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Macaroni Dad

'Cause Dads Love Macaroni, Too!

By Damon Paxton May 22, 2015
Editor's Note: MacDad wrote this after taking our daughter to the war memorial in Tradition a couple of years ago. He had planned to write another tribute article this week but the time just got away from him. Since this article was written when we were just starting out, we felt it was worthy of repeating.

Remembering Those That Gave All


Sometimes you just want your kids to get it. You hope that they can sidestep being completely wrapped up in their Nintendos and Kindles and understand the gravity of the moment. 
 
This past weekend my wife and I took our daughter to the war memorial to pay our respects to our fallen heroes. As tough and stubborn as the little booger is, she unfortunately doesn’t stand much of a chance when my wife and I tag team in true parental fashion to wear her out. At six years old the war memorial didn’t appear to be as important as her pink Nintendo 3DS, but I wanted her to ‘get it’ for a moment and realize what we were seeing and what it meant. For at least a moment, I wanted her to see how important this day was and the symbolism of what this all meant.

My wife and I took shifts watching our daughter who had just faked a stomach ache and a dry heave so that she could return to the car and play her handheld game. After about ten minutes, my sun-baked spouse returned from the memorial field and it was my turn to spend a few moments among the white stars and crosses. I knelt down and picked up the dog tags on one of the crosses and read the name and the rank of the soldier who had lost his life in the line of duty. It was a somber moment and all at once I really felt the loss. I did this several other times imagining that the heroes were looking down and knew that I was there to thank them. My eyes welled up and as I looked across the hundreds of crosses and stars representing servicemen and women who once resided here in Florida, I realized what kind of an impact this must have had on their families. Each white painted symbol was arranged alphabetically in rows and each had a set of dog tags with the imprinted name of the soldier that had lost his or her life. Some of them were privates, some were specialists, some were colonels, some corporals and some lieutenants. There were tags from the war in Vietnam, from Korea, and WW II. Several of the tags appeared to be from Iraq and Afghanistan, reminding us all that we have brothers, sisters, fathers, mothers, sons and daughters as well as best friends and loved ones that still remain on duty and in harm’s way. 

After about ten minutes my wife returned to the field with my indignant six year old in tow. It seems every time I am unable to find the right words to motivate my daughter, my wife figures out how to get the point across. 

This was good. The boisterous kindergartner was out and walking around and after spending some time in the retired Huey helicopter and a few of the Army transport trucks I found myself in a row of crosses with my youngest child. She was quiet and seemed primed and ready for that teachable moment. I explained to her that these crosses represented lives that were lost by American men and women while they gave their all to protect this country. I showed her the dog tags on the crosses and helped her sound out a few of the names as we walked by and read them. I told her by reading their names they could hear us in heaven and they knew that we were remembering them and honoring them. 

My six year old was quiet...she was taking it all in.  

We spotted a cross that appeared to be from a local soldier and we knelt down to take a closer look. It had been beautifully decorated and adorned with handmade paintings, photos and decorations. There were pictures and crafts and ribbons and notes. There was an American flag made out of Popcicle sticks. We could see the photos and the smile on the face of this soldier and how he was also a great husband, brother, son and father. He was very young…too young. There was a hand written note from his wife and his son...it said they missed him. I tried to explain this all to my daughter but really struggled to get the words out; for the first time that day my daughter stayed very quiet and didn’t say a word. 


I was never in the armed forces, but always admired and had a great deal of respect for those that were. There are a lot of great places to reside in this world, but few are as great as the country we live in. True that each day we live with new hurdles and challenges, but there is no place on this earth I would rather be. The courage and the grit that built this land lives and breathes in all of us and we owe a great many thanks to our forefathers, our soldiers, our heroes and our loved ones who made America what she is today. Thank you all for your sacrifice.