Soldiers we're supposed to forget

My family tree is riddled with soldiers, so Memorial Day holds deep and varied meanings for me. My earliest documented fighting ancestor decided he didn't want to live under British rule and so signed up to be an American patriot in time for the Revolutionary War. My most recent military relatives include a cousin who spent much of 2007-08 at an airbase outside of Baghdad and another who currently serves in the tarpit known as Afghanistan.

In between my revolutionary great-great-great-great-great grandfather and my cousins there is a whole host of other fighting men I'm proud to claim as my own.

My father's three older brothers each served their time during WWII, one in airplanes over Europe, another on the ground at the infamous Battle of the Bulge, and one in the Pacific. My dad was drafted during the Korean War, doing his time stateside but doing it nonetheless. My mother's brother served in the Navy, and his son is the one who went to Iraq.

Further back in time, though, are the Confederates, the men who took up arms against the North during the Civil War. They had no way to know they were destined to become part of a national identity crisis that some believe will begin to abate now that a black president has been elected.

My great-great grandfather could never have predicted that his descendents would be asked to bury his memory alongside his bones and thereafter speak of him only in hushed, apologetic tones.

Veterans groups nationwide cringe at the thought of including Confederate representation in their parades and commemorations and, indeed, some have banned them altogether. The Politically Correct Among Us are all too happy to protest any symbolism associated with Civil War soldiers from the South, so the pressure to keep things nice and comfy is huge.

Confederates go largely unnoticed by all but a handful of dedicated genealogists, Civil War buffs, and people like me who owe their very existence to the fact that at least some southern soldiers made it back alive.

None of the the men in my family who fought for the South in the years 1861-65 owned slaves. Not a one. They were fathers, brothers, sons, farmers, shopkeepers, several of them were dirt-poor and there was only one with any college education.

Two families each sent three sons to war. One family got all theirs back. The other family lost two.

The surviving son, John Stephens, made it back to Arkansas where he married, had twelve children, and became in time a banker and respected member of his community. One of his daughters taught first grade for 50 years, helped care for her infirm and aging older siblings, believed in God with a quiet tenacity, and raised a child in spite of an alcoholic husband whom she quickly summoned the courage to divorce. That child was my grandmother and she used to tell me stories about her grandparents and their hardships after the war during Reconstruction.

John's two brothers died far from home. The one buried in Macon, Ga. has a tombstone with his last name misspelled. The other, blown to pieces by a cannonball during the Battle of Vicksburg, was never buried because there wasn't much left, my grandmother said.

Another Confederate ancestor was only 16 when he was wounded in battle and piled atop a wagon to be taken to a prisoner of war hospital near Citronelle, Al. He was eventually released and made it home to Arkansas minus an arm.

There are others in my family, but these give a glimpse into the lives and sacrifices of the soldiers we're all supposed to forget.

What I can't forget, and what I won't let my children forget, either, is that these Civil War kin had names. They were someone's son, brother, husband, father, friend. They fought a war without penicillin, clean clothes, armored tanks, anesthesia, night-vision goggles, automatic rifles, the internet, bottled water, USO shows, MREs, or Chapstick and Off!.

I'm proud of them for doing what they thought was right at the time, for having the courage of their convictions and for enduring unimaginable pain and suffering in defense of their "country."

Some of you reading this will not agree. You'll say the southern soldiers deserved every hardship that came their way. You'll want to vilify them for supporting slavery because you'll have not read your history books to know their cause was nowhere near that simple.

But in our family, on this 'blog, on this day, we remember with love and gratitude John H. Stephens, Benjamin F. Stephens, William G. Stephens, Thomas Hamby, Elijah T. Wells, John Blevins, William Blevins, and Hugh A. Blevins, Jr.

They, too, were America's sons. Part of her family. Part of mine.

Pillowcases For Mother's Day

It's hard to escape the fact that I'm a mother. After all, four little voices and four sets of needs, confront me every hour of every day, reminding me, cajoling me, rebuking me for all that I have or have not done to make their lives paradise on earth.

So when the older ones realized Mother's Day was coming up, they began to regale me with promises of treasures untold, each one trying to outdo the other in the, "Just wait until you see what I give you" department.

I wish I could say I didn't have a favorite gift this year, but I'd be lying.

One of my daughters wrote for me a sweet poem that actually rhymes. She's not prone to spontaneously generated verse, so this is pretty precious.

Another of my girls drew for me a beautiful picture of red roses. She's our resident artist, so this offering was not entirely unexpected, although it, too, is very much appreciated.

No, the clincher -- the gift of all gifts to give a weary mum on her special day -- came from my rambunctious, sometimes obnoxious, always handsome and astonishingly brilliant four-year-old son.

No candy, no writing, no flowers. Just. . . pillowcases.

Two of them. Blue cotton sateen.

"Mama," he said, his big blue eyes earnest in a face of delicate features, "I'm going to give you a present for Mother's Day. Do you know what I'm going to give you? I'm going to go up and get something from my room and that will be your present."

He often complains he doesn't have any money and won't have any until he grows up and becomes an electrician and buys his own house and little car to drive around. This day was no different. "I'm just a little kid and little kids don't have lots of money," he said, his voice trailing off as he went up the stairs to his room.

When he returned, he was hiding something behind his back and excitedly asked me to guess what it was. When I couldn't, he proudly produced the two pillowcases packaged in a little drawstring bag just as I'd bought them on sale some months ago to use in his room. That was then. Now they took on a whole new aura -- they'd become a Mother's Day present.

"Do you love them?" my son asked gravely. "Will you put them on your pillows tonight?"

I assured him his dad and I would be thrilled to have nice new pillowcases on our pillows that night and for many nights to come and he seemed satisfied that his mission was complete.

"Now I'm going to give you a big Mother's Day hug," he said. "Even though you are big you are still precious so I'll call you precious."

And with that, two little wiry arms wrapped themselves tightly around my waist.

I'd originally hoped to get a nap for Mother's Day. That didn't happen, but in retrospect I got something much more useful and enduring. Every time those blue pillowcases make an appearance on our bed, I'll be reminded of the deep and sincere heart of a four-year-old boy and the privilege I've been given of being his mother.

Thanks, God.

What one pageant bigwig says about the Bible

Keith Lewis is the co-executive state pageant director for the Miss California competition. He is also gay and while his remarks towards Miss California Carrie Prejean -- the one who had the audacity to say she thought marriage should be defined as being between a man and a woman -- were much more diplomatic than some, he also offers up the thoroughly modern opinion of what the Bible is and what it represents. Sadly, Mr. Lewis is in good company and that's why folks like Ms. Prejean face such stinging rebuke when they use the Good Book to support their positions.

As quoted on FoxNews.com, Mr. Lewis, who was raised Christian, says, "(T)he Bible I have now come to know is an amazing historical document that was written in a time by people who had a different understanding of what our world was. We live in a world that’s very different at this point, our understanding is very different."

Ah, there it is. The left-handed compliment. The Bible, an amazing historical document, but definitely not the Word of God, a living book of rules to safely guide those who will follow it.

Nope, it's just a bunch of dusty old stories told by crusty old men who obviously didn't have enough to do what with scratching out their livelihoods at a time when pretty much everyone had nothing. Give it no credit for changing lives, healing bodies, or otherwise forming the very foundations of civilized nations. Its contents have inspired no one to greater good, made no martyrs -- Harriett Tubman, Corrie Ten Boom, Abraham Lincoln, Florence Nightingale, Albert Schweitzer notwithstanding.

At least this is what athiests and all who are repulsed by its contents would have us believe.

I agree with Mr. Lewis that we do now live in a world that's very different from the one nearly 2000 years ago. It's different alright, but it's not necessarily better.

The beauty queen and the Book of Hebrews

By now, you've likely heard about the obnoxious and politically-charged remarks of gossip columnist Perez Hilton directed at Carrie Prejean, the 21-year-old woman who represented California in Sunday's Miss USA beauty competition.

Hilton was one of the contest's judges and Prejean, favored to win the competition, drew his question and ultimately his wrath.

When asked what she thought about legalizing gay marriage, Prejean said she thought marriage should be defined as a union between a man and a woman.

That answer cost her the crown.

As if losing the title wasn't bad enough, Hilton saw fit to castigate Prejean on his 'blog, calling her all manner of foul and obscene names.

Hilton is a vile little man whose only claim to fame is gossiping about Hollywood's rich and famous. Prejean is just 21 -- someone's beautiful, smart, and obviously courageous daughter whose decision to honestly answer a question seemed to result in a big loss.

But maybe not.

Prejean, a Christian, says she just couldn't bring herself to compromise her beliefs. Coincidentally, the May 4 issue of a magazine called the Christian Science Sentinel features an article by Principia College Professor of Religious Studies Michael Hamilton in which he explores the topic of how the New Testament holds the keys to a more God-based life. Hamilton writes, "Hebrews appears to be addressed to a people who believe that they have lost everything: their status, their respectability, and their place in the community. Their loyalty to Jesus has apparently cost them their membership in the Jewish synagogues; they are being shunned by the religious authorities and their countrymen. Under the stress of such circumstances, why live a Christ-based life? Is it too hard, or worth the effort?"

Hamilton then quotes Hebrews 3:14. "We are made partakers of Christ if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast unto the end."

I don't know Carrie Prejean, but I like her a lot and if she was my daughter I'd be bursting with pride right about now. It's not because she managed to piss off the Politically Correct that prey upon us at every twist and turn or because she tweaked the twerpy Perez Hilton. No, I like her because she spoke the truth as she knows it to be and did so unequivocally and unashamed. And in the days after the pageant, she refuses to waffle or retract.

With character like that, she did well to lose out on the beauty competition. She's obviously destined for greater things.

Congratulations, Carrie. You've just restored my faith in the next generation.

And btw, Hilton's trashy insult in which he called Prejean a "dumb b**ch," just proves how dumb HE is. Prejean is studying for her bachelor's degree with plans to earn a master's in special education. She has also been involved in several faith-based outreach programs including one to help young women victimized by the pornography industry, another to help mentor children in foster care and yet another to teach English to refugees.

Tell me again what Perez Hilton has contributed to the culture?

Columbine

Every once in awhile someone asks me why our family decided to homeschool our children. I always wish I had a lofty, highbrow answer to give -- something along the lines of, "Oh, my husband and I both speak eight languages, do complex mathematical equations over brunch, and read in Latin and Greek for entertainment so we want to make sure our children visit Cambridge at least twice a year and have an audience with winners of the Nobel Prize in science."

But I can't lie. The truth is that we plunged headlong into homeschooling while our first child was still in utero because of Columbine.

I didn't know it at the time, but the life I was living and thought I'd continue to live was radically changing as the events of the morning of April 20, 1999 unfolded.

That day, the day two highschoolers shot up Columbine High School in Littleton, CO and killed 12 of their classmates, a coach, and finally themselves sent shockwaves across the nation.

One of those waves hit me right in the stomach, figuratively speaking, where my firstborn child floated in the dark safety of my womb.

I was only four months pregnant and this baby meant more to me than, well, life itself. I'd been coming to grips with the fact that babies take your energy and turn it back on you, that they come into the world the center of your universe and duly self-centered.

But I didn't plan for a tragedy to take the model of maternal self sacrifice to a whole other level.

When I got home from work and flipped on the TV only to see the endless loop of footage from Colorado, I snapped.

All I could think about was how the parents of Cassie Bernall, Rachel Scott, Corey DePooter, Isaiah Shoels, Daniel Mauser, Daniel Rohrbough, Kyle Velasquez, Steven Curnow, Matthew Kechter, Lauren Townsend, John Tomlin and Kelly Fleming sent them off to school that morning, fully expecting them to return home alive and well that afternoon.

Their precious and beloved sons, their beautiful and talented daughters -- all gone.

A lot of folks mourned the loss of those young lives. I found myself mourning for their parents. So many dreams and expectations . . .

Sheer panic swept over me and I began to cry, wondering how on earth I'd ever be able to let my child go off to school on that fateful, inevitable First Day.

What if she didn't come home? What if, what if, what if?

When my husband got home from work that night, I told him I wasn't letting our daughter go off to school. "Never?" he asked, a bit perplexed but also wary of a pregnant woman with a vow and a mission. "Never," I affirmed. "At least not for many, many years and even then we'll have to weigh it carefully."

And thus it was that we decided to homeschool. In the beginning, we did it out of paranoia, fear and the near-obsessive love most parents feel at the sight of their newborn child.

Over time, we began to see other virtues to our new way of thinking and living with our daughter as we added more children and delved into the astonishing array of learning opportunities unconfined and undefined by traditional classroom walls.

I don't know whether we'd have opted to homeschool if there had been no Columbine. I wish I did. I wish I could say unequivocally that we were dedicated to the ultimate sacrificial style of parenting from the day I found out I was pregnant, but I'd be lying.

Teaching your own children is not easy, it's not even always fun. It doesn't come with an ironclad guarantee that your kids won't grow up to do stupid or bad things and it does usually force radical restructuring of every single priority. It leaves scant room for self indulgence. It compels a family togetherness practically unheard of in an age in which children and parents are regularly disconnected from each other by space, time, and multiple love affairs with televisions, video games, cell phones and computers.

Columbine propelled me into the best life I never dreamed I'd have even as it shattered the lives of so many others, and it taught me from the very beginning of my parenting experience that every day with our children is a gift of monumental importance.


In memory.