Memorial Day

It was a solemn ceremony. Mourners dressed in military uniforms interspersed with civilians dressed in black were gathered around the large rectangular ditch approximately half the size of a basketball court. Speeches were made at a podium dressed in the American flag; tears were shed, guns were fired and a lone trumpet played. The sky was fittingly overcast, a cold drizzle made it seem as if nature herself shared the sorrow on this day and during this tribute to the fallen.

And then the bulldozers came, scoops held proudly upwards towards the sky. The scoops were laden with the 3,454 bodies of the fallen in Iraq and draped with American flags so that the individual bodies could not be seen. And then, in turn, each bulldozer dumped its load into the large ditch as Taps was played on the trumpet. As the scoop tilted, the first few body bags rolled out and down, some hitting the edge of the scoop and tumbling out, but then followed by the larger almost fluid mass of bodies behind. A collared clergyman stood at the edge of the ditch, making the sign of the cross with his hands.

After the last of the bulldozers had dumped its load into the ditch, the 3,545 gray body bags now formed a large pile as the clergymen began their ceremony. "Ashes to ashes, dust to dust" could be heard between gusts of wind while a single scoop pushed dirt onto the pile, its warning beep sounding as it repeatedly backed up to get more dirt.

After the pile was buried and the mound tamped down by the bulldozer, as the mourners filed out some tossed bouquets onto the giant mound, other stood and said quiet goodbyes. And as the last mourners filed out the bulldozers turned and also drove away in single file.