Memorial Day 2026: In Memory of Those We Lost Spiritually

Date Published: May 30, 2016
​Date Modified: April 28, 2026

"​Every Memorial Day, may we remember all the men, women and children who never returned to us—those who made the supreme sacrifice and those who, though they still walk amongst us, seem forever lost ... cast to the side of the road?"

Peter E. Greulich, Vietnam-Era Veteran, 1971 - 74

May We Never Have to Walk This Road Alone

Memorial Day in 2026 is set aside as a time to remember those who never returned from war.

​They made the ultimate sacrifice.

"I also remember those who returned home dead in spirit."

Tears are shed for those who took their last breath on the battlefield of “kill or be killed.” But I also remember those who returned home dead in spirit. These families, too, lost loved ones ... sometimes forever.

​​I am classified as a Vietnam-era vet but I spent my entire time stationed in Germany.​ ​Intellectually, I know I served during this time. I volunteered. I know I could have ended up in Vietnam, but I hold in the deepest respect those that were on the front lines.​

They are, to me, the true veterans of the Vietnam era.

​​Although many in my cavalry unit did tours in Vietnam, if one Staff Sergeant had not shared this experience with me, I never would have fully understood what he physically survived . . .  but lost both emotionally and spiritually.

Spiritual survival, though, was a different matter from just physical survival.

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One "Survivor's" Story of War at its Worst

I hadn’t known him that long but I knew he was different. He never seemed fully engaged: never talking, never joking, never cursing and swearing, and absolutely, never laughing. At times he was completely gone, lost in an internal world no one was allowed to enter—a place where no human could walk with him. His desk was just across the office from me. Sometimes I would see his shoulders slump and his eyes glaze over.

​One day I summoned the courage to ask, “Sergeant, are you okay?”

He got up and grabbed his hat to go outside, but as he was walking by my desk he stopped to sit. His eyes never left the door though, looking through it to a place beyond.

"My sergeant was completely gone at times into an internal world no one was allowed to enter."

I was raised that it is impolite to stare. But I don’t think he knew I was even there. It felt as though I was on the other side of a darkened confessional door. I saw his somber face and felt the anguish. Was I staring? Yes, because for the first time in my twenty years of existence I saw into a fellow human being’s soul.

He spoke softly, “I was responsible for a lot of young lives in Vietnam. Too many times we walked into the jungle only to exit with fewer men than when we started. I fought to keep them and myself alive. It was never about glory. There was nothing glorious about that war.

​When a new man arrived I hoped to shock him into caution, but nothing can prepare a person. I warned each one of them to not have a heart, to never care, and one day I was too slow to act.”

"A child came walking toward us."

He lifted his arm as if the scene were playing out in front of him and let it drop. “A child came walking toward us. ‘Chocolate’ was probably the only English word that child knew. Before I could do anything a bomb strapped to the child detonated killing the child and the young soldier's life entrusted into my care.”

His eyes watered, but there were no tears. He had long ago learned how to stop a tear—an open expression of emotion.

​I saw though, because no confessional door separated us.

He continued, “I don’t know how long it was after that day, but it felt like we were again walking down that road. . . . Another one of my men caring . . . another child saying . . . this time I shot . . . I didn’t hesitate. I didn’t pause. I didn’t think about right or wrong. I just killed a child.

“But it was different this time. No explosives. . . . no explosion. . . . just a child’s … mother’s … screams.

"They were not directed at me in anger but filled with the pure agony of the god-forsaken. Her cries exposed all the evil I had seen. . . . all I had done. It laid bare all the pain I had inflicted to avoid having pain myself.”
​
He turned to look out the window, “Every now-and-then, a sound catches me unaware. I will only hear it faintly, but it will have the right pitch and that day returns.

​"I hear her screams . . . I will hear them for the rest of my life.

"A child's, mother's, god-forsaken screams."

“May God forgive me because I will never be able to forgive myself.”
​
He got up and walked out the door.

"The soldier buried his spirit alongside the child's."

Physically, three lives died on this battlefield: one mother lost an innocent child, exploited as an instrument of war; one mother lost an innocent soldier, ignorant of war’s dictum of kill or be killed; and one mother lost a true innocent, because—no matter how hard we try—war, all too often, kills the truly innocent too.

Spiritually, though, a fourth life was also lost. ​This young soldier—who managed to leave the battlefield breathing—buried his spirit alongside a child's.

But his mother lost her child too, because ... for those back home who loved him dearly—the ones he tried to return home to—he had become truly unrecognizable.

I lost touch with this man when I left the service in '74. For too long, I failed to write his story. I hope he was eventually able to forgive himself, because God knows he was put in an unwinnable situation by the leadership of our country.

​This Memorial Day, may we remember all the men, women and children who never returned to us—those who made the supreme sacrifice and those who, though they still walk amongst us, seem forever lost?

Peter E. Greulich, Vietnam-Era Veteran and Author

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