Caregiver’s Corner: An Annual Pilgrimage to the Green Fields of France

I have a personal Memorial Day tradition that I observe every year, and you are invited to join me if you’d like. I’m not sure how it started, but each year at this time I journey back to a piece of music that touches the deepest parts of my heart and reminds me of the most important things in life.

For many years now on Memorial Day, I’ve sat down and watched this memorial slideshow set to the song originally titled “No Man’s Land” but also commonly called “The Green Fields of France” and “Willie McBride.” (Content warning: the video contains historical pictures of WWI that show death). The song was originally written in 1976 by Eric Bogle. This version was recorded by the American band, The Dropkick Murphys.

Somewhere around the 30-second mark, I always start bawling my eyes out.

I’ll be talking about my father and his experiences in this post. Now, my father did not die in the war he served in, so I grappled with whether or not this was appropriate. Memorial day is for those who died in service, after all, and he lived on until 2015. And yet, his life is my gateway into the world of those who gave everything in that terrible war, so I will tell some of his tale.

When I was born in 1976, my father was 53 years old. My mother, his second wife, was 30. He was a Baptist minister, and my readers with a background in the Old Testament or Torah will appreciate that he named me Benjamin Joseph. In the book of Genesis, Benjamin and Joseph were the sons of Jacob’s favorite (second) wife. That’s right, my name is a punchline.

My dad was born in 1923, and was 19 years old when he entered the Army in 1943. He served in central Europe through the end of the war and was discharged in 1946.

Like many from that generation, he didn’t talk about it. I’ve pieced a few things together from his papers, but not much. Somehow, though, he walked out of the most gruesome and terrible war in the history of humanity and brought me into the world.

I’d like to share a couple pictures of him from that time of his life. Would you indulge me a moment?

Growing up, many of my peers’ fathers were veterans of the Vietnam war. We didn’t understand as children why our fathers didn’t talk about their “daring” wartime exploits and victories. Bless the foolishness of children. We didn’t know: how could we? We didn’t see the ghosts that walked with them, ate with them, woke them up in the night. We did not understand that they were haunted men.

They didn’t want us to understand that. They fought so that we wouldn’t have to understand that. Many of those who came home never stopped fighting. Maybe none did. Can anyone really leave a war?

For some, the ghosts they carried found ways to take their lives even decades after the fighting ceased.

I think about my tiny speck of a life, this microscopic sliver of time when I have the privilege of living in this universe. I’m in awe of those who, like my father, were willing to offer their lives as a sacrifice to pass on a promise of peace that they themselves had not been able to enjoy in their short lives.

The most heartbreaking part of Bogle’s song about those Green Fields of France, for me, is the last verse:

Well the suffering, the sorrow, the glory, the shame
The killing and dying it was all done in vain
Oh Willie McBride it all happened again
And again, and again, and again, and again

At almost 50 years old, I have seen enough of the world to know that it is always happening somewhere. It happens again every day to someone.

But I have also seen enough of human kindness to believe we can choose something different. I believe that when individual people choose peace and understanding, it can spread. I have to believe this. My father fought for a better world. So can we all.

Somewhere in a far corner of my mind, I hear a soft voice sing the hymn, “Let peace begin with me. Let this be the moment now.”

I can think of no better way to honor the fallen members of our military than to be a creator and curator of peace.

May we create a world that is worthy of what of what the fallen gave us.

Remember.