These are shots of Jonathan in the service, one from the 80's as a young airman, and one from last year, in Afghanistan, working at Camp Phoenix.
I miss him terribly, especially today, but so proud of this humble hard-working man. He might not have heroic medals or an action-filled service record, but there are many letters of commendation and accolades among his trappings.
He's my hero. He could be working a desk job somewhere, running IT stateside, but he spends ten months out of the years away from us, the people he loves, to keep his band of brothers connected. In this age of digital and wireless technology, their communications rely on Jon and his peers. That's my boy.
He comes from a long line of patriots, as do many of us. We recently were blessed with his great-grandmother's cedar chest, and two days before he returned to Kuwait we spent an entire evening reading news clippings from WW1, draft registration cards, letters to home, and checking out button-up shoes and a year-book from 1911. G'grandmother waited for G'grandfather to come home from the Great War not long after she graduated from high school, and while she waited, she filled page after page of huge scrapbook pages with precisely-clipped articles from the local newspaper of battles and losses and war events. These pages are 2x3 and the fixative she used thinly along the top of each, still remains intact. I envision her at a kitchen table, carefully ordering each clipping chronologically. Several pages have articles side by side, instead of stacked one beneath the other to save space. These are the ones regarding the fall of the Kaiser and the end of the war. The ones she waited for.
I do the same thing G'grandmother does, wait for my boy to come home from this great global war. I don't know how they'll ever take down the enemy, but we watch and wait anyway.
My clippings are gleaned digitally and stored digitally on Facebook and in my blogs. I suppose I should download my Facebook page one of these days, but by the time our grandkids are the same age we are now, I doubt they'll be able to retrieve my stuff. It's not in a trunk. :-P But my heart carries the same sense of waiting and prayer and devotion that hers did.
Also in the trunk are three flags, two of which contain only 46 stars. What the heck? The family held on to these flags since before Arizona and New Mexico gained statehood. Whoa... talk about American history.
I also decided today since I couldn't get out, that I would steep myself in recent Gilbert family history, and so have pored over photo albums of Jonathan and his brother Jerod on a series of vacations with their grandparents in the late 70's. Replete in seriously short shorts and tight 70's t-shirts (which should have never been manufactured LOL), there's my blue-eyed boy on a horse, his sleepy-eyed brother wearing overalls; traipsing through Colorado; at Mt. Rushmore; on a train with their grandparents; exploring Montana; letters from home from a momma missing her tow-headed pair. What a treat for me to see the love their grandparents had for them to take them on long vacations, to hear their mom's words, to recognize with a great grin those rascally boys who pitched kumquats at me and my sister in our pool during those very same years.
Today I applaud my soldier, the blond-haired blue-eyed kid in the vacation shots, who has spent every year of his life ( give or take one or two) in service to his country since 1984. I am beyond grateful to be part of such a loving family who loved this country, and to join their long line of "memoirists", like me, who preserve our tender memories in word and thought and sentiment.
What a blessedly quiet, blessed Independence Day.
"Long may our land be bright with freedom's holy light, protect us by Thy might Great God our King!!"
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What's shakin' y'all! Thanks for musing on my musings.. anything you leave here goes to my e-mail ) Be blessed!