That’s why every year, at this time, we make the same promise – Americans and Brits alike. The promise to remember those who died serving under our flags. To remember with pride, what they did for our countries. Their service and the sheer depths of their sacrifices, and what they, their families, their communities, their nations – lost when their lives were cut tragically short.
Remarks by Chargé d’Affaires a.i Reeker at the Remembrance Day Memorial Commemoration at Brookwood American Cemetery
Brookwood American Cemetery
Woking, United Kingdom
November 14, 2021
(As delivered)
Chargé d’Affaires Reeker: Thank you to Master of Ceremony, Mayor Lyons, Mrs. Laura Taylor, Governor and First Lady Walz, Distinguished Friends.
This is my first time at Brookwood American Cemetery. And I must confess that it is difficult for me to find the words to describe what a powerful impact it has had on me – and I imagine would have on any American – to come and visit here in person.
To stand and read the hundreds of names of missing Americans in the Memorial Chapel, their remains never recovered or identified. And to reflect on the bleak significance of row after row of glistening white headstones, that look so beautiful in this peaceful English countryside.
Yet each one is a small and tragic marker representing a whole life forever lost to us. Each one, once a son or daughter, a husband or wife, a father or mother…a friend. And each one, an American, a long way from home, who stood up to serve our country, our allies and partners, and the cause of peace.
And never had the chance to return and be reunited with those they loved and those who loved them. How many emotions those simple white markers conjure.
And I think perhaps, this year, we feel those emotions even more acutely than usual. Because over the last year and a half, we have had our own reminder of the pain of being separated from one another.
And we have felt again that horrible sense of grief and loss that comes with the deaths of so many people within our communities, all at the same, tragic time. How poignant a parallel it is, to think that many of the men and women who are buried here, did not die in the fighting itself, but in the deadly pandemic that followed.
It is a sobering connection, from our generation to theirs. And it means that we need not reach all too far into our imaginations to understand what it felt like to people at the time, to lose so much both in the First World War itself and its aftermath.
And indeed, in the many deadly wars and conflicts that have followed that one. Including, of course, just this year.
Because I think, for example, of what the family and friends of Marine Corps Sergeant Nicole L. Gee are going though right now. An amazing young woman from Sacramento, California.
She was just 23. The same age as many of the young men and women buried here.
And she stepped forward in service, just as they all once did. And now she’s laid to rest in the ground, just as they are. I imagine you will have seen one of the last photos we have of her in the news. A young woman in full military khakis, red faced from exertion, pausing to gaze down at the baby cradled in her arms she was helping to evacuate from Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul.
Not long after…an explosion, and she was gone. One of the thirteen U.S. service members who died in the bomb attack in Kabul just a few months ago in August. More lives lost in conflict. More heartbreak for all those who knew them.
That’s why every year, at this time, we make the same promise – Americans and Brits alike. The promise to remember those who died serving under our flags. To remember with pride, what they did for our countries. Their service and the sheer depths of their sacrifices, and what they, their families, their communities, their nations – lost when their lives were cut tragically short.
But beyond that, to remember them for the people they were, the lives they lived, and the people and places and things that they loved. Because when we remember all that, we remember the true costs of what we lose in war, and the true value of what we gain in peace.
I am reminded of something President Biden said recently – to the rest of the world at the United Nations – when he called for an era of relentless diplomacy. And I think it is impossible to come here, to Brookwood, and not have the determination to make those words a reality fortified even more.
Because the best way to remember the people we have lost in the past, is to do everything in our power to prevent the loss of others in the future. That means not to build walls, but to build bridges. And not to divide in conflict but to connect in common purpose. And to move, together, towards shared goals of peace, security, and prosperity.
In this way, we will always remember them.
Thank you.
