THE YELLOW RIBBON

                                               

 About ten years ago, I tied a wide yellow ribbon around an old oak tree outside my back door, as a symbolic gesture to my nephew Robby who was going over to Afghanistan with the military to fight. Other nephews and friends have followed Rob and now I fear it will be my grandchildren next, in a war that seems no closer to ending, then it did on that day, so many years ago.

It was 1973 when Tony Orlando and Dawn first brought that yellow ribbon song out. Ironically it was one of the few times when we weren’t at war. But then the song really makes no mention of being away to war does it. “I’m coming home. I’ve done my time. Now I’ve got to know what is and isn’t mine.” He was in prison, the song says in a later verse. But that yellow ribbon was a symbol to him that he was still welcomed home. Then as he arrived, there it was. Not one but a hundred yellow ribbons tied around that old oak tree. Victory, and home again, at last.

That song inspired a campaign called “Beyond the Yellow ribbon” and there was no doubt about it’s meaning. It was a campaign to bring our service men and women home again safely and to reconnect them and their families to society. A very worthy organization, with a worthy cause. Sometimes it’s hard to feel good about what you have accomplished when there is no clear victory, but we need to thank our troops for trying. It wasn’t their fault the way it turned out but they answered the call and you can’t ask for any more than that.

Today as I look out the window at the yellow ribbon, I tied there so many years ago; it is all weathered and torn. No longer yellow, just a dirty shade of silver. Some days my heart feels the same way as that ribbon. Weary of wars and so sad, over the deaths of so many people and for what you ask? Georges Clemenceau said “I don’t know if war is an interlude during peace or if peace is an interlude during war.” Lately we have had no interlude, to even talk about. When that symbolic yellow ribbon you put up, just so you could take it down in a victory celebration, rots right off of the side of the tree, what does that tell you? When the school has a pep rally every week and the football coach gives rousing pregame speeches but victory never comes, soon it all falls on deaf ears and becomes meaningless.

Dwight Eisenhower, himself a military hero, and later our president and leader said,” I think that people want peace so bad, that one of these days Government better get out of their way and let them have it.” Strong words from a man schooled to fight but still one who saw the awful realities of the death and destruction from the fighting in World War II. I think my friends that the time that ‘Ike’ talked about has come. In fact I think it has been here for some time.