As Memorial Day approaches, thoughts go back to another Memorial Day years ago.

I took my small son, who loved race cars, to a closed circuit showing of the big Indianapolis 500 race. When the flag filled the screen and the national anthem played, not a soul stirred. I took my son's small hand and stood with him, the only two standing among hundreds. Soon, in twos and fours, others stood until the whole theater was standing.

Guilt? Remembrance? My son thought I had done something great, though he didn't understand what.

The next day I kept him out of school to try to explain why we stood up, and why his dad wasn't great, only grateful.

I took him to a large national cemetery. It's a quiet, beautiful place, and an awful, ugly place at the same time. A paradox. A lush, well-manicured grass watered by millions of tears.

It is as though elephants walk here. The steps are so heavy. Old men walk these rows of white, shoulders bowed. Men forced to reverse the natural order of things, to bury a son, and with him, a part of themselves.

Hundreds, no thousands of crosses, over broken bodies at rest. Young boys having to become men almost overnight. Did they have that first big date? First kiss? They will never teach their child to bait a hook, drive a car. And the parents, when they handle a favorite jacket, the cement in the barn floor with the child's hand prints ...

Sometimes children walk where they shouldn't walk. I'm sure the boys below wouldn't mind, would smile, for it is for the children that they sleep here.

"Can we leave now, Dad?" And so I leave this holy place, with a lump in my throat, and a tear in my eye feeling pride, respect, sadness and gratitude.

"Dad, you're squeezing my hand ..."