Carrie Underwood - Just A Dream

One death is a tragedy; a million deaths are a statistic.

- Stalin

Joe Stalin was a cold SOB, but he knew something of human nature.  We simply don't do well with the notion of shared sacrifice.  And so, Memorial Day becomes something very different from the original and solemn Decoration Day, with its mass trips to the cemetery.  It becomes a day of grilling burgers and steaks, opening the swimming pool, and occasionally thinking of those who didn't make it home.

But it's abstract.  As Stalin would say, it's a statistic.

For some, it's personal.  It's their son, husband, daughter, wife that didn't make it home.  Instead of a statistic, it's a brutal tragedy, a grief that may never end.  While Joe Stalin wouldn't care, he would understand.

We should understand, too, and care.  Fortunately, country music has a song for that.  Carrie Underwood is blessed with the voice of the century, which is what won American Idol for her.  She uses that voice, along with an outstanding video production to entirely capture the personal for Memorial Day.  Not "the guys who didn't make it back", but dreams turned to dust.

That's what those men and women - and their families - gave up, in their hundreds of thousands.  Inside the statistics lie a million shattered hopes.  Remember them this weekend.



Just A Dream (Songwriters: Gordie Sampson, Steve McEwan, Hillary Lindsey)

It was two weeks after the day she turned 18
all dressed in white, going to the church that night
She had his box of letters in the passenger seat,
six pence in her shoe
something borrowed something blue
and when the church doors opened up wide she put her veil down trying to hide the tears oh
she just couldn’t believe it
she heard the trumpets from the military band and the flowers fell out of her hands

Baby, why'd you leave me, why'd you have to go
I was counting on forever, now I'll never know
I cant even breathe
It's like I'm, looking from a distance, standing in the background
Everybody's saying, he's not coming home now,
This can't be happening to me
This is just a dream

The preacher man said let us bow our heads and pray
lord please lift his soul and heal this hurt
then the congregation all stood up and sang the saddest song that she ever heard
then they handed her a folded up flag and
she held on to all she had left of him oh and what could’ve been
and then guns rang one last shot and it felt like a bullet in her heart

Baby, why'd you leave me, why'd you have to go
I was counting on forever, now I'll never know
I can't even breathe
It's like I'm, looking from a distance, standing in the background
Everybody's saying, he's not coming home now,
This can't be happening to me
This is just a dream

Oh,Oh Baby, why'd you leave me, why'd you have to go
I was counting on forever, now I'll never know
Ohh i'll never know
It's like I'm, looking from a distance, standing in the background
Everybody's saying, he's not coming home now,
This can't be happening to me
This is just a dream

Oh this is just a dream
just a dream

Not statistics, but people.  Filled with hope for the future and love for their families.

The memories of the blissful moments I have spent with you come creeping over me, and I feel most gratified to God and to you that I have enjoyed them so long. And hard it is for me to give them up and burn to ashes the hopes of future years, when God willing, we might still have lived and loved together and seen our sons grow up to honorable manhood around us. I have, I know, but few and small claims upon Divine Providence, but something whispers to me—perhaps it is the wafted prayer of my little Edgar—that I shall return to my loved ones unharmed. If I do not, my dear Sarah, never forget how much I love you, and when my last breath escapes me on the battlefield, it will whisper your name.

- Sullivan Belleau's last letter home before his death at Bull Run

Remember them.