I guess I’ve been a very patriotic kind of guy most of my life. I must have been way back when, because every Memorial Day at Eternal Valley when the Hart High band played for the services, I’d get this lump in my throat and a few tears in my eyes, listening to the speakers.

One special part of every year was when the World War I veteran would get up and sing, “My Buddy.” That was a popular barracks ballad of that war and for a few years after. To this day, I don’t know how he was able to get through those lyrics, and each time I could see the tears welling up in his eyes as he sang.

I think he was able to remember each and every buddy of all those years before, who had given their lives for this country. I, too, can think of and remember those of my generation who laid down their lives for our country.

If you’ve ever visited one of the national cemeteries, large or small, you can’t help but wonder how those there were all veterans who made a commitment to these United States of America, pledging their very lives if need be. Many in that hallowed ground were casualties of a war.

I was talking with a soldier the other day when he asked what I was doing on Memorial Day. He wanted to make sure I was going to some type of memorial service. He said too many of his comrades in arms have been lost in battle. He wants to make sure people remember them, each and every one.

I always attend some type of service on this day. It is so very important we remember those we lost giving all they had to give. It isn’t a day for celebration as such but a day of remembering what they were to us and how they kept us free.

I’m headed to the USS Iowa (BB61) as you read this. I did some work on that ship once, after the No. 2 turret explosion in 1989. I also remember those 47 sailors who just as surely died for us as all those others did. I’ll say an extra prayer for them today as I walk those hallowed decks once again.

Out at Eternal Valley, I looked at the flags flying above the graves of the veterans buried there. My father, Alton Manzer, grandfather Roy Roberts, and uncle Sam Bean, all have flags above them, as does my brother-in-law, Dan Tibbitts. There is a sea of flags flying there. Thank God that most of those flags honor veterans who didn’t die in battle. I thought for a while that maybe there should be a way to identify those who did. I’m not sure I could take looking at so many.

I pray that someday we won’t have a need to add any more graves of veterans lost in battle. I pray that war can become a memory of the wrong way to accomplish something. I don’t know a single career soldier, sailor, Marine or airman who likes war and hopes for war so that “they” can do their job. All of us who served and are still serving abhor the very thought of war and conflict. There are better ways to settle problems.

So today as I stand on the deck of the USS Iowa, I shall think of those past and those still serving but so recently arrived under those flags. Let us pray for the day when war ends and no longer will graves contain the lifeblood of our nation. Let us pray I never have to read of another buddy, “My Buddy,” being placed in the cold ground with a life so short. Amen.

Darryl Manzer grew up in the Pico Canyon oil town of Mentryville in the 1960s and attended Hart High School. After a career in the U.S. Navy he returned to live in the Santa Clarita Valley, where he serves as executive director of the SCV Historical Society. He can be reached at dmanzer@scvhistory.com. His older commentaries are archived atDManzer.com; his newer commentaries can be accessed [here]. Watch his walking tour of Mentryville [here].