I always forget how hard this stretch of time between Memorial Day and Thomas's birthday on the 6th of July can be. A number of things have happened, either to us or around us, and another Montgomery County soldier has lost his life.

Gregory Hamilton, one of the members of the Montgomery County Veterans' Commission, has a cable access television program that he asked us all to appear on this past week. Actually, we taped interviews with him on Tuesday evening. Richard was out of town which was sort of ironic as he was the contact that Mr. Hamilton used, but I went and two of the other families went. We each talked for maybe five to ten minutes, allowing for some editing for the final show.

Sitting with everyone and talking again, a very comfortable thing to do. You don't get to do that with just anyone, because even those friends and family who love you and loved Thomas don't have the same experience and don't have the same decisions to make. It's only recently that I realized that we could get a copy of the autopsy report and yesterday Terry Gross's Fresh Air program on NPR had an interview with the doctor who made the decision that everyone who dies in Iraq and Afghanistan will be autopsied, at least by CT scan. Should I ask for this report? I would certainly be the only one who would read it. I think.

More to think about.

It's hard creeping up to that first anniversary. Things are happening right now that I think I'll write about instead--the memories will still be there I hope when I'm ready to revisit them.

We are still working on the library naming question. We are now in touch with four of the eleven families in Montgomery County (counting ourselves) and we are united in our desire to see this particular memorial done in this particular way. One of the families has been going to the monthly meetings of the Veterans' Commission formed by the County Executive: a workgroup was formed to discuss the memorial last month and they were invited to take part. This did not go smoothly, shall we say. And then the family got in touch with us again (we'd been in touch periodically) and asked us to go to last Monday's meeting. The public (that would be us) was to be given a total of five minutes to comment at the end of the meeting. Richard prepared a statement. I decided to wing it if I got a chance. There were five of us coming, two sets of parents, and one pregnant widow, which gave us all one minute.

In the event, our concerns dominated the meeting and we all talked throughout. I'm going to insert Richard's statement. We had a very sympathetic audience, including several Viet Nam era vets and some less sympathetic political types (just doing their jobs). I think they all listened. I just don't want to say more until we know a bit more.

Prepared Remarks of Richard Doerflinger
Father of U.S. Army SPC Thomas Doerflinger, KIA Mosul, Iraq, Nov. 11, 2004

Meeting of the Montgomery County Commission on Veterans Affairs
June 8, 2009

Over two years ago, the county named an ad hoc panel to consider names for the new Rockville Library. The chairman seemed committed in advance to naming it after former county executive Doug Duncan, and this idea won support from a bare majority of the panel; but county guidelines forbid naming public buildings after elected officials within five years after their term. Coming in a strong second, supported by some panel members and by letters and petitions signed by almost twelve hundred county residents, with support from major community organizations, was to name it Rockville Memorial Library in honor of the brave members of our county – 11 men so far – who have died fighting for our country in Iraq and Afghanistan. This widely supported proposal sank without a trace. Some say this option is off the table because the county executive would still rather wait out the next two years until it is technically legal to name it after his political ally instead.

Now we have alternative proposals: Allowing people who want to do so to walk through a “remembrance garden,” or putting names on a plaque (or as tonight’s agenda says, a plague) in a county office building. I’m sure these are well meant, but they miss the point. We the families don’t need a remembrance garden – for us, every garden will always be a remembrance garden. The point is not to find places that draw fewer visitors than the cemeteries themselves. The point of a war memorial is to find public, widely visited places where citizens are enjoying their freedoms, and remind them that these freedoms were purchased at a cost. Our son did not die for gardens, or for the right to go to a bureaucrat to find out you lost your fight over a zoning ordinance. He and these other brave men died in other countries fighting for the freedoms and ideals we at home take for granted – the right to assemble, to learn, to speak, to read, to write, to think. The library in our county seat seems a very appropriate embodiment of these freedoms.

But it almost seems the county government is allergic to the idea of honoring the fallen in general. Even the new Veterans Plaza in downtown Silver Spring will not be called a memorial plaza – and the large sign in front of the plaza says special events will take place there on Veterans Day, the holiday dedicated chiefly to honoring living veterans. A veteran is generally understood to be someone who is back from the war. Our loved ones didn’t live long enough to be veterans. Their holiday is Memorial Day, a day not mentioned in materials about the plaza.

And so I return to our original question of over two years ago, which has never received a straight answer: Why not Rockville Memorial Library?

I had a few minutes to myself late this morning so I decided to go back to the cemetery. We had monsoon-level rains on Monday after the Mass and before the barbecue, and we had them again yesterday but this morning was beautiful and dry and sunny so out I went.

Saturday is an active day at Gate of Heaven. You could see canopies and chairs set out, earth dug up, in one place a marker had been moved, anticipating a new occupant. I got to see all of this in more detail than usual because the little road closest to Thomas was blocked off and I had to walk across the grass to get to him. And yes, I check out the neighbors too (I always think of Thornton Wilder's Our Town which was the school play one of my high school years. Marked for life by a play I didn't much like).

When I got to Thomas's grave, I found the two little flags we had left on Monday planted at the upper corners of the marker. In between them now were two much larger flags, evenly spaced. The tips were different so I assume they came from different people. After I stared at the marker for a few minutes, I realized that there were flower petals scattered around the marker, and after a few more minutes of staring, I found them on the grave too. Those monsoon rains had apparently crushed them and left them soggy, but they also made sure the petals stayed put.

I like knowing people have been there.

On my way back to my car, I stopped at a few other flag-decorated graves. Two side by side had the same last name, one a veteran of WWII, one of Viet Nam. The elder died in 1973, the younger about three months later at the age of 21. I wonder about their story, but I've let their names slip through my memory so I'll never know. But at least for a few minutes today, the traditional Memorial Day, someone honored their memory.

*****
Wikipedia's entry for Memorial Day (at least today's version) has an explanation of the date and observance: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memorial_Day

It doesn't look like I'll be able to go Arlington today--my impulse towards hospitality means that we are going to have to spend today doing some necessary shopping and yard work instead. But here is something I wasn't expecting: MSNBC is keeping a page of remembrances from family and friends of various service members and the son of an old neighbor is there. Someone had told me that Mrs. Avelleyra's son had been killed in Viet Nam but when I met her in 1986 she never spoke of him to me, I suppose because it had been 18 years since his death and also because I was a generation and a half younger than she. I did look his name up on the Wall one day because people should not be forgotten. And now here he is, remembered by his sister: PFC John William Avelleyra http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30891965/

This long pause of two months needs a bit of explanation. Basically, five days after that last entry, my mother-in-law had a cardiac event. In the end she went to the hospital three times for monitoring, for placement of a stent in a coronary artery, and then for a blood clot that ironically was formed because she was taking anticoagulants. The hospital she spent the most time in does not have internet access for patients which meant that all of my usual activity online was put aside for the duration. She's doing much better now. This doesn't have much to do with Thomas, though one of the nurses while trying to make conversation asked Edith casually how many children she had. So Edith told her that she has two living, and one who died last year. Poor nurse was a bit taken aback so went on to the "safe" question: what about grandchildren? And again, it was five living, we lost her son (pointing to me) a few years ago. Again, I felt a bit sorry for the nurse but that is just the way it goes sometimes.

This is Memorial Day weekend. We are going to have a barbecue on Monday afternoon. We will start the day with Mass at the cemetery. I would like to go to Arlington, but that does not seem practical at the moment. I might be able to carve some time out tomorrow. NPR did a Story Corps story yesterday about the father of one of the fallen of the Stryker Brigade (Nainoa Hoe)--it was beautiful and I left a comment last night. I always feel a bit odd doing that, but I do it anyway: one man's story is the story of all of us. Anyway, I want to visit Michael Bordelon's grave and those of the other soldiers whose names I have learned and families I have met.

*****
The rest of our trip to Washington state was mostly taken up with visiting and doing a bit of sight-seeing. This was the first time I had been back of course since we said goodbye to Thomas that last day and I will admit that it was very hard to be in places that we'd been in together last time. I had spent a good deal of time since his death thinking that I would never be able to go back to Washington at all. The rational half of me knew that was unrealistic: most of my relatives live there and a number of friends and now that I had added Laurie to their number (Laurie is not a great traveler by her own admission but I'm working on her!) it was clear that I really would have to do it someday. But it was hard going on those roads and seeing those places again . . .

Matthew had been four years old the only other time he'd been to the Pacific Northwest so we took him on a ferry to Port Townsend so he could see both water and mountains--unfortunately, the crossing was a bit rough that day and he looked a little apprehensive, not to mention seasick. On Saturday night, my sister had a sort of party for us, including our cousins and many people I had known growing up. It was lovely, and then it was time to leave. Our plane was very early and so we drove to Seattle to spend the night and drop off our rental car near the airport. I don't really remember much of that Sunday at all (except that I left my dental nightguard in the motel room! They did mail it to me a couple of weeks later). And then, it was back to the fray.

I left us at Fort Lewis in October of 2005. Following that lunch, the guys went back to their work and we moved on to the Tacoma Mall, a place I had spent a lot of time (and money) at as a teenager. Anna had to return to Maryland to go back to work the next day and Maria had decided to go with her as she had school, so they had booked a flight on a red-eye which involved first going to San Francisco and then across the country. Richard and Matthew and I were going to spend a couple of days at my sister's and fly home on Sunday. We got the girls to the airport and drove our rental car up to Mt. Vernon (Washington) to my sister's that evening.

I should have written all of this down at the time because, memory being what it is, I have now forgotten what we did for dinner that evening. I know that the next day, Friday, we took the ferry to Port Townsend from Anacortes. Port Townsend is historic and quaint, a worthy goal, and luckily the sun was shining, but it was windy and that ferry crossing was rough. Matthew looked none too happy about the motion of the boat. Nonetheless, we got there in one piece and found a very nice restaurant with a view of the water for lunch. Following lunch, I met one of my internet friends, Ann Marie, to sit and drink coffee for a very pleasant hour. (As a result of this conversation, I was able to pack up our vast collection of Lego blocks when I got home and send them to her for her kids with strict instructions to wash them first--they were extremely dusty!)

I know this sounds kind of dull and normal, but frankly dull and normal was exactly what I needed. It had been a very, very emotional day at Fort Lewis and just doing every day stuff was a great relief.

I have remembered something from the memorial ceremony at Fort Lewis that I cannot believe I forgot to mention. At the ceremony, Adam Plumondore's Aunt Lisa, who lives in Oregon, handed me a paper gift bag. In it, from her and Adam's mother and Laurie, were a number of fabric pieces, outdoor and patriotically themed, meant to go into a quilt someday. We didn't really speak (the ceremony started) and I have always been sorry that we didn't have a chance to visit.

Further, I never did photograph the shadow box. I will try to do that now and post it.

Because life is never straightforward, I have neglected this for a month. I've been housing my mother-in-law while she recovers from broken ribs and driving other people to various doctor appointments. I've been doing PTA business which reminds me of an odd intersection with our status as a Gold Star family. Apparently, the Westboro Baptist Church (Fred Phelps group) has decided to grace Montgomery County with its presence in April, picketing a local high school named for Walt Whitman. I believe the consensus is that we, as a PTA certainly, will ignore them. They are also planning to visit Arlington National Cemetery which I find appalling. I can't bring myself to read their website (I had a glimpse) so I'm going on the reading of others. These people are beyond crazy but I guess we can be grateful to them for the formation of the Patriot Guard. The Patriot Guard folks I've met have all been wonderful. If I ever find the patch they gave us, I'll scan it and post it here.

OK, I've written a little. Tomorrow I will try to write a little more, going back to my main theme of remembering.