inglorious ending

the problem was that the political types wanted to advertise it as 'the little american town that made the biggest sacrifice'. their plan was to move all the graves away from the main road, tuck the cemetery far off the beaten path, force visitors through a labyrinth of roads (all containing souvenir shops) that finally shepherded the morbidly patriotic unavoidably through our 're-imagined' town center where they could enjoy freedom fries and cokes before they jumped back on the interstate. for those of us who had lost the loved ones entombed there the only thing that made any sense was to leave the graveyard where it stood; a thousand identical white headstones planted right next to the unsentimental ribbon of tarmac that had taken their shining, living faces away and brought back empty, cold vessels to lay in the ground and sleep every night under a blanket of dense diesel particulate matter and sweet, pure hometown dew. there was nothing glorious about it.

in the end we won, but only after much debate and heartache had opened all the old wounds. the military  recruitment station at the high-school still took their quota and the silent coffins kept trickling back in.