Sussex Teenage Republicans chair pens essay to honor veterans

The Sussex Teenage Republicans will join hundreds of other Delawareans to place wreaths at the Delaware Veterans Cemetery in Millsboro at 10:30 a.m., Saturday, Dec. 18.

In honor of this event, STARS Chair Ben Parsons, 14, wrote a short fictional piece imagining what it would be like to be a family member of a Sussex County veteran lost in World War I. Parsons is a sixth-generation Sussex Countian.

With membership open to youth ages 12 to 19, Sussex Teenage Republicans learn about the U.S. Constitution and conservative values at monthly meetings and events. To learn more, go to sussexteenagerepublicans.com.

Essay by Ben Parsons

It had been four long years since my brother was killed in France. His death alone had devastated our family, but on top of that we couldn’t even give him a proper burial since they never found his body, maybe because there wasn’t a body left to recover.

All the things that could have happened to him plagued my dreams for almost every night since his death. My family just had to accept this fact, we could never pay our respects or have comfort knowing what happened to him for years, that is until Nov. 11, 1921, the day they held the opening ceremony for the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

My parents were desperate to go, thinking this could help ease the suffering they had endured for the past four years, but I on the other hand wasn’t nearly as eager. “This won’t change anything,” I said flatly. “This won’t bring him back.” But my parents ignored my pessimistic comments, saying, “This will be good for you, for all of us.” My mother would say, “We’ll finally be able to say our goodbyes.” Still, I was against the idea, I just didn’t see how this would help, in fact I thought it would make things worse by making a structure to remind me of his death, but I had little choice in the matter, so I agreed to go.

I took us a few hours to arrive at the ceremony, not because of distance but because of traffic, there were hundreds if not thousands of cars flooding into D.C., each one containing the families of unknown soldiers. Each minute we got closer the more dread I could feel building up in my chest. I’m from southern Delaware, which means I grew up in flat open countryside, but here in the city I felt boxed in, the buildings looming over me, and the large crowd I would be stuck in would only make matters worse. Once we had gotten out of the car and found a place in the sea of grieving people. I tried to calm my nerves but to no avail. At first, I thought it was the crowds or the foreign place I was in, but it soon began to dawn on me why I completely reject the idea of going, and that was because I didn’t want to say goodbye. I watched as the sentinels carried the casket that may contain my brother into the tomb, then I could feel tears build up in my eyes. I tried my best to fight them but I couldn't. Soon, hot tears began to trickle down my face, but that was nothing compared to my mother, who was crying into my father’s shoulder. Then I saw on my father’s cheek, stern as he may be, a few tears stream down. Then I said aloud to myself, “He’s really gone, isn’t he?” My father turned to me and said solemnly, “From this world, yes, but he’s in a better place now, son.”

During the ceremony sentinels fired a 21-gun salute for the unknown soldiers, and the President himself came and gave a speech. That’s when I began to notice, it wasn’t saying goodbye to my brother that helped me cope with his death but knowing he finally got respect for what he sacrificed, his life, a burial, experiencing the joy of having family. Even though the body within the tomb most likely wasn’t my brother, it represents him and all unknown soldiers both present and future, and I suppose that’s enough for me. He can finally rest in peace. I also see soldiers differently now, I realize just how much they sacrifice and risk, such as their lives, time, a burial, a future and not being able to live normally because of injuries sustained in battle, both physically and mentally. Finally, my family was able to find peace, or at the very least it had helped ease our pain, and I hope it did the same for all of the other families at the ceremony as well.