Make Some Noise this Veterans’ Day

“The sound of a kiss is not so loud as that of a cannon, but its echo lasts a great deal longer.” – Oliver Wendell Holmes

Standing in a cemetery on Veterans’ or Memorial Day can put a person at the center of one of those great spiritual paradoxes. One feels simultaneously distant from and, yet, close to God. The peaceful flutter of American flags couldn’t be more different from the ear splitting clatter that most likely was the last thing some heroes who are remembered here heard, but yet this tranquility seems a fitting honor for those who gave their all for something greater than any one person can be.

Respect and honor should not always be a silent display.

On this Veterans’ Day in giving thanks for those who served, let us show our gratitude by using one of our uniquely endowed gifts, our voice.

God gave us a voice so we might strengthen the human bond and do good here on earth. There is no greater good than standing up for those who have lost their voice or whose voices get drowned out by the clangor of nonsense we people sometimes foolishly produce.

Let us find the strength, courage and fortitude to use our voices to advocate for those who have stood up for us in battlefields distant and near. Let us blend our voices so they forever echo like that kiss of which Oliver Wendell Holmes spoke.

Many veterans find it difficult to silence the terrible rumbling sounds of conflict the rest of us cannot hear. Too often the cries of these veterans go unnoticed. Let us raise our voices to make a thunderous noise, a call for help to quiet the demons which torment so many of our veterans long after they return home.

For if we do so, we may just find God is not so distant after all.

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Graham Gillette can be reached at grahamgillette@gmail.com 

This entry was first published as a Des Moines Register online essay.