Words can be a poor path to remembrance

I’m afraid I don’t know what point the military officer was trying to make.

Symbols communicate better then words.
The barrel-down M-16 topped with helmet and dangling dog tags has become the universal soldier’s memorial.
Add GI boots and a fireman’s helmet and a peace officer’s Smokey Bear hat. You’ve created the War on Terror altar saluted and prayed over and flag-decorated all over the land on Sept. 11
The display is affecting.
I went to a ceremony on a college campus where the ROTC brigade prepared the parade field. So effective were the symbols, silence would have been better than the words that were spoken.
The cadet commander read remarks badly in need of a copyeditor. I wanted to tell him it’s okay for student soldiers to use good grammar.
Then spoke the Army lieutenant colonel who is professor of military science. Nestled among the platitudes was a statement that no foreign power had occupied American soil.
He must not have known about the War of 1812 – its Battle of New Orleans. . . the burning of the White House. . .Dolley Madison.
Francis Scott Key wrote one of our enduring symbols during that war, “The Star-Spangled Banner.” The anthem describes the British naval bombardment of Fort McHenry in Baltimore harbor.
I’d be inclined to include Pancho Villa’s Mexican incursion in the American Southwest as an invasion. Our Gen. John J. “Blackjack” Pershing thought so, sharpening his troops before World War I.
The colonel might have recalled the Japanese invasion of the Aleutian Islands in our era’s World War II.
Or German U-boat forays into our territorial waters.
And Pearl Harbor wasn’t an occupation but might as well have been.
Like our 9/11 it was nation changing.
I’m afraid I don’t know what point the military officer was trying to make.
There’s no shame in being invaded or even occupied – only, perhaps, in failing to repulse.
Actions speak loudly and clearly and unambiguously.
Like symbols.