In Their Flowing Cups Remember'd

I always get a lump in my throat at military retirements.

It isn’t the awards or the mementos they’re given, nor is it the ritual of the ceremony.

Part of it, I am sorry to say, is jealousy. At most retirements, recognition is given to the retiree’s wife, for her role in his faithful service. I didn’t have that at my retirement, and I feel as though I missed out. I didn’t have a wife or girlfriend waiting on the pier for me when I returned from any of my four deployments. True, I was married for one of those deployments, but my then-wife showed up an hour late for our homecoming, reluctant to drag herself from her lover’s bed.

So the part where the retiring sailor gives flowers to his wife and thanks her for getting him through a long hard career only reminds me of how lonely my life has been.

Another reason for the lump in my throat is patriotism. Until a few years before the end of my Navy career, I never understood why so many veterans get misty-eyed during the Star Spangled Banner. Now, when I hear that melody, or sing those words, or see our flag being carried, it means something. The “land of the free and the home of the brave” isn’t a phrase that describes a house in my neighborhood, a house I’ve never seen the inside of, inhabited by people I sometimes wave to as I get into my car to go to work in the morning; I am free and I am brave. This is my home and that is my flag.

Patriotism turns out to be very, very personal.

The flag presented to me as a token of my service had been flown over the ship I retired in on September 11th, 2002. On the surface, it’s a small thing, being given a flag flown over what was then the Navy’s newest warship on the first anniversary of 9/11, but there were only two flags flown over the ship that day, and the other was presented to an old shipmate who’d been in the Pentagon when it was attacked, and a year later, still wore artificial skin where his own skin had been burned away.

The hardest part of any military retirement for me is when the retiree takes a few minutes to talk about their service, and to try to explain in three or four minutes what twenty-odd years has meant to them. Most of us cry during our speeches, our tears being the only way we can come close to expressing how honored we feel to have had the opportunity to make even a small contribution to the nation and the world.

I have publicly recited Shakespeare only twice in my life; the first was in Ms. Pickens’ sophomore English class (“Bubble, bubble, toil and trouble…”) and the second at my retirement. Though Shakespeare’s Henry V’s references to Englishmen in this soliloquy make it a little jarring when applied to Americans, the sentiments are entirely apropos:

“He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a tip-toe when this day is nam’d,
And rouse him at the name of Crispian.
He that shall live this day, and see old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,
And say, To-morrow is Saint Crispian:
Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars,
And say, ‘These wounds I had on Crispin’s day.’
Old men forget; yet all shall be forgot,
But he’ll remember with advantages
What feats he did that day: then shall our names,
Familiar in their mouths as household words,--
Be in their flowing cups remember’d.
This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne’er go by,
From this day to the end of the world,
But we in it shall be remembered,--
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition:
And gentlemen in England now a-bed
Shall think themselves accurs’d they were not here,
And hold their manhood cheap while any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day.”