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Mar. 7th, 2007
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Mar. 7th, 2007 09:13 amMonday I got to hear the sweet, plaintive; lonely, comfort of Taps.
It was sort of surreal. One of the guys in my unit died in a "shit happens" accident. It was just one of those things. He was in the wrong place, and something happened. I didn't know him well, so there wasn't a great sense of grief, just a niggling sense of, "damn, that sucks."
Because he was on a mission (liason deal, no reason to expect anything to happen to him, not a combat zone), and because the Army was a big part of his life his family asked us to come to the funeral.
I'm glad I went, it put him back in my mind's eye. People come and go, in my 14 years with the unit, I've seen a couple of hundred people retire, move on or get out. Mostly when they aren't there, they are gone. He'd only on our books for a couple of years, and most of those he spent on missions.
But the photos, and the recollections reminded me of the few times he was there (the last only three weeks ago); so that was good.
The honors... I don't know what they mean to the family, and I never will; because I'm inside them. Taps, the firing party (one of the best parts of Mr. Holland's Opus is the funeral, because the firing party is offscreen, and the audience does what those who've never been to a military funeral [and always the family] does when the first volley goes off... and jumps) and the folding of the flag... those belong to me.
When I hear Taps played at the end of the day, it's a comfort. A sense of place, and time and home. At a funeral it has much the same, with notes of care and affection and memory. It's Donne's bell.
Since he was getting full military honors, and he was one of ours, we provided the pall-bearers. I volunteered. It's hard duty. It's nice, in a way, because the mind is busy, and the various blatherings of funerals can be put aside, but it's pressure.
Ceremony matters. It ties things together, gives a sense of continuity, of permanence in a fleeting world. Funerals are about as ceremonial as it gets. Everything you've learned, is tossed aside.
No snap and pop. No hard edges. Everything is languid, but none of the drive is gone. It's just done with curves and deliberation.
But the casket was heavy. Not just the material weight, but the metaphoric. We were carrying the grief of all his family, and his friends, and his acquaintences. We had to seem effortless, to not stagger, to keep it level (and above all, not drop it).
After the services we went to lunch. I don't know what that Coco's thought about 30+ soldiers, in dress uniforms, descending to have a quietly loud meal with them, but it was good. The banter, and the jokes (some of them dark) were what they should be. Just a little sub-fusc, but not gloomy. It wasn't a wake, but it was close.
And I headed homewards.
Because things had taken longer than expected (it was pushing 1500 when I got in my car) I didn't see any point in going all the way home, to go back to the dojo (which was on the way home).
I had time to kill, and I was feeling disconnected from things, perhaps a little more mortal (when did 26 become a kid by default? Because that how old he was, and that's how he seemed, just getting started). So I walked.
I was in uniform (I'd forgotten to grab civvies). So, polished shoes,my dress jacket and all, I walked. It wasn't marching, it still had some of the rounded edges of the day, but it was more than a casual stroll. I didn't feel I was really there, and everything was a little removed.
There are some great doorways in Whittier, and a lousy statue of Whittier himself. I stopped at a café and had some cocoa, and I walked some more. For about two hours I walked.
Then I went to class. Where I worked. Erica was promoted 2 ranks at the exam I missed Saturday, and she was asked to show something she thought went well, so we did an uchiri san-kyo (which is response to an attack from the side, and to the rear). It was work.
Then we did rondori. I did rondori once, and took it twice (rondori is serial attacks, with a simple; at times dismissive, throw of uke it's big difference from jiu-waza (a set of serial attacks with the emphasis on smoothly flowing, one to the next) is that rondori has multiple attackers).
I took it from Jose, and Wayne, back to back. Wayne is a solid guy, built like a tank, and light on his feet. He's also deliberate. I have no fears about attacking him, because he's not going to hurt me, even when he's throwing me without restraint.
He used me (and Adam, the other uke as defensive weapons. Hanging onto us, if that would let him break up the attack which was going to come, or throwing us so the other would have to move out of the way, and so he set the rythm, even if we had control of the tempo.
And I got dressed, and drove home, in a much lighter mood than I would have had (though I was still a trifle moody, and testy, even yesterday), had I not gone to practice Aikido; on the mat.
It was sort of surreal. One of the guys in my unit died in a "shit happens" accident. It was just one of those things. He was in the wrong place, and something happened. I didn't know him well, so there wasn't a great sense of grief, just a niggling sense of, "damn, that sucks."
Because he was on a mission (liason deal, no reason to expect anything to happen to him, not a combat zone), and because the Army was a big part of his life his family asked us to come to the funeral.
I'm glad I went, it put him back in my mind's eye. People come and go, in my 14 years with the unit, I've seen a couple of hundred people retire, move on or get out. Mostly when they aren't there, they are gone. He'd only on our books for a couple of years, and most of those he spent on missions.
But the photos, and the recollections reminded me of the few times he was there (the last only three weeks ago); so that was good.
The honors... I don't know what they mean to the family, and I never will; because I'm inside them. Taps, the firing party (one of the best parts of Mr. Holland's Opus is the funeral, because the firing party is offscreen, and the audience does what those who've never been to a military funeral [and always the family] does when the first volley goes off... and jumps) and the folding of the flag... those belong to me.
When I hear Taps played at the end of the day, it's a comfort. A sense of place, and time and home. At a funeral it has much the same, with notes of care and affection and memory. It's Donne's bell.
Since he was getting full military honors, and he was one of ours, we provided the pall-bearers. I volunteered. It's hard duty. It's nice, in a way, because the mind is busy, and the various blatherings of funerals can be put aside, but it's pressure.
Ceremony matters. It ties things together, gives a sense of continuity, of permanence in a fleeting world. Funerals are about as ceremonial as it gets. Everything you've learned, is tossed aside.
No snap and pop. No hard edges. Everything is languid, but none of the drive is gone. It's just done with curves and deliberation.
But the casket was heavy. Not just the material weight, but the metaphoric. We were carrying the grief of all his family, and his friends, and his acquaintences. We had to seem effortless, to not stagger, to keep it level (and above all, not drop it).
After the services we went to lunch. I don't know what that Coco's thought about 30+ soldiers, in dress uniforms, descending to have a quietly loud meal with them, but it was good. The banter, and the jokes (some of them dark) were what they should be. Just a little sub-fusc, but not gloomy. It wasn't a wake, but it was close.
And I headed homewards.
Because things had taken longer than expected (it was pushing 1500 when I got in my car) I didn't see any point in going all the way home, to go back to the dojo (which was on the way home).
I had time to kill, and I was feeling disconnected from things, perhaps a little more mortal (when did 26 become a kid by default? Because that how old he was, and that's how he seemed, just getting started). So I walked.
I was in uniform (I'd forgotten to grab civvies). So, polished shoes,my dress jacket and all, I walked. It wasn't marching, it still had some of the rounded edges of the day, but it was more than a casual stroll. I didn't feel I was really there, and everything was a little removed.
There are some great doorways in Whittier, and a lousy statue of Whittier himself. I stopped at a café and had some cocoa, and I walked some more. For about two hours I walked.
Then I went to class. Where I worked. Erica was promoted 2 ranks at the exam I missed Saturday, and she was asked to show something she thought went well, so we did an uchiri san-kyo (which is response to an attack from the side, and to the rear). It was work.
Then we did rondori. I did rondori once, and took it twice (rondori is serial attacks, with a simple; at times dismissive, throw of uke it's big difference from jiu-waza (a set of serial attacks with the emphasis on smoothly flowing, one to the next) is that rondori has multiple attackers).
I took it from Jose, and Wayne, back to back. Wayne is a solid guy, built like a tank, and light on his feet. He's also deliberate. I have no fears about attacking him, because he's not going to hurt me, even when he's throwing me without restraint.
He used me (and Adam, the other uke as defensive weapons. Hanging onto us, if that would let him break up the attack which was going to come, or throwing us so the other would have to move out of the way, and so he set the rythm, even if we had control of the tempo.
And I got dressed, and drove home, in a much lighter mood than I would have had (though I was still a trifle moody, and testy, even yesterday), had I not gone to practice Aikido; on the mat.
They were all straw men, and one of them was just stupid.
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