Advertisement

None

Vietnam Funeral

At the high school Anthony attended the principal reads an expression of condolence over the loudspeaker. No one going there now knew Anthony, and so no one pays too much attention. In one class a favorite teacher of Anthony's reads her class a letter he had written "just a few weeks before he died, imagine." It is full of facts about the war, of gripes about the food and the heat, of praise of his buddies and their brotherhood in the face of the enemy. It also tells about Anthony's feelings about the war. He has a job to do, the letter says, and he will do it, because that is what Mrs. Carpenter taught him. The letter goes on to say, almost plaintively, that he cannot understand why the job was there in the first place, but that part Mrs. Carpenter does not read. It might lead her students to the wrong sort of conclusions, and besides, it is what has gone before that is important. No use cluttering up susceptible minds with detail, especially with the hippies and all. Mrs. Carpenter is a good teacher, and that is why Anthony wrote to her.

THE MINISTER at the funeral has a face like a photograph that did not develop properly. Everything is blurred, his nose runs into his eyes, and his mouth seems nothing but a line behind which teeth hide. He is a Presbyterian.

The pall-bearers are the good citizens of St. Louis and their sons. Mr. Blake moves in the best circles, and many of the men who bear Anthony to the grave-site are almost-rich, in the way that America alone can produce the almost-rich. These men are the vice-presidents and the branch managers, the second-level executives who buy the finest Hart. Schafner and Marx suits off the rack. Good men, men with consciences and children and wives who could step into a role in a situation comedy in a minute. It is a beautifully-staged funeral, the kind Anthony would have been proud to have.

"Oh, Lord, we commit this boy, thy servant, to your hands," the minister prays, and all the good citizens nod their heads solemnly. Many have buried mothers and fathers already, and they know the protocol of death.

"Lord, this was a boy dedicated to your service, a boy that all who knew him were proud of. Now he is gone to your mercy and to be judged under your grace. We ask you to hear our prayers, our Lord who died that we might live again through Christ Jesus. Amen." The minister finishes, and looks sideways at Mr. and Mrs. Blake, He see they are not crying, and he is pleased. It is a minister's duty to stem tears and to distribute grace and the promise of life eternal. Very few cry at a funeral at which he presides, he is happy to say.

Advertisement

"Anthony Blake died fighting for his country. Lord. He was a brave man and a good soldier, and we ask you to remember that. Lord, when he appears before you." The honor guard who has come back with Anthony looks at the minister, and the minister looks at him. The minister wonders if the soldier is sneering, but that would never happen. So he goes on.

In a while it is finished. and they are ready to toss the ashes and sprinkle the dust, and to commend his soul to God for the final time. And because he is a veteran, they have buried Anthony with the full privileges his heroism commands. Anthony Blake, dead at 20, is lowered into the grave, clothed in the flag.

Advertisement