Thank You, Lawrence Starbuck

It was a beautiful sunny day in Atascader0, California. My kids and I and our good friends the Redels stood in the local cemetary on Memorial Day. They had joined us for our annual tradition of placing flowers on the graves of Veterans who, for reasons unknown to us, did not have any. The small American flags placed on the graves by the Boy Scouts waved gently in the wind, and there were lots of them.

The kids fanned out, reading the headstones. There were many from WWII and some from Korea. None had apparantly died in a war. But then I found one.

Lawrence Starbuck. Born 1952. Died 1972. US Marine Corps. Viet Nam.

I paused silently. He was born a year before me. Indeed, it could have been me. I was in the draft, but had a very high lottery number (352 or something like that) and I didn't have to go. Whether he actually died in Viet Nam, we don't know of course. It would have been at the end of the war. But we gathered around his grave and prayed for his family and all those who have died to protect our freedom. We also prayed for Kevin Andrews, the son of other special friends, who has just enlisted in the Air Force. We prayed for peace in Iraq and protection for those we know there.

And we prayed for the Prince of Peace to come soon. Only then will war end. Only then will there be no more headstones with little flags waving in the wind

Only then will there be no need for losing men like Lawrence Starbuck.

But until then... thank you.