When we went aboard the Arizona Memorial, and saw her sailors still aboard, my young 6 yr old son started crying and wouldn’t stop. Saying that we had to get them out, because their Moms need them. 2 Navy Waves sat down beside him. Both hugged him and started to cry.
That brought tears to my eyes.
Your son has a good heart.
And now I am.
I’ve told this before here, usually on Veteran’s Day. My Dad bought a poppy from the little rack where you took one and left a quarter every two weeks when we went to the bank to cash his check. He was not usually a man given to public display. One day, as we walked to the cafe for our usual special payday lunch, I asked him why he did this. “To remember my buddies who didn’t make it home and the ones who came home in pieces.”
I miss my sweet, uncomplicated rural Oklahoma childhood. The one when we had just enough and almost never more and appreciated it all.
I’m a grown man, an Albertan, and I’d have a very hard time keeping to together if I went there.
I’ve never been, and would like to go, but I’m inclined to only go places I can drive these days.
Your son sounds like he has a good heart, may God bless you and your family.
What a poignant moment! It reminds me of my son who cried when he saw The Inn of the Sixth Happiness, when Ingrid Bergman flees with scores of children from the Japanese Army. Crying, he kept repeating “Mom, they can come here, I have a lot of space in my room, we can put sleeping bags down”. The pure state of being of children not yet changed by the world.
What a beautiful son.