Which Leif Garretson Should I Remember on Memorial Day?

When I remember Leif on Memorial Day, which Leif should I remember? The boy who wanted to grow up to be an Air Force pilot but couldn't because his eyes wouldn't pass the flight physical? The college student who joined Air Force ROTC to become an Air Force officer, scoring at the top his class at summer camp, only to be sent home when his body failed him again with a pulled muscle in his groin?

The man who enlisted in the infantry, the toughest physical challenge, to try to find a way into the military, hoping to qualify for Green to Gold to become an officer? The man who went through Infantry Basic Training on a broken foot after a fellow soldier fell on it during first aid training?

The man who breathed and ate sand and dust in Uzbekistan during UN maneuvers and developed severe asthma so that his body betrayed him yet again? The man who served his country with distinction in Bosnia as a peacekeeper? The man who was the best machine gunner in his battalion?

The proud soldier who became a broken man, the one who, with PTSD, finally ended his life like far too many of our veterans? He didn't die in a combat battle, but he died in his own private war, one brought on at least partly by his military service.

So, on this Memorial Day, I remember Leif Garretson, my son, who served his country, and is no longer with us. I will always be proud of him and his service.

This photo was taken around 1999.

Even in Suicide, Soldiers' Families Deserve Condolences From President

Leif was no longer in uniform, no longer on active duty in the army when he took his life. He was medically retired, but he felt close to his brothers in arms, cared deeply about them, and identified with them. He kept his uniforms, boots and dog tags. They continued to have meaning. He often talked and commented about policies that impacted soldiers' lives, and was against their lives being lost in what he felt were needless wars that counted their lives of too little value, no matter how much lip service was paid to our "heroes."

He would have been incensed to know that soldiers who died of suicide to not receive condolences from the President, as those who die in other ways do. He would have supported Gregg Keesling's efforts to make this happen. Read the article by clicking on the title, "

Even in Suicide, Soldiers' Families Deserve Condolences From the President."

Mike Purcell talks about this in a Military Times, Outside the Wire Article titled, "Are Suicides Considered Less Honorable?" (Click the title to read it.) He says, and it is so true, as you will learn if you read the stories of those soldiers who took their lives . . . they were good soldiers and served their country well:

“This Memorial Day please remember those we have lost on ‘the other battlefield,’” Purcell writes. “Their service mattered greatly, as did they. Their families deserve to be recognized with dignity and respect, in their time of profound loss.”

It's now past Memorial Day, but we should remember still.

Purcell is also behind the Putting a Face on Suicide project, a Facebook page with a broader mission to literally show the faces of those who have died by their own hand, whether military (there is a special Wall for them) or not. It isn't possible to visit that page without being affected by all the smiling faces of those who felt life was not worth living and the pain of those left behind.
----------------------

The photo is one taken of Leif by an unknown fellow soldier. I found it in an envelope of photos he had.

Memorial Day

Remembering Leif and all his fallen comrades in arms on this Memorial Day, those who fell in battle, those killed by IEDs, those who came home broken in body or spirit who suffer for their service to our country.

Remembering Leif's service to our country and the price he paid for it.

Remembering all the families dealing with the loss or injury of a loved one.

--------

The photo is of the bugler who played Taps at Leif's military honors memorial service at Bay Pines National Cemetery in St. Petersburg, Florida on April 29, 2008.

The Touch of Granite - Bay Pines National Cemetery, Memorial Day, May 25, 2009

Memorial Day we drove to St. Petersburg to spend some time at the Bay Pines National Cemetery, to touch Leif's memorial stone, to be with him. You can never really be with a deceased loved one but the cemetery offers a symbolic place, a tangible physical place to go with one's emotions.

When I was growing up, I understood the purpose of Memorial Day, but not the real force and truth of it. Now, with my husband, brother, two sons, and two nephews, having served in the armed forces, and after losing Leif, I do.

When I was a kid, Memorial Day meant the opening of the swimming pool, a parade, picnics, speeches. Older guys in uniforms, VFW or American Legion hats, a day off of school, but it hadn't pierced my heart yet that so many young men ha died and so many others been wounded in body and soul. My mind, yes, my heart no. Now, I can't even listen to the "Honor Roll" of those servicemembers who have been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan without crying. I think not only of them, but of all the others, military or civilian, dying in wars. What a sad and terrible blemish on humanity that we still wage war, that we are still compelled to expend the lives of our young on defending us.

On Memorial Day, each in-ground stone is remembered with an American flag, and those in the columbaria have flags at the foot of each column. The beautiful green grounds are full of flags, each a reminder that here lies a man or woman who served our country. So many, many flags in so many national cemeteries throughout our nation. We should be awed and grateful, but also saddened that so many had to die.

When I was growing up, I understood the purpose of cemeteries but not why people derived some kind of comfort or emotional release from visiting them, because I had no experience with it, no one so close to me that had died and was buried where I could go to visit their graves. Now, after losing Leif, I do.

Bay Pines National Cemetery is a beautiful place. I'm glad of that for all of us whose loved ones are there, though those whose remains are placed there do not know of the stately live oak promenades, the wide green lawns, the granite-faced columbaria. I wonder whether I will ever go there and experience a feeling of peace. Just looking at the grounds, i appreciate the beauty.

I am thankful for all the many, many men and women who served our country, and saddened at all those who died or whose lives were forever mutilated in that service. I am glad to see their loved ones coming to pay respect and remember. But I do not feel peace. I hold my hands over Leif's niche, lean my head against the granite slab above his, and cry and cry. It's a release, but it doesn't last. The feelings, the pain, the questions, do not go away.

But I have done what I came for, to be there, to touch his resting place, to make that trip to be as close to him as I can be and show my love and respect.

Thoughts in the Wee Hours of Memorial Day 2009

Last night we watched the poignant, touching, and sad Memorial Day Concert on the Mall in Washington DC. It was a beautiful tribute to our fallen and wounded military men and women, and we all shed a lot of tears. I cried for all those who lost their lives in the service of our country, all those whose lives were changed forever by terrible injuries, and all of their families who have to bear the losses.

And, I realized that Leif was one of the wounded and fallen, too. In a very real sense, he never recovered from the damage his service in the army did to him, losing his health, his marriage and his career. He lost a lot, too, though it wasn't a flesh wound. He was and is not alone. There are so many who are wounded in their souls. So many, too many suicides.

I was asking yet again, for perhaps the ten thousandth time, why? Why, why, why? And although I will never stop asking it, I know there will never be an answer. Even if there were one, it wouldn't be satisfactory. It wouldn't bring him back, wouldn't lay all the questions to rest.

How could he have been carrying on a lively email and text conversation with several of us, then go out with friends and have a good time, seeming to be making plans for future events, seeming normal, and then, in the wee hours of the morning when he was alone, use his new gun to take his own life?

I know there is no logic in it. I know that suicidal people come to believe that their family and friends will be "better off without them." They believe it is a solution. In some cases, like in terminal illnesses, it is, and perhaps in others that we can't fathom, the pain of living is too great to bear, but if they knew what heartache and loss they left behind, the years of misery and longing they create, would they do it? Would they go through with it? Do they think they are expendable, that their families and friends will just get over it and go on? They are wrong. The pain, the loss, the questions, permeate our lives. They don't go away. Missing them doesn't go away.

Later today I will go to the cemetery. My Leif is not there, just the last of his earthly remains. His dad tells me that, and I know it is true. I tell him I go there because it is symbolic, a way to honor him, even if he doesn't know it. I do it for me.

Leif was loved. He will always be loved. I hope he knew that.
-------------------------------

This photo was on one of those strips of four photos taken in a photo booth. I don't remember taking them. Luckily, I had written on the back of the photo that it was taken in Ansbach, Germany in the fall of 1979. Leif would have been four-and-a-half years old. I loved the expression on his face. He was so expressive.

My Second Birthday and Memorial Day Without Leif

I would be fooling myself (I tried) if I didn't admit to myself that another reason for a wave of sadness right now is that today is my 62nd birthday, the second one without Leif, the second one he won't be coming through my door. And tomorrow is Memorial Day, another sad day of remembrance. I've had so many lovely birthday wishes from family and friends, and many, many from Peter W., and they are all wonderful and appreciated. They do warm my heart. But unfortunately, they can't take away the sadness, the finality of Leif's death and absence. I cried when I went to sleep in the wee hours this morning, and I cried again when I got up. It's a hard thing to admit that, especially publicly online, but I promised myself I would be honest about grief.

I have discovered that I, like everyone else I've met who has lost a loved one, particularly a child, feel compelled to try to hide or minimize those feelings in front of others. People have moved on. Their lives were not so inextricably intertwined with Leif's as mine was. Their loss is not so great. It's not just that I don't want to inflict my feelings on others and make them uncomfortable, it's also because they don't understand, don't know how to handle it, may even think it's pathological, worry about me. I know it's not abnormal. I've read enough about the process and lengthiness of grief to know this is normal for a parent who has lost a child and that only those who have experienced this can truly understand it for they, too, have gone through years before there was any real healing, and even then, the wound is only healed, not gone.

But I will "buck up." I will go on our bike ride, swim, go out to dinner and I will enjoy it and try not to think of Leif not being there.

At the post office on Friday, one of the clerks that knows I'm a writer asked me what I was writing now that would make me a million dollars and famous -- as if that would ever happen. I laughed, but then I told the truth, that the only thing I was writing was this blog about my son. He asked me why. I said, "Because that's all I can write right now. It's all that matters to me about writing." Tears came into my eyes.

He said he understood. And he does. Last year when Leif died he knew about it because of things I had to mail and told me that he and his wife lost 3 babies in 9 months, including twin boys. It's been many years for him, but he still feels the loss. He said it is "compartmentalized" now, that he escapes thinking about it at work, but it's in the quiet spaces that it haunts him. I know what he means. Work is the best therapy, being busy, but there are always those moments when the mind isn't busy or something reminds us of our losses. There are always the special days, the holidays, birthdays, that we shared or would have shared.

He said something else that I have thought of a lot, that I have memories, 33 years of them, but he had only hopes, dreams and expectations, no memories of time with his sons. He wonders what it would have been like to have sons. He will never know. Which would be worse? Like Darren said, I did have the gift of Leif for 33 years. But do I feel the loss even more because of all those memories? I think so, but if I'd lost him to a miscarriage or in infancy, would I have grieved any less? Differently perhaps.

I wrote some time ago about the silent sisterhood. It is a brotherhood, too.
----------------------------------------

The photo above is of my two precious sons by one of the giant stones at the Avebury Circle in England, a circle of stones somewhat like Stonehenge but not preserved as well. It was taken on our June 1980 trip to England, a trip sandwiched into our move from Germany to Japan.

Leif - Memorial Day Visit to the Cemetery

I have always felt sad on Memorial Day, for all those who died for our country, and all their families, and I feel the same each time I hear and see the "Honor Roll" for those who have died in Afghanistan and Iraq on television. Leif felt very strongly about the deaths of his fellow soldiers in Iraq. He felt out country valued the lives of its soldiers far less than the lives of those who died on 9/11, and he blamed President Bush for their deaths.

I have never visited a national cemetery on Memorial Day before. We went today (it will show up as yesterday on the blog post date because it's after midnight) to honor Leif, and because they set his stone marker on Friday and we wanted to see it. It wasn't so much about visiting Leif, because the Leif we love isn't there. It's hard to know that all he was, that towering figure in so many ways, is now just our memories and photos, and all that's in that niche is ashes.

When we were there for the inurnment service, there was hardly anyone else there. It was a place of quiet peace. Today, there were many families visiting the graves of loved ones, some placing flowers, one man down on his hands and knees carefully scraping dust and dirt out of the incised letters of the marker stone. There were small American flags by each in-ground burial (all burials at Bay Pines National Cemetery are cremations), and that made it so much more obvious how many are buried here. The stones are flat to the ground, so it looks more like beautiful grass fields unless you walk over them and see the stones as you look down.

The campanile was playing the songs of each military service as we got there. That started the tears flowing. It always does, whether I'm at a sad occasion or not, just as the National Anthem makes me cry. I'm a hopelessly emotional person, I guess.

Peter had been worried about how I would handle seeing Leif's niche with the stone in place, and yes, I cried, but it wasn't as bad as either of us feared. I think it was because I had tried hard to prepare myself, and because I realized that it isn't really Leif that is there.

I decided to put a series of photos on this post beginning with one of him in Uzbekistan. He is in the center with two UN soldiers from other countries on either side of him. The other photos are his marker, the columbarium that his niche is in (his is exactly in the middle on the second row from the top), one of the fields of flags, and the column monument at the entrance to the cemetery.

If you haven't been to a national cemetery and you have the chance to go, please do. You will find it very moving, and all those who paid for our liberty with their lives deserve our thanks. Arlington National Cemetery is particularly worth a visit.

Leif did not die in the service of his country, at least not directly, though I think that service played a part in his death. He was a disabled veteran who began having asthma attacks in cold weather after the military exercises he was a part of in Uzbekistan in the fall of 1998. Although I have no way of proving it, I believe the experienced some substance or "trigger" there which caused his asthma. He had never had it before.

It was asthma that ruined his military career and put a stop to his hopes of a career in law enforcement, and was part of a chain of disappointments that added to his depression.

But no matter what, Leif served his country proudly and took very seriously his oath to defend the Constitution of the United States. And we are proud of him for his service.