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Military life doesn't always converge with day-to-day viewpoint of civilians
Photo by JERRY McBRIDE/Herald
Some drivers might have glanced quickly over toward the park. Some of them may have contemplated the people in rows of metal folding seats staring at a packed stage alongside the U.S. highway. They probably inferred the patriotic tone signified by abundant Stars and Stripes. And a rare few may have recognized the military flags, or heard the 21-gun salute.
But most, after slowing slightly in deference to the flashing lights of a State Patrol car, likely blew on by with nary a second thought - off to jobs, to lunch, to run errands.
How symbolic.
The 300 who gathered last Monday in support of U.S. servicemen and their families appreciate the irony. They believe that the work the military does makes it possible for those drivers to rest secure in their obliviousness.
"Life, with our economy and everything that's happening these days - we're all so busy," Cindy Schwarzkopf said after last week's Blue Star Memorial Marker rededication ceremony. "We're worried, we're busy, we all have things that feel so important.
"But I think when you really take a moment to take stock of what allows us to exercise the freedom to pursue the day-to-day, we're able to do it because of the soldiers who are out there behind the scenes, doing what they do."
The occasion Monday was the rededication of a Blue Star Memorial Marker, which honors those serving in the military. On Wednesday, Durango closed off a couple blocks of Main Avenue for about a half-hour to hold a Veterans Day Parade. While it's true that several hundred locals showed up or participated, and others wandered out of their downtown businesses to pay their respects, it's also true that tens of thousands of us in La Plata County went to work as usual. And of those tens of thousands, how many paused even once during their day to consider veterans?
During the Vietnam era, many Americans' feelings toward war became entangled with their willingness to support the military and, by extension, the veterans. And while we no longer spit on our returning soldiers, neither is there universal support for our current major military campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq.
To a degree, the military seems to have adapted. They don't expect the general public to share their military perspective.
"The beauty of what the troops have done for this country, past or present," Schwarz-kopf said, "is they have allowed people to live in such a way that they don't have to have that perspective."
The name Schwarzkopf may ring a bell. Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf was commander of U.S. forces during Desert Storm, the war against Iraq in early 1991.
Cindy Schwarzkopf, his daughter, lives in Durango with her husband and young son. She was invited to speak at the ceremony as her father's representative.
She recalled being relocated 14 times as her father moved for his Army career; despite that, she misses the military life. As she prepared her talk, and as she sat on the speakers' stage Monday, she realized that after 18 years as a civilian, even a four-star general's daughter's perspective has changed.
"I was having to dig back too far in my brain," Schwarz-kopf said. "I don't think about it enough. This is a good check for me, to remember."
A sweep of the stage Monday gave many reasons to remember: Two Navajo Code Talkers from World War II, Vietnam veterans Lt. Col. Jim Dyer and Gen. Ron Fogleman. And most poignant, three parents of soldiers who died while serving the military.
The son of Harold and Wanda Mullen of Bayfield, Army Spec. Scott Mullen, was part of a 10-person psychological operations team deployed in the southern Philippines in October 2005. He and other members of his unit flew to Manila on a four-day leave. After dining at a large commercial mall, the 22-year-old somehow fell backward off a third-floor escalator and landed on his head. He died shortly afterward.
"It's been difficult," Harold Mullen said. "This is really the first time that his mother and I have ... allowed ourselves to participate in a memorial. It's been very difficult."
Now he's able to picture a smiling son fishing at Vallecito or snowboarding at Telluride or Wolf Creek.
"I'm sure he's with us here today," said Mullen, a former Marine. "I kept looking up in the clouds and realizing he was up there smiling down upon us and wishing everybody else well."
johnp@durangoherald.com John Peel writes a weekly human-interest column.
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