of Nathan Bruckenthal. His story is excerpted from The Book of Man by William Bennett.
A photograph was taken on an unknown date during Petty Officer Nathan Bruckenthal’s enlistment in the United States Coast Guard. In the photo Bruckenthal, standing a stout six-foot-two, two hundred twenty pounds, gazes at the camera. Behind him, the ocean stretches into the distance. It’s hard to imagine what he must have been thinking at that time.
In another time, Nathan Bruckenthal grew up in Ridgefield, Connecticut, dreaming of becoming a police officer or firefighter. He played football in high school, but wasn’t a great student. Still, Bruckenthal was well-liked and had an inclusive streak, helping out at school with a club called LINK – “Let’s Include New Kids.” It made sense. Bruckenthal himself had at other times lived in Hawaii and Virginia after his parents divorced when he was a child and, as such, perhaps he identified with the pain of exclusion that some kids experience when they find themselves in a new school.
A year and a half out of high school, often serving as a volunteer firefighter but lacking direction, he joined the Coast Guard in 1999, knowing that the experience would help him get some college education so that he could someday make it above the rank of sergeant as a policeman in his hometown. He first served on an eighty-two foot patrol boat based out of Montauk, New York, before being shipped out to Neah Bay, Washington, or, as Bruckenthal recalled, “the end of the world.” It was cold, rainy, and boring.
Still, Neah Bay wasn’t all bad for Nathan. He met his wife, Pattie, who was attending a local college when she first encountered Bruckenthal during a civilian tour of the Neah Bay Coast Guard Station, a tour that Nathan conducted.
Locals recalled that Bruckenthal was a man who loved to help others. “Volunteering was the first thing he did; he helped the community,” Joe McGimpsey, a resident of Neah Bay told the Seattle-Post Intelligencer. “Nate gave unconditionally and that is why he was so loved by this community,” recalled Neah Bay Police Chief T. J. Greene.
After terrorists attacked the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, Bruckenthal headed east to New York City, where he assisted in funerals for two firefighters and a police officer killed on that day. He extended and used up his leave time into October passing out food and water to firefighters, police officers, and construction workers who were helping to clean up the site.
In 2003, Bruckenthal was deployed to Iraq, serving in a Coast Guard unit that boarded vessels travelling through the Persian Gulf waters around offshore oil rigs. Nathan was excited, accepting the risks involved but describing himself as feeling “on a high horse.”
“He was very honored to do anything the Coast Guard asked of him,” said Petty Officer Daniel Burgoyne, who was Bruckenthal’s shipmate, friend and neighbor. “He was a true patriot. He loved serving his country.”
In 2004, Bruckenthal signed up for yet another tour in Iraq, destined to be his last hundred days. During the early part of this deployment, he learned that his wife, Pattie, was expecting their first child, Harper. Upon learning the news, Bruckenthal couldn’t wait to return home. After all, he had already missed both of the couple’s first two wedding anniversaries due to his previous tours in Iraq.
But in the early evening hours of April 24, 2004, a small unauthorized vessel approached an oil rig in the Persian Gulf. Bruckenthal, trained as part of a unit who boarded such suspicious vessels, and accompanied by one other Coast Guardsman and five sailors from the United States Navy, led the team that was ordered to intercept the suspicious vessel.
As the crew was poised to board the boat, an explosion was detonated—a suicide bomb. Petty Officer, Nathan Bruckenthal, age 26, was killed by the blast. Two Navy petty officers also died as a result of the explosion: PO1 Michael J. Pernaselli, 27 of Monroe, New York, and Christopher E. Watts, 28, of Knoxville, Tennessee. Three other sailors were injured.
Glenn Grahl, one of Bruckenthal’s commanding officers remembered him by saying, “Nate was jovial, he was intense, and he was a dedicated professional.” At his service, his grieving mother shared the following poem that Nathan wrote when he was just seventeen years old:
Dawn till Dusk
By: Nathan Bruckenthal, 1996As the sun glides off the face of the earth,
I am there to hold you.
As the wind blows like a raging bull,
I am there to protect you.
I am there when you need me,
From Dusk till Dawn,
I am there.
Do you see me?
I am here….
Memorial Day should invigorate each of us to contemplate the lives of the countless men and women who have fought in America’s battles, and who have served their country in support of the military. Each has sacrificed significantly in fighting for the freedom and liberty that we all enjoy today. Too often we fail to remember those who gave their life, or those whose life today bears the scars of their service as a lasting memory of that sacrifice and commitment. But there are many who vividly remember as these citizen soldiers were all sons, daughters, fathers, mothers, friends, co workers or neighbors of those that loved and cherished them. Those left behind carry everyday both sorrow and pride in the understanding that their loved one’s unselfish sacrifice was made with the assurance that our life, liberty and pursuit of happiness required their ultimate service to their nation.
This Monday we should all pause, if only for a moment, from our holiday relaxation to contemplate and reflect in solemn and grateful prayer the enormous loss these countless patriots and their families have endured so that we all can enjoy our freedom, our security, and, yes, even this national holiday.
“WHEN YOU GO HOME, TELL THEM OF US AND SAY, FOR THEIR TOMORROW, WE GAVE OUR TODAY.” – The Kohima Epitaph
Have an AWE-full weekend and Memorial Day!
William J. “Bill” Bacque’