Photo courtesy of Bill Stokes
By Bill Stokes
Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports the keeper and Phyllis participating with everyone in painful remembering on this day set aside just for that purpose with special ceremonies, followed by picnics in the parks, brats and beer, and baseball games.
The keeper, as usual, remembers the two Michigan pals from his Intelligence and Reconnaissance platoon in Korea who took the artillery shell in the observation post bunker where another shell later buried the keeper in dirt and debris but left him alive to live a long and wonderful post war life.
Those Michigan platoon mates were always together, laughing at each other’s jokes and tolerating the absurdities of exchanging bullets and artillery fire with other young people on the nearest mountain.
It is, of course, through the vagaries of war that the keeper celebrates this day with Phyllis and an extended, loving family, while his former Michigan Army pals occupy cold and lonely graves.
For what it’s worth–and it isn’t much even under the best of celebratory circumstances, the keeper remembers them and their shared laughter.
So goes Memorial Day, 2026!
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