Memorial Day is never over for these parents, many others

Published May 29, 2016

Editorial by Winston-Salem Journal, May 28, 2016.

Memorial Day weekend is usually a happy affair for most of us. We have a good time and then it’s over. But for others, especially those for whom the losses of war are still fresh, memorial days continue year ’round. Count Rebecca and Michael Swaim in that club nobody wants to join.

Their only son, Daniel, the boy who loved hunting and camping in his beloved Yadkin County fields and forests, was killed in Iraq. More than 10 years on, the dynamics of fighting terror in the Middle East have drastically changed. The American death toll is far less. But our best are still occasionally killed over there.

For their loved ones, just as for the Swaims, the pain can be unrelenting. “It has become more painful through the years,” Rebecca Swaim told Lisa O’Donnell. “It’s the finality of it and that he’s definitely not coming back.”

Those of us comfortably numbed by the ideal progression of lives — parents living long but dying before their children — have no idea of the sorry suddenness with which war moves to randomly end even the most intentional of lives.

Daniel Swaim, who grew up in the Wyo community of Yadkin, lived an intentional life. He graduated from Forbush High School in 2004. Soon thereafter, he followed a lifelong dream: He joined the Marines. By 2005, he was headed to Iraq, part of the still-young war on terror. If the goals of the war weren’t as clear as those of World War II, the passion to defend our country was just as strong on the part of Marines like Daniel Swaim.

That love of country is strong and deep in areas like the Swaim’s. The nearby Huntsville community, where Daniel dined with his parents before leaving for Iraq, has ties to the Great Wagon Road, Daniel Boone, the Revolution and the Civil War, O’Donnell report-ed.

At that meal at Alex’s Battle Branch Cafй, Daniel had his favorite, a bacon cheeseburger.

A few months later, he was dead, killed by an improvised explosive device that went off as he searched for insurgents.

“The community rallied, wrapping its arms around the Swaims,” O’Donnell wrote. “Yadkin County commissioners dedicated a playground at a local park in his honor; an American Legion post named a scholarship after him.”

And Alex’s cafй placed photos of Daniel uniform on the mantle beside other historical mementos. One of the tables was painted over and dedicated to his memory. “It’s a great gesture for us. We just don’t want to see him ever be forgotten,” his mother said.

Nor should the rest of us. We should remember Daniel Swaim and all those who have fallen in defense of our country, on Memorial Day and every day.

http://www.journalnow.com/opinion/editorials/our-view-memorial-day-is-never-over-for-these-parents/article_7786e076-29c7-5a3b-9700-7f6886ec3873.html