Buried or burned!

Your choice. Make it early.

Beyond the binary options, we still have Missing In Action, a designation by the War Department (DoD now) when soldiers, dead or alive, were unaccounted for.

Last week, my cousin was laid to rest. Her husband, a Ranger Major, had been a MIA for 47 years. My cousin was accounted for i.e. I can someday day make a pilgrim to South VN to pay my respects. Her husband? A big question mark.

In What Remains, the author lists stats and data to show there has been no closures for the thousands from both sides of the conflict (Vietnam or American War, depends).

Last week, in Uvalde, TX ; parents were to give their DNA’s for a match with their missing children’s (by the time the shooter was done with them, they were unrecognizable….even with School Photos on records).

What remains.

Then and now.

Buried or burned.

We’re worth more than what’s left of us. Not just in the memory of our loved ones.

All children are worth fighting for. From Gerber icon on up. Then they reach 18, or become an adult, we separate the wheat from the chaff: you, Syrian refugee, over there, you, productive Jews, over here…you, Corinthian College enrollees over here (…debt forgiveness) you white supremacist “not guilty” plead…etc.

The binary forced choice.

I once visited a town near the Cambodia border. Mass execution took place there by the Khmer Rouge. Out in the open-air museum one finds Empty eye sockets. Cheek bones protruded and of course, unidentifiable.

What remains.

The saddest thing was people stoically waiting for their turn, as if the longer in line, the longer they got to live. Then decades later, we, visitors, rinse and repeat: lining up for our turn to look at both theirs and our future fate.

What morbid existence! What else to say! (the Khemer I knew in Bataan phase II back in 83 were quite kind and soft-mannered, always with the sarong and bow).

Back to our options: buried or burned, missing or memorialized, DNA match or un-match.

We’re to make Heaven or Hell out of our short stint, all is up to us.

Be happy. Don’t forget to breathe. Don’t be like those who are peddling their snake oil in the aftermath of Uvalde (sideshow): free flashlights, easy guns or photoshops (vs what AR-15s can do by the time they are finished with your child).

What a tragedy we make of our lives. From Alamos on down to Antonio. From South St Philadelphia to South Vietnam. Beautiful country….GOOOOOOOOOOD Morning Vietnam. ” what a wonderful world…..oh yes….what a wonderful world”….

Please put on Armstrong’s cut on, to once again appreciate the lush-green beauty, all grew back after all the bombs (from all the wars put together) to “defoliate” and deprive the enemies of their sanctuary…. the secret bombing of Cambodia, the killing field of Cambodia, and everything in between (like MIA’s).

What they call Hell I call Home (Rambo). Still MIA and Maya Lin’s Vietnam Wall list is still growing. She herself has moved on: from the V-memorial to the museum of Chinese American history.

Meanwhile the unaccounted-for tilts heavily on just one side McNamara’s ledger. No closures. No burial nor burned. The weight of war.