Dawnsinger

As the golden hour gives way to dusk this evening, I visit with the only casualty of Sept. 11, 2001 that I know.  I kneel  at his feet and say a prayer over his grave. Hozho na'as glih. Hozho na'as glih.  In beauty, it is done.

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Spc. Robert L. duSang was killed in Iraq a little over two years ago, literally on his way home, in convoy from Baghdad to Kuwait, where he was to leave to the United States.  Awaiting him was his new wife, his mother, brothers and sisters, scattered across St. Tammany Parish.

Notifying the family was difficult.  Some had no phones. I accompanied my pastor to a mobile home back in the piney woods outskirts of Tickfaw, where we asked his sister and her husband to step outside away from the children, and then told them, "We've lost Robert." 

It was the first North Shore military death in this War on Terror, at the end of a late Spring that had seen such firsts in New Orleans and Metairie and other metro areas.  As a first, this casualty attracted TV cameras and reporters and military VIPs, which have quit coming now that the list of dead is so long.  I acted as press liaison for the family, hopefully cushioning the stress from the media, which needed to tell this story.

This was my first blog report on Robert's death

Robert duSang and his elder brother and sister were friends with my children. They had spent the night at my house, attended my church.  I took the piles of photos from scrapbooks lovingly compiled by Robert's mother from his birth, along with photos from friends, and those sent by the cocky youth with the helmet and flak jacket in Baghdad, and created the memorial slideshow for the funeral, along with his favorite songs.  I'll never hear "Who am I," by Casting Crowns, without remembering the sunset of the day I finished that memorial, the day before Robert's funeral.

"Who am i?
That the lord of all the earth,
Would care to know my name,
Would care to feel my hurt.
Who am i?
That the bright and morning star,
Would choose to light the way,
For my ever wondering heart.

Not because of who i am.
But because of what you've done.
Not because of what i've done.
But because of who you are.

I am a flower quickly fading,
Here today and gone tomorrow.
A wave tossed in the ocean,
A vapor in the wind.
Still you hear me when i'm calling,
Lord you catch me when i'm falling,
And you told me who i am.
I am yours.
I am yours . . . "

Robert's commanding general from Fort Polk arrives for the funeral with a full honor guard for this, one of the first of his unit to fall in this war set off by 9/11. Outside the church, and at the grave side, television and newspaper photographers use long lenses, so that the mourners will not be disturbed.  

In quiet, exact paces and motions, the honor guard surrounds the flag-draped casket for the salute and Taps.  The squad leader snaps a salute, then drops it away in slow motion. The flag is folded into a tight triangle with precise movements, and passed to the general. The commander then  gives flags to Robert's mother, father and widow. Along with each flag is a newly awarded Bronze Star. 

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Now in this twilight, as mist begins edging out of the pine and cypress surrounding the Mandeville Cemetery, the tombstone says much of what can be said. "I came. I saw. I was." This is not a place for politics, but of memory for a young warrior - a brother, son, husband and friend gone too soon.

I tie a feather, beaded with black, white and red, to twist in the evening breeze over Spc. Robert L. duSang.

Hozho na'as glih. In beauty, it is done.