Lest We Forget

These men are still entombed in Rainier’s icy embrace.

I made a wrong turn, so I thought.  The fourth day of my trip was short and I knew I would arrive in camp by the early afternoon.  A couple of day hikers encouraged me to walk a mile and half past camp to the road and on to Lake George which they said was beautiful and a great place to swim.

When I got to the road I expected signage or people to at least ask for further directions.  Instead I had to make a decision, go left or right.  I decided to go left as it was uphill and I figured whether right or wrong, I would prefer to walk downhill on the return.

After a more than sufficient distance, I knew I had made a wrong decision.  I walked a little further, but when I saw a manmade stone wall ahead I decided this wall would be my end and I would start the return to camp, figuring that I at least got my steps for the day completed.

What I discovered at the wall really moved me.  As you can see it was a memorial to a doomed flight of US Marines. I spent the rest of my walk thinking about these men, their surviving love ones, of parents and grandparents and the agony they would have felt.  As a former high school teacher, and observing the rank of most of these marines, I’m guessing many graduated high school just months earlier.

I thought of the lines “We are the Dead. Short days ago We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow, Loved and were loved, and now we lie… buried in ice.

The glacier where their airplane crashed.

The next day I meet hikers From @teamredwhiteblue Team Red, White, and Blue, a nonprofit that assists veterans with recreational and camaraderie after they leave the service

I spoke with Greg, the trip’s organizer about the Memorial I saw not 16 hours earlier.  We spoke of sacrifice and service, me telling how my family had travelled to see their uncle’s name on the Vietnam Memorial in Savannah and a brother in law who served in the first Gulf War. His father flew in Vietnam, and how the soldiers were ostracized on their return home.  We talked about remembrance; would these marines be remembered

Now I’m not sure that I had made a wrong turn.