Mixed Feelings

This morning I played at the Texas State Cemetery to honor fallen war veterans. Apparently, this is usually the National Guard Band's gig, but they're otherwise engaged this year. I don't usually consider myself very patriotic, but playing the Star Spangled Banner for a bunch of war veterans, living and not, was one of the most moving musical experiences of my life so far. I honestly had a hard time getting to the end.

On the other hand, I can completely relate to the following quote from Mark Twain on a friend's Blog.

"O Lord our God, help us tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with their little children to wander unfriended the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sports of the sun flames of summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring Thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it. "
---Mark Twain, "The War Prayer"

So, that about sums it up for me. I'm a Memorial Day hypocrite. I totally don't get war--and I don't buy into what we're doing right now AT ALL, but I'm moved to tears by a group of men and women simply because they went to war. Who the hell am I?

What happened to the good old days when Memorial Day meant the lake, barbeque, and a six pack of beer? Okay, admitedly, those were never my good old days, but still. . .