Paul T. Keil, 25 May 2025
Memorial Day Weekend, Year C
Peace be with you, as we gather for the Mass to celebrate the Sixth Sunday of Easter, and it also happens to be Memorial Day weekend. So, here we are at Mass spiritually celebrating the Lord’s Supper that falls on a secular National Holiday weekend but it is appropriate I think, especially this holiday. From my perspective every congregation in every church in the nation should come together today to pray and thank God for the many freedoms we enjoy here in America and remember, for just a little while, the cost of those freedoms in human life. Unfortunately, many Americans view today as just another great holiday for, barbecues, beaches, and swimming pools.
I sometimes use the metaphor of a coin to describe our American Freedom. One side of the coin is the 4 th of July, remembering the day our forefathers officially told the King of England to stick his royal crown where the sun don’t shine. And the other side of the coin is Memorial Day, the last Monday in May, when we remember the cost given in human life, the greatest sacrifice any person can make.
I’ve told some of you my own personal little story about Vietnam. Basically, I was an out-of-control teenager from a broken home, lost my college deferment because I went to the beach instead of class. I qualified for Army flight school, and arrived in Vietnam as a 20-year-old helicopter pilot in 1968. I personally know about 14 of the names on that long black wall in Washington DC called the “Vietnam Memorial” and now I tend to squirm a little when someone says, “happy Memorial Day.” Friends, in my humble opinion, this is not a day for “happy” it is a day for deep respect and remembrance, especially for those who have lost loved ones or close friends.
I was raised on the West Coast. A region of the country I often say has no history other than a string of old Spanish Missions built by an 18 th Century Catholic Saint. The Army opened a whole new window for me however, when I was stationed near Washington DC and was given the opportunity to visit places like Independence Hall, Bunker Hill, Valley Forge, Fort McHenry, Gettysburg, and The Arlington National Cemetery. After that came Europe with those magnificent cemeteries of American dead from WWI and WWII. If you’ve never seen those places, you owe it to yourself to log on with your home computer and at least look at the pictures.
So, some 10 years after my last combat tour in Vietnam one of the young pilots under my command was killed in a night helicopter training accident in the mountains at Fort Hunter Ligget, CA, his name was John Brewer. John was a single parent with a 5-year-old daughter and was supposed to start a one-week leave that very afternoon after he died, because his mother was coming for a visit. When I suddenly realized what potentially might happen when his mother got off a plane and no one was there to meet her, I called my Battalion Commander and told him about John’s mother flying in. He told me to put on my dress uniform and meet her when she got off the airplane. Now mind you, I had never met this woman and all I knew was John told me she was coming from Wisconsin, and he hadn’t seen her for two years. Fortunately, there was only one commercial airline that flew in and out of the small airport near Ft Ord and when I called, they identified the flight Mrs. Alice Brewer from Wisconsin was on. And when I explained the circumstances to United Airlines, they said they would take her immediately to one of their offices at the airport so we could meet in private.
I’ve often said two things about that meeting with John’s mother, first I never want to do anything like that ever again and second, by the grace of God, I took Virginia my wife, with me. I found out mothers can talk to other mothers at times like that better than anyone else. Think about the emotions for just a second. This woman was at an emotional high of joy and happiness because she was about to see her son and granddaughter who she hadn’t seen for two years. And then some stranger was going to meet her and tell her, he was dead. As soon as she saw me standing there in the office doorway at the airport in an Army uniform, she knew something was wrong, and immediately broke down.
Now why am I telling you this story about Mrs. Brewer and her son John. My sisters and brothers, from that point on whenever I look at pictures or visit one of those huge memorial cemeteries, with row after row, after row of simple white markers, I also think of the moms and dads, the wives and husbands, the children, the brothers and sisters, and the close friends whose lives will never be the same because of each one of those deaths.
Virginia and I spent several days with Alice Brewer before she left with her granddaughter and flew back to Wisconsin, and the experience touched our lives. So, this Memorial Day if you know someone who lost a loved one while serving in the military say, “thank you” and maybe a prayer for them but don’t say, “happy Memorial Day.” This should be a day for remembrance, gratitude, and prayer. And of course, as we celebrate this Mass here today, we should all meditate on that crucifix up there above the altar and remember what Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, our God incarnate, sacrificed because of love, to free each of us from enslavement to sin. The greatest freedom of all. God bless all of you.
