funeral for a soldier

when i heard that someone would need to cover the funeral of a special forces soldier last friday at work, i felt sick to my stomach. i was really missing lance a lot, and the last thing i wanted to do was go to a funeral and talk to family members living my worst nightmare.

somehow i knew i would be the one assigned to go, and sure enough my editor came to my desk and told me to go to baltimore to cover it. the only thing that consoled me was i had worn a beautiful new black dress that day that frankly was perfect funeral attire. the right clothes really do make life so much better.

it was my first military funeral so i had no idea what to expect. the local fire, police and emergency service departments lined up the road leading to the church and directed parking. the family stood outside and i nervously checked with a funeral director about where to go in, and was relieved that they were not standing there for a greeting line where word vomit was sure to come forth.

the green berets lined up outside and eventually filed into the church carrying the casket, and the entire family filed in afterward. surprisingly, the tears i had been anticipating did not come. this was the first catholic funeral i had attended, and perhaps because the traditions do not hold any deep personal meaning to me, i found the service to be very impersonal.

i only started to get a feeling for what he was like when i began talking to his family members afterward. once you work through your feelings of 'i feel like the most insensitive jerk in the world approaching these strangers for a news story right now' and talk to the first relative, it gets easier to talk to a few more.

the published story is not what i would have written if i knew him. and even without knowing him, there are a few things i would have liked to throw in if i had free reign over what i could publish. things like a rant about the rampant infidelity in military marriages and women who dress like skankasauruses at funerals. judgments better left unsaid. so really it is probably for the best that i do not have free reign over what gets printed. ;-)

"Journalism without a moral position is impossible. Every journalist is a moralist. It's absolutely unavoidable. A journalist is someone who looks at the world and the way it works, someone who takes a close look at things every day and reports what she sees, someone who represents the world, the event, for others. She cannot do her work without judging what she sees."
[Marguerite Duras]