It's Never Too Late To Come Home

I got good news today. One of my uncles--the man who got the Navy to give my great-uncle his headstone for the cemetary just outside his hometown of Clarksfield, MN--called my mother today to tell her that not only has said great uncle's remains been found and identified, but that it looks like they're going to be recovered. That means we can finally bring him up from the wreck of the U.S.S. Oklahoma and bring him home one last time.

That's a Christmas present I did not expect, but nonetheless welcome and am grateful for. Well done, Uncle Blair, and I look forward to seeing the great uncle I never met come home at last. I would like to think that his shipmates, those who died with him, would also be welcome back home- assuming their families still remember them. Far too many men went off to war and never returned. Worse are that they are forgotten, their families long ago passing them out of mind. That's the second death, when the memory of you is gone and no relics of your existence remain. Dying isn't the worst fate; the oblivion of memory is.

Bring them home.