Then there was that time I was attending the changing of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier with my family to honor the unknown war dead at Arlington National Cemetery just outside of our nation's capital and I swear I felt a surge of joy, an honor if you would have it, when I raised my right hand in a salute to all the soldiers gathered around me only to see the soldier marching in front of me in the ceremony turn around and face me and say loudly,

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“Drop that hand and drop it now!”

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Though I did not understand it he regarded my salute then as an outright insult in as much as I was not yet old enough then to serve in our country's armed services. I, of course, being young and naive did not understand this and held grimly on in a deadly salute determined to honor the dead. For a minute there it looked as if guns might go off. This was just a couple of years after the Vietnam War had come to a close and matters were tense all around. My hand came down at last and the troops escorted us out of the cemetery gates and let us go. Those were some crazy times, the Seventies, none like them, not even the Trump era, and I think more carefully now about how to honor the war dead. It was just one more laying aside of the past until we all came together at last. One country, torn by blood, for one and all.