Brushes with greatness
David Letterman used to have a segment called "Brushes with Greatness," in which audience members were invited to tell the tales of their brief encounters with celebrities -- from Leif Garrett to Orson Welles. I thought it was a fairly funny send-up of our besotted-with-celebrity culture, and I think Letterman was probably aware of the added irony of undercutting celebrity worship on a show that was at the same time devoted to reinforcing it.
I thought about "Brushes with Greatness" when I drove to the mall with my two girls yesterday. As I pulled into a parking space, I noticed a parked car nearby that had a plaque in the lower left rear window. The plaque read: "In loving memory, P.F.C. Joel K. Brattain, 'Delta' Company, 1st Battalion, 504th Infantry Regiment, 82nd Airborne Division, K.I.A. 3/13/o4, Operation Iraqi Freedom." I was overcome with awe. Walking around the mall somewhere was a person whose loved one had made the ultimate sacrifice in his country's service. I scribbled a note of thanks in crayon (I keep a supply in my purse for the girls, and it was all I could find to write with) on a napkin and left it under the rear windshield wipers, next to the plaque. As I walked out of the parking structure, I noticed a woman and two children walking in the opposite direction, and I waited to see if she was the owner of the car with the plaque. She was. As she took my scribbled note from the back of the car and began to read, I walked back and introduced myself. Joel K. Brattain was her husband's "baby brother," she said. She had tears in her eyes; she thanked me for the note; she hugged me; we went our separate ways.
Briefly, my life had brushed up against another life that was connected in the most profound and concrete way with the ideals -- patriotism, courage, honor, sacrifice -- that so many of us can't bring ourselves to treat unironically these days.
Sixty years ago, brushes with that kind of greatness were not so rare. Men for whom "uncommon valor was a common virtue" walked among us -- they were everybody's fathers, husbands, sons, brothers, uncles. They walk among us still, and they are still, of course, fathers, husbands, sons, brothers, and uncles. We tend to forget that they are still our men and women; they don't belong to the Bush administration, or to the "military industrial complex," or to a particular socio-economic class. They belong to us. They are us.
Thank God for them.
I thought about "Brushes with Greatness" when I drove to the mall with my two girls yesterday. As I pulled into a parking space, I noticed a parked car nearby that had a plaque in the lower left rear window. The plaque read: "In loving memory, P.F.C. Joel K. Brattain, 'Delta' Company, 1st Battalion, 504th Infantry Regiment, 82nd Airborne Division, K.I.A. 3/13/o4, Operation Iraqi Freedom." I was overcome with awe. Walking around the mall somewhere was a person whose loved one had made the ultimate sacrifice in his country's service. I scribbled a note of thanks in crayon (I keep a supply in my purse for the girls, and it was all I could find to write with) on a napkin and left it under the rear windshield wipers, next to the plaque. As I walked out of the parking structure, I noticed a woman and two children walking in the opposite direction, and I waited to see if she was the owner of the car with the plaque. She was. As she took my scribbled note from the back of the car and began to read, I walked back and introduced myself. Joel K. Brattain was her husband's "baby brother," she said. She had tears in her eyes; she thanked me for the note; she hugged me; we went our separate ways.
Briefly, my life had brushed up against another life that was connected in the most profound and concrete way with the ideals -- patriotism, courage, honor, sacrifice -- that so many of us can't bring ourselves to treat unironically these days.
Sixty years ago, brushes with that kind of greatness were not so rare. Men for whom "uncommon valor was a common virtue" walked among us -- they were everybody's fathers, husbands, sons, brothers, uncles. They walk among us still, and they are still, of course, fathers, husbands, sons, brothers, and uncles. We tend to forget that they are still our men and women; they don't belong to the Bush administration, or to the "military industrial complex," or to a particular socio-economic class. They belong to us. They are us.
Thank God for them.
posted by Kate Marie | 2:23 PM | Permalink
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5 comments
5 Comments:
I hadn't read that, Rose. But now I have, and I loved it. Thanks.
That was a beautiful post. Thank you.
That was a nice thing you did, KM. Too many people say that they "support the troops" when they really don't. For many on the left, it's a meaningless mantra, and for many on the right, it's just a lazy way of saying "I read Victor Davis Hanson." What you did comprised an actual gesture of support, and I'm sure that the woman you met appreciated it.
Thanks, Jeff. To my great shame, I'm not sure whether I would have done that ten years ago, but nowadays I really take these men's service personally, and I guess I think we all should.
That was wonderful, KM.
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