Leaving the Dead

There is a code among Marines at war that they always bring out their casualties, living or dead.

It was drummed into us from boot camp on when I was in the Corps many years ago, offering a form of comfort when we were in combat. We felt assured that we wouldn’t be left behind on a field of battle, slowly dying.

“If you’re wounded, we’ll bring you out,” a gunnery sergeant once told us. “And if you’re dead, we’ll bring you out anyhow. At least you’ll be dead among friends.”

This was serious stuff 50 years ago in Korea, but we laughed anyhow because dead is dead, no matter where you are. Nevertheless, when it became necessary, we did carry out those who had fallen, regardless of the circumstances.

Sometimes we acted in grave peril to legitimize the mantra we had repeated all through training, and sometimes the casualties died in our arms, but, by God, we left no one behind.

That was a lifetime ago, and I can’t recall the number of dreams in which I have relived incidents I would prefer to forget. But now the time has come at last for me to leave the dead of my past behind.

I say that metaphorically this weekend of drums and bugles, this Veterans Day weekend, because I’m tired of the blood that stains my memory.

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Under ordinary circumstances, I treat Veterans Day as simply another semi-holiday among many, meant mostly for those who love a parade or a picnic. War movies fill the long hours of empty television and rhetoric the empty thoughts of those enamored by the sounds of their own voices.

I avoid rituals and statue-worshiping, preferring instead to leave whatever feelings I possess toward war either in the privacy of my thoughts or in the content of my prose.

The last ceremony I attended I was forced to listen to a speaker vent his hatred against the Japanese. The man, who had never seen a day of combat, ranted that he would never forgive them for Pearl Harbor.

It was a peculiar tirade in a world that had turned many times since 1941, but he was vigorously applauded. As I looked around the room we occupied, I could see his hatred reflected in the faces of others, and I wondered how long it would last.

Each war brings new antipathies and, strangely, it isn’t always directed toward the enemies we engaged.

I wrote once of Jane Fonda, speculating that perhaps the time had come when she should cease to be an object of vitriol stemming from her anti-war activities in the Vietnam era.

Five hundred e-mailers, prompted by online networking, messaged me their outrage, repeating lies about her conduct that even the American Legion disavowed. Veterans and survivors swore she was a traitor and should die like a dog.

I would rather leave those incidents behind and tell myself that time will resolve the enmities. Today will become tomorrow and tomorrow will become history and all will be forgiven in the long stretch of centuries.

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I would have preferred this Veterans Day to treat it as I have treated most Veterans Days in the past, by ignoring it. And I would have done just that, but for a small voice over the telephone.

I have a friend named Jeffrey who is 7 years old and who called to wish me happy Veterans Day. His father, my son, had asked him to do so because he felt that the young ought to know something about the sacrifices of the old.

His was a sweet voice that came to me unexpectedly, and I cherish the thought of it. It was a voice of light against the memory of darkness, like dawn after a night of terror.

He wished me happy Veterans Day and thanked me for what I had done for the country. When he hung up, I sat there for a long time, hearing his voice over and over, placing the sweetness in conflict with the event.

If there is ever a monument that should be built, other than remembrance walls and statues of soldiers, it ought to be a monument to a child. It would capture the bright innocence of that magic moment that youth lasts, before reality etches lines into its face and uncertainty into its voice.

And we ought to pray that the youth of the world represented by that monument will never grow old as we have grown old, with burdens of memory almost too much to bear, with an ache in our hearts too painful to address.

I hear Jeffrey’s voice, as I will hear it many times, and for a moment, however brief, however lovely, I will close my eyes and leave the dead behind.

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Al Martinez’s column appears Sundays and Wednesdays. He can be reached online at al.martinez@latimes.com