This borrowed excerpt, originally titled “The Blue Stetson,” is part of an essay, “Daddy, Why is the Sky Blue?” by Nick Morris.
He entered the diner where I ate my breakfast. An older fellow with bone white hair and a well-trimmed beard. Cheerful. He smiled at me when he entered, smiled and tipped his hat. I nodded in greeting. The hat—gray, wide brimmed and simply cut—mimicked the hats the Confederate cavalry wore during the Civil War; it bore the cav’s yellow cord.
Southern pride runs fierce here in Middle Tennessee. Northerners like me don’t always understand.
“Your hat interests me,” I said.
“That a fact?” he said. “This here is a cavalry hat. Its close cousins long ago were worn by General Forrest and his cavalry!”
I knew of Nathan Bedford Forrest. I smiled and nodded.
“Yes sir, General Forrest sure did take the fight to them Yanks,” he laughed. “But judging by your accent you just may be one of them!”
He winked a friendly wink. “I’d wager a gander that you’ve never seen the likes of this here hat before.”
“In pictures,” I said.
He touched the brim. “Lots of southern pride here son. I’d wager up north all y’all don’t wear your heritage like such. Can’t say I have ever seen anybody wearing the blue.”
I half smiled and swallowed the sudden lump.
“Pride in the blue, sir?” I asked. “You mean . . . like a blue cavalry hat?”
His eyes glowed. That’s exactly what he meant.
I have a cavalry hat, and you can bet your life that it is blue. I have a blue suit to match. Dark blue jacket, deep sky blue trousers and a yellow stripe down the leg. It looks sharp.
I wore it along with polished brass crossed rifles and a sky-blue shoulder cord. I wore the blue hat and jacket as I carried a flag-draped casket. I don’t remember the man’s name. I didn’t know him, but–in our blue uniforms, in our blue Stetsons, under a blue Texas sky–we buried him. Blue is the color of the infantry.
- General Forrest’s men rode horses and took pride in their “yellow ribbon”; we rode in Bradleys and Humvees, in uniforms with little color.
- They carried flags and pennants; we carried smoke grenades and radios.
- They braved shot and shell; we fought through bombs and booby traps.
The lad we buried that day had been killed by a booby trap, a bomb planted under a road.
A month or so later I walked the streets where he had died and carried other bodies that weren’t in caskets. They always weighed more.
We carried them back to the tracks and trucks. They were born away across the sea where some other soldier would carry another casket and bury another infantryman under a field of blue.
- They wrote letters and sang songs; we made sat-phone calls and listened to i-Pods.
- They bedded down in fields and towns on the march; we made our “beds” on rubble and broken glass in the remnants of buildings.
- Newspapers gave account of their work; CNN reported ours.
- Their lines of gray met lines of blue; we jumped rooftop to rooftop in buddy teams, and our enemy wore no uniform.
But when all was said and done, we all grunted the same, laughed the same, swore and prayed the same, and in the end died the same—died and were laid to rest under God’s infinite blue.
Photos from top to bottom: (1) Soldiers in dress blues by David Mark from Pixabay; (2) Confederate soldier: Liljenquist Family Collection of Civil War Photographs, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Morris Sampler 