Graveside Whiskey, Grief and Honor: War Vets Remember The Fallen

Tom, a machine gunner sergeant, picked up his new Marines fresh from the School of Infantry in 2007. He trained them, lived with them and led them into combat. One of them was 19-year-old Jonathan Taylor. Tom and Taylor deployed twice together to Iraq in 2007 and Afghanistan in 2009 and built a strong bond, hardened by combat. Marines call each other brothers and sisters, but Taylor was like a son to Tom.

Tom left the infantry in 2010 to pursue a career in counterintelligence and human intelligence, a highly respected field in the Marine Corps. Taylor, then a corporal, was deployed to Marjeh, one of the most dangerous towns in Afghanistan at that time. Taylor was on a foot patrol on Feb. 22, 2011, when an improvised explosive device detonated, killing him.

Tom was a pallbearer at Taylor’s funeral.

“I had literally picked him up from [school] and carried him to his grave.”

Taylor was among the more than 50 brothers-in-arms Tom lost to combat in his years as a machine gunner.

“I stopped keeping track of the numbers because they kept mounting,” he said.

To some, Memorial Day is a day on the calendar we set aside to memorialize all the lives lost protecting our country and its ideals. It's a holiday, and a day off from work. Veterans and their loved ones, however, often have a challenging time with Memorial Day because they are more likely to know someone who died fighting.

Veterans make up about 6 percent of the country's overall population, while active-duty and reserve forces account for less than 1 percent. For them, the names of lost friends and comrades—mothers, fathers, sons, daughters, brothers and sister—come to mind. For them, the holiday carries a somber, often painful, weight.

A Marine Corps machine gunner for 13 years Tom — who asked that we use only his first name due to his current role in counterterrorism intelligence — deployed five times in direct combat with various units. The 2003 invasion of Iraq. Fallujah in 2006, kicking in doors in the hunt for enemy insurgents. He would deploy three more times — to Ramadi, Iraq, once and the Helmand Province in Afghanistan twice.

The deaths of junior Marines always hurt him more than the loss of his peers.

“You often end up feeling like their older brother, and the longer my career dragged on, they felt like sons in some cases,” Tom told Patch.

Every Memorial Day, Tom sips Jack Daniels from a flask at the graves of Taylor and others interred at Arlington National Cemetery.

Now 35, Tom is proud of his service, but doesn’t show it off much. A Republican who values the U.S. Constitution, you won’t hear him complain about gay marriage and abortion because the Constitution doesn’t mention them.

As his way of warfighting evolved from pulling triggers to analyzing intelligence, he built a robust understanding of politics and religion in the Middle East. Years ago, at a coffee shop in Virginia, he encountered a man harassing a Muslim woman and her child, saying her people like killing our people. Tom intervened. The man called him a bleeding heart, to which he responded, “I was the one doing the killing … I am going to buy her coffee. If I can do that, you can let her pass without giving her s---.”

Tom is put off when people wish him a "happy Memorial Day." It’s not just that the holiday is a somber one, he says, but it’s oxymoronic. “Intellectually, it makes me question if the person saying it understands what they just said." And social media is worse.

“It bothers me … the keyboard warriors trying to push what the holiday is about. The politicizing of the holiday has grown to epic proportions, yet people are faced with real loss, battling the remembrance of traumatic stress associated with remembering their buddies … Imagine it like a family member who lost someone they love at Christmas [or] Thanksgiving.”

I met Tom during my brief stint training in counterintelligence and human intelligence at 2nd Intelligence Battalion at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina. I was promoted from Corporal Dempsey to Sergeant Dempsey there, but I didn’t feel like the same type of sergeant Tom was.

I was active duty in the Marine Corps from 2006 to 2011, with one deployment to Afghanistan under my belt in 2009. A communications specialist, I mostly dealt with computer networks and satellite terminals — nerd stuff — and served a two-month stint on a guard post in Helmand Province. I knew I had a cushy life in Afghanistan relative to many others, especially those like Tom.

I met Michael Mercado in 2010 at 2nd Intel Battalion, the same place I met Tom. He only recently got out of the Marine Corps, having served from 2006 to 2017. He grew up in Glendora, California, and joined the Marine Corps as an intelligence analyst. He also spent time serving as a martial arts instructor and attained the rank of staff sergeant.

Mercado served in combat and lost friends in battle. The loss of his friends “really did not hit home until [memorial] services were given” and he met the families of buddies he had lost. He recalled Blake Howey, a high school classmate and fellow Marine.

“I was working in the combat operation center and received all reports of significant events including IEDs hitting our guys,” he said. One such report, from February 2007, said a Marine had been killed by an IED, but didn’t reveal the name. “About a week later I got an email mentioning Howey’s passing and connected the dots.”

Mercado was shocked and confused. He had a year left in Fallujah. “I didn’t know how to react and just bottled everything in.”

It wasn’t until a 2013 dedication ceremony that Mercado felt the weight of Howey’s loss. A memorial by the town library was erected to honor the fallen, and Howey’s family was there. The Howeys were proud of their son. Mercado was distraught.

“It sent chills down my spine. I just wanted to hug them and tell them how awesome Blake was,” he said. He almost lost it. “I held my composure because I felt that it would be selfish to break down while they already seemed so proud of Blake.”

Not until that day did he begin to grieve.

“It is only then one feels they can hit the pause button and let your guard down just a bit to really process the bereavement," Mercado said. "You’ve got to deal with it at some point.

“Memorial Day is a day to honor all those who gave all," he added. But when the holiday comes, "I guarantee you every person who lost someone is more conscious of their death anniversary.”

Mercado goes to local American Legion events to honor the fallen. The numbers of people who attend such events on Memorial Day are small. Far more enjoy a day free from work at holiday barbecues and ballgames.

“Have fun, enjoy the freedom you have because of those who never made it back. I don’t say that sarcastically. I mean it,” Mercado said.

Like Tom, Mercado can be bothered by the annual social media posts shaming people for having barbecues instead of thanking veterans.

“It misrepresents those who made the ultimate sacrifice. ... I think more veterans are tired of seeing those posts every year,” he said, noting that more often, non-veterans are the ones sharing these posts. “I used to get mad, I don't let it bother me now.”

He knows his friends who died serving “would rather us have a toast in their honor instead of being the fun police on Facebook.”

America's War Dead Since 9/11

• Operation Iraqi Freedom: 4,411 dead, 31,954 wounded
• Operation New Dawn (Iraq): 73 dead, 295 wounded
• Operation Inherent Resolve (Iraq/Syria): 42 dead, 40 wounded (operation still in progress)
• Operation Enduring Freedom (Afghanistan): 2,346 dead, 20,091 wounded
• Operation Freedom’s Sentinel (Afghanistan): 35 dead, 180 wounded (operation still in progress)

Total dead: 6,907
Total wounded: 52,560

Joe Plenzler served 20 years in the Marine Corps, retiring in 2015 as a lieutenant colonel. He served as an infantry officer, then became a public affairs officer. In 2003, he deployed with then Maj. Gen. James Mattis, now our defense secretary, as head of public affairs for the 1st Marine Division in the initial invasion of Iraq. He ran the media-embed program, assigning journalists to various units in the division.

In 2003, his convoy was ambushed in Az Zubayr, Iraq, while on a mission to find a reporter. They had to fight their way out of the densely populated city. Of Plenzler’s team of six, two were wounded in action. He won the Navy Commendation Medal with a Valor Device for his actions that day.

Plenzler now serves as the director of media relations for the American Legion. He sees the loss of brothers-in-arms as a nationwide issue which affects not only the troops but their families.

“We have sustained 60,000 [wounded in action and killed in action] since 9/11 – enough people to fill Chicago’s Soldier Field. Multiply that times two for their biological parents … times four for the grandparents and you can start to imagine the scale and the effects.”

For the American Legion, Plenzler says, “every day is Memorial Day.” He pointed to the preamble to the American Legion Constitution: “To uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States of America … to preserve the memories and incidents of our associations in the great wars,” and “to consecrate and sanctify our comradeship by our devotion to mutual helpfulness.”

People like Plenzler honor Memorial Day by living out those words. By serving and advocating for veterans, he honors the memory of those who died trying to protect our rights.

“We live this in the service of veterans, every day,” he said.

Memorial Day carries a different meaning for each American. Many of us will enjoy the long weekend, the box-store sales and the barbecues. Some will make an effort to honor the fallen and others won’t. But Tom will be at Arlington National Cemetery having a drink with Taylor, and Garibay, and remembering the faces of more than 50 men who died fighting the Global War on Terrorism. He won’t forget them—he doesn’t want to. To Tom, this day is about them.

Article image used with permission of Tom

For their immense openness, we would like to thank Cpl. Joey Martinez, Sgt. Ken Bandoly, Major Staci Reidinger, Lt. Col. Chad Pillai, Gunnery Sgt. Claudia de Leon, Shelly Goode, Matthew Shuman, 1stLt. Anita Morris, Staff Sgt. Michael Mercado, Lt. Col. Joe Plenzler and most of all, Tom.