Read more about Memorial Day from Huffington Post bloggers.
Sherwood would be 34, still a big brother, a father proud of his ever growing teenage son. He'd be holding it down somehow -- working like a dog, passionate about his family and the people he served. He'd know my son. They'd share on equal measure the endless newness and wonder of life.
Sherwood would be his father's hope as he fights cancer. He would be his mother's calm and his brothers' pride.
Sherwood would be here, present amongst the living, were it not for the war in Iraq.
Four years ago, in the emerging desert summer, an explosion rocked a suspected chemical munitions factory in Baghdad. A Pennsylvania Army National Guardsman patrolling the perimeter was fatally wounded when he was struck in the head with debris. His name was Sherwood Baker, age 30, recently promoted to Sergeant. He had a wife and a child.
My brother is dead. I must repeat that to myself with a quiet firmness. For many, Memorial Day represents the promise of burgeoning possibilities, a chance for a BBQ, afternoon beers and family gatherings. We, however, are consumed with flags, tears and the names of our dead.
For my family, Memorial Day bookends a season of anniversaries. For the fourth time now, we have repeated this litany. The last time I saw Sherwood was in February. The last time we talked was in March. His last e-mail came days before his death in April. His funeral was in May. And now we have this weekend to remember him amongst all of the fallen.
We remember Sherwood as we work amidst an inspired group of unlikely activists -- Gold Star and Military Families who want an end to the war in Iraq. We are regular folks, your every day nobodies, whose grief and vigilance is aimed at preventing further tragedy. We have banged on the doors in Washington, we have marched in the streets of America. We have relentlessly called for an immediate end to this hideous debacle.
Despite our efforts, and the efforts of millions of other dedicated citizens, the war has raged for more than 5 years. Memorial Day offers us pause, even as men and women, Americans and Iraqis, suffer death and injury.
In this moment as the eye passes over us, I find, perhaps, a single enlightening parallel. Our heroes who laid down their lives made courageous and selfless decisions to serve their country. They remind us that moral courage is nothing we can compensate. Rewards, we pray, are theirs heaven, for on God's earth they have lost everything they cherished.
We sift through the campaign season hoping against hope that the political process as we know it will end the war. We are wrong. No political strategy will end the morass, the corruption, the burning blanket on humanity that is Iraq. Only moral courage will end the war.
We who choose to stand on those grounds will not profit. The politicians who join us may not become Committee Chairs, they may not be re-elected, they may not have buildings named after them. They will simply do what is right.
As we plead our case, we will only be told intellectual lies about the need to continue funding the degradation and destruction of a sovereign society. We will only be asked to believe that our best interests are being served as death knocks on the doors of Anbar and America alike.
I have my purpose. Sherwood cannot enjoy the fruit of life -- he cannot watch his son become a man, he cannot counsel me, he can no longer raise his voice. There were no material possessions to inherit from my brother. Even his clothes were too big for me. What I carry of him now, what I speak in his name, what I raise my son with, represents all he has left me.
Memorial Day gives us each a chance to embrace the fallen as our own. Let us distinguish between the nobility of service and the nobility of this war.
Read the names of the 4081 servicemen and women who have been killed in Iraq. Each and every one of them is one of you. Common folks, unlikely heroes. Yes. Willing to sacrifice. Yes. Forever gone. Yes. Children will never be born, work will never be done, cries will never be heard.
Own their sacrifice and then ask yourself if you believe more of them dying in Iraq will bring justice to the world. Own their sacrifice for it is we who send them to war, and we who keep them at war.
Dante Zappala is the brother of Sgt. Sherwood Baker, KIA in Baghdad, Iraq 4/26/04. He is a member of Military Families Speak out (www.mfso.org) and Gold Star Families Speak Out (www.gsfso.org).
Loading comments… 
War is about profit and sacrificin
Your post did give me pause, and thinking about how Memorial Day certainly does have a very different signifance for people like you and families like yours.
I don't personally know anyone who's in the military: anyone who's serving in Iraq, nor served and died in this senseless tragedy.
Ancestory research does show there's been a good deal of sacrifice throughout many generation
That said, Memorial Day for us is usually a time to reflect and appreciate history and such historical sacrifices
Of all which is from reflective removed-pe
What Memorial Day means to you and your family is absolutely incomprehe
Saying I'm sorry for your loss is simply not enough.
Thank you for also including the Iraquis in your "memorial ".
The tears in my eyes are for your brother, your family and the 4,080 others who have given the ultimate sacrifice.
My heart is with you this Memorial Day and every day of the year until this abominatio
Its from the New York Vietnam Memorial:
"If you are able,
save for them a place
inside of you…
and save one backward glance
when you are leaving
for the places they can
no longer go….
Be not ashamed to say
you loved them,
though you may
or may not have always…
Take what they have left
and what they have taught you
with their dying
and keep it with your own…
And in that time
when men decide and feel safe
to call the war insane,
take one moment to embrace
those gentle heroes
you left behind…
Maj. Michael Davis O’Donnell: KIA 1970"
Burn in Hell George Bush
And Admiral Mullen's pious call for those in the military to avoid politics..
Why should any soldier listen to this edict when Bush violates it weekly?
Not to mention all of the retired military puppets who have engaged in politics while pretending to give Americans a true picture of the Iraq disaster!!
reveal the truth and save our country , our souls, and our soldiers. These are the unsung heroes of a true democracy. Their families don't get flags or 21 gun salutes but they get my thanks and my grief for their lives sacrificed for others.
http://www
"We", meaning most of us reading your column which will be ignored by most of the mainstream media, didn't support the Bush autocracy from the beginning. "We" all predicted the travesty that this autocracy is and the tragedy it has become for you and your family when you lost your older brother.
I watched with dismay and anger when I saw former U.S. Supreme Court justice Sandra Day O'Connor testifying before the U.S. Congress on May 16 where she sought sympathy for her husband's irreversib
Yes, I know, many have built up this aura of reverence and admiration for the former high court justice but "we" are not the ones who cast the deciding, so-called swing vote that put the murderous and genocidal policies of G. W. Bush in the White House. She alone must take responsibi
Yes, "we" cared and "we" still care. But had you and those in the mainstream media had the guts to speak out more forcibly over the past 7-1/2 years "we" may not be in this Bush-creat
When she went before a congressio
Her personal life's decision not only influenced the "legal matter" Bush Vs Gore, but she alone had the power of her "swing vote" that ultimately led Bush to veto stem cell research legislatio
Not too many people in our democracy got to vote twice for president. Once in the general election and again in a 9-person bloc of judges who selected the president of the United States by a plurality of one vote in their 5-4 decision.
In case you haven't noticed, G. W. Bush's personal life, thanks to 5 partisan judges, totally trumped any legal matters once honored by our U.S. Constituti
Like it or not, this country represents a collective
We must heal and overcome this cynicism, otherwise we become perpetuall
I am thinking today, of those 4081 as well as those American men and women that gave their lives in other conflicts.
Sherwood will be front and center in those thoughts.