It is memorial day. This day of remembrance always reminds of my boyhood friend Michael Turner. When I was eleven I joined the boy scouts with a group of my school friends. We were in elementary school. They were all pretty big boys except for me. I was little. There were enough of us to make a couple of patrols. Our group was wolf patrol, troop 414. The already established troop had other patrols and troop leaders. I looked up to a boy two years older who was our Senior Patrol leader. He led us in games, capture the flag for example. He taught me how to make a fire and helped me get my tenderfoot badge. I remember going to camp Burt Adams, which was later turned into a shopping mall, and to camp 175. We liked it there and went a number of times. My patrol members elected me patrol leader because I think they thought I would keep the group out of trouble and I reported to Michael. Those boys became so many different things. One is a lawyer now. One dropped out of high school. One went to Georgia Tech on a football scholarship. He was the starting center on the team for several years. I got a doctorate in music. In 1967, our Senior Patrol leader graduated from high school and immediately volunteered for the Marine Corps. He wanted to serve his country in Viet Nam. I didn't know he had joined, but I remember the day he died. The word went through the school in hoarse whispers from hallway to hallway. People were crying. His little brother, Dan, was younger than me, in my sister's class, and he had been taken home. At the end of the day we had an assembly to be officially given the news that Michael had been killed in action in Viet Nam. Just days before he had been there with us, sitting in those bleachers, cheering for pep rallies, whistling at cheer leaders.

I did not serve in the armed forces. I was granted a student deferment and the draft was ended just before my graduation. As time passed I thought about Michael, going to Viet Nam as a volunteer, and me, one of his younger scout brothers, staying behind, deferred. It became clear to me that in a way, he went in my place. Maybe not Michael exactly, but someone went in my place. When I was deferred, they went down the list to the next young man, someone who was not in school and could not be deferred. He went in my place, and perhaps he died. Even if he lived, his life has been ever changed. So I feel that it's Michael who went in my place. He never had a family, or had a career. He did not own a home with pretty flowers in the front yard. He has not known the joy of marriage and children and countless other relationships that bless our lives. I've been to Washington D.C. to stand in front of long black wall of names. I've reached up high overhead to touch Michael's name and then stood beneath it and cried. It was hard to find his name there. I was not the only person standing and crying.

Today his brother went to visit him up in Marietta. He goes every memorial day and helps put out the flags. There were flags on every grave, a whole cemetary of flags. 18,000 I'm told.

Michael, I think of you and your sacrifice often. I can't repay you, but I won't forget you either.