On My Mind

Executive editor — issues and opinions

A Different July 4th

My cousin Jon and I have stayed close friends through the years since our childhood.
It’s one of the nicest parts of my life to hear his voice and connect with his wife Joan and their son and daughter.
One of my deepest memories are the 4th of July celebrations we observed at Jon’s parents house in Darnstown, Md.
My uncle Julius and Aunt Irma purchased a home and land in the outer suburbs before everyone else caught up to them. We felt as if we were in the country when visiting them.
I remember the buildup to the fireworks. My mom and her sister would talk on the phone once a week, waiting until after a certain time to call for cheaper long distance rates. Their conversations made the rest of more excited.
July 4th meant my uncle went out and purchased one of those boxes of fireworks with the “snakes,” Roman candles, sparklers and bottle rockets. There would be an occasional package of firecrackers, but nothing really scary.
Yet this tradition connected us as a family through my childhood, teenage and adulthood.
My girlfriend Lisa, my wife of now almost 34 years, met the family at this celebration.
My children can remember the fireworks at Aunt Irma’s.
So Julius and Irma and my parents have passed on.
Here it is July 3, 2010 after Shabbat.
I get a text message from Jon.
There are fireworks at a park near his home in Virginia. Would we come?
My wife and I share the memories of Jon’s parents’ house on July 4th.
We felt as if we couldn’t wait to be together.
The drive through a hot Sunday afternoon led us to the town of Great Falls.
Narrow roads and well spaced houses with high shade trees made us feel we way out in the country.
Jon and Joan greeted us, along with their son David and his girlfriend Emily.
David is an officer in the U.S. Marine Corps. Emily is an officer in the U.S. Coast Guard.
This was going to be a different July 4th I thought.
And sure it was.
My cousin is going to deployed later this year in Afghanistan.
He’ll be attached to infantry.
When the sun set, and the firework display started, I looked over David if the fireworks had any different meaning for him than for the rest of us.
There were little children oohing and aahing, some waving American flags.
The picnics themselves, were decorated in red, white and blue table cloths, utensils and cups.
The fireworks also added color in the night with gold, reds and sparkling blue streams of fire in the Virginia night.
Below the fireworks, along the park land the haze of the explosions fought against the crushing heat and humidity to follow the sparks skyward.
Later in the evening, I had a chance to talk with my cousin David about Afghanistan.
His commitment to cause is unshakeable. The energy in his eyes suggests things like “if you only knew what I knew” or “how can I not take on this mission for my country?”
How could he not go?
I asked him if there is a transition a combatant must go through or learn from that bridges the experience learned in training and in the classroom to the live battlefield.
He’s been to different courses for officers, infantry school and even a trainings involving live ammo.
But it’s so much more than that.
My cousin believes in the mission of this country. There is no other fulfillment other than for him to answer the call of country.
He looks forward to it.
When he was a little boy, I remember him at my aunt’s house. He oohed and aahed with the rest of us when a small firework burned its pretty colors.
The fireworks he watched the other night weren’t going to hurt anyone.
Let’s hope that the fireworks he watches in Afghanistan leave him as safe as childhood summer evening in his grandmother’s backyard.
We are all proud of him.
And we know that perhaps this most recent July 4th had a different nuance for David, his parents Jon and Joan and for all of their family and friends.
But as David said to us about his deployment.
“It’s time.”
We want him to be back with us next year, this time.
Again with the oohing and aahing.
Hurry back David.