Tim McGraw - If You're Reading This

I was born barely a dozen years after the end of World War II. A boy growing up in the 1960s was surrounded by still fresh memories of that conflict. Toys, games, television: we were immersed in it.

It was mostly impersonal, though. Other than a grade school teacher who told us a few - very few - stories of his time as a Marine in the Pacific Theater, I didn't know anyone who had fought.

Or so I thought. In the last few years, my best friend's father started talking about his time in Normandy and northern France. Hard fighting, harrowing stories.

I mentioned that Rick and I would have loved hearing these stories in the 1960s. Didn't want to talk about it then, he said. It was too close, and life was full of kids, and family, and making his way in the world.

So why now, I asked. Not that I minded having to wait, but my curiosity was peaked. A lot of my buddies didn't make it back. I don't want people to forget them.

Memorial Day dates back, formally, to the years immediately after the Civil War, that great crucible that tested and finally made this country whole. There were no kids like me then, kids who didn't have a family member that had fought. Or maybe didn't come back. Shelby Foote, in his master work The Civil War: A Narrative, relates the words of Captain Holmes, from Keane New Hampshire, on one of the myriad of Memorial Day gatherings:

But even if I am wrong, even if those who are to come after us are to forget all we hold dear, and the future is to teach and kindle its children in ways as yet unrevealed, it is enough for us that to us this day is dear and sacred ... For one hour, twice a year at least - at the regimental dinner, where the ghosts sit at table more numerous than the living, and on this day when we decorate their graves - the dead come back and live with us. I see them now, more than I can number, as once I saw them on this earth.

Through our great good fortune, in our youth our hearts were touched with fire. It was given to us at the onset that life is a profound and passionate thing. While we are permitted to scorn nothing but indifference, and do not pretend to undervalue the worldly rewards of ambition, we have seen with our own eyes, beyond and above the gold fields, the snowy heights of honor, and it is for us to bear the report to those who come after us.

At the 2007 Academy of Country Music Awards, Tim McGraw performed a song about a soldier who didn't come home. Reporting to those who come after us.


If You're Reading This (Songwriters: Tim McGraw, Brad Warren, Brett Warren)

If you're reading this
with my Momma sittin there,
looks like I only got a one way ticket over here.
Sure wish I
could give you one more kiss
and war was just a game we played when we were kids.

I'm laying down my gun;
I'm hanging up boots.
I'm up here with God and we're both watching over you.

So lay me down
in that open field out on the edge of town.
And know my soul
is where my momma always prayed
that it would go.
If you're reading this,
I'm already home.

If you're reading this
half way around the world,
looks I won't be there
to see the birth of our little girl.
I hope she looks like you.
I hope she fight like me,
And stands up for the innocent and weak.

I'm laying down my gun;
I'm hanging up boots.
Tell dad I don't regret that I followed in his shoes.

So lay me down
in that open field out on the edge of town.
And know my soul
is where my momma always prayed
that it would go.
If you're reading this,
I'm already home.

If you're reading this,
there's going to come a day
when you'll move on
and find some one else -
and that's OK.
Just remember this:
I'm in a better place,
where soldiers live in peace
and angels sing amazing grace.

So lay me down
in that open field out on the edge of town.
And know my soul
is where my momma always prayed
that it would go.
If you're reading this,
I'm already home.

This weekend when you gather with your families at the Barbecue table, take a moment to recognize and salute the ghosts who join you, whether from the thickets of Chancelorsville, or the hedgerows of Normandy, or the sands of the Middle East.

Thank you. Rest in peace.

UPDATE 23 May 2009 22:51: ASM826 writes in the comments:

Either record them, or get him to write it. There is a national project at the Library of Congress to collect these stories while there is still time:
http://www.loc.gov/vets//questions.html

There are also hundreds of university, state, and local historical societies working on this. Here's what Rutgers is doing:
http://oralhistory.rutgers.edu/

This is great information, and terribly important. When I was a boy, the World War II veterans were in their prime. Now they're in their nineties. Each year there are fewer left. If you know one, or know one who does, please capture their memories, to bear report to those who come after us.