Memorial Day Parade
By Tanya Biank

When I was just a boy of ten,
We crowded the street down Millington.

The clock tower struck half past noon,
The marching band oompahed out of tune.
The majorettes twirled and the beauty queens waved,
The fire engines roared, ready to save.

From Post 82 marched the old vets,
As a camera flashed from the town gazette.
And I caught candy thrown my way,
By a sweet Girl Scout named Emma Mae.

For I was just a boy of ten,
Watching the parade down Millington.

Balloons and banners block after block,
Then two strikes from the old town clock.
Just as the sun began to fade,
So ended another Memorial Day parade.

The crowds thinned out, gone home had they,
Back to their lives and another day.

I turned to leave, but what did I hear?
A cadence bellowing in my ear.
Then a flash caught my eye,
And voices let out a battle cry.

My palms turned clammy; I started to sweat.
A dry wind whistled: “Lest we forget.”
My mind told me to run away.
But a strapping voice beckoned, “Stay, Stay.”

There he stood in combat gear,
A grizzled sergeant of yesteryear.

Slowly, slowly, I backed away.
The sergeant winked. “Won’t you stay?”
“The parade ain’t over, my little friend.”
“Listen,” he paused. “Footsteps from ‘round the bend.”

Old Glory swayed tattered and torn.
Bullet-ridden and battle worn.
But the colors—the colors—so vibrant were they,
I shielded my eyes and looked away.

The red flowed like a fatal wound.
The white shone stark as a dead man’s platoon.
The blue wore the color of the sea,
Filled with tears from so many.  

Behind the flag marched man after man,
From Gettysburg to Vietnam.
 
“Freedom isn’t free my son.
Battles are lost and battles are won.
All at a cost someone’s gotta pay.
And so we march on Memorial Day.” 

That’s when I noticed, near the sarge’s heart,
Where a bullet had torn his chest apart.

The sergeant looked down at his gaping wound.
“Charlie blasted my whole platoon,
In the Mekong Delta in ‘68,
The game was up, the hour late.
We fought the Viet Cong as best we could.
Of my fifty men, just one stood.
Private Henry Lee Johnson was his name.
I hear he sells insurance in Tulane.”

My knees grew weak, my stomach churned.
I tried to speak, but my throat burned.
I was the only one left to see,
The hundreds of thousands marching past me.

Clouds formed as the men marched by,
And the heavens, they began to cry.
It wasn’t rain on that somber day,
But tears of angels that fell my way.

“Son, someday you’ll be a man,
And fight for the honor of this great land.
Never forget these souls who fell,
This is our story, which you must tell.”

And with that the sergeant, back in line went he,
Following that dazzling Old Glory.

This happened twenty years ago.
Why I was chosen, I’ll never know.

Today, I am a proud Marne man,
With tours in Iraq and Afghanistan.
But I’ll never forget when I was ten,
Watching the parade down Millington.