A Memorial Day to Remember

Memorial Day in Carmel is always meaningful. This year it was something more. Standing in Devendorf Park on a cloudy Monday morning, I had the honor of introducing Secretary Leon Panetta to a crowd of residents, veterans, and visitors gathered to honor those who gave everything in service to this country. Surrounded by war memorials, it was one of those moments that reminds you why this community is unlike any other.

Leon Panetta is one of us. He lives in Carmel Valley. He shops in our stores. He has dinner in our restaurants. When sculptor Steven Whyte and I placed a bench outside Bruno's Market with a bronze of the late John Madden, one of the first people to sit beside John was Leon Panetta. No entourage. No ceremony. Just a neighbor paying respects to another neighbor.

Yet few Americans have served at so many levels of government, for so long, with such consequence. Army officer. Civil rights enforcer. Sixteen-year congressman who helped give us the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary and so much more. White House Chief of Staff who helped balance the federal budget. Director of the CIA. Unanimously confirmed as the twenty-third Secretary of Defense of the United States. Then coming home to found the Panetta Institute for Public Policy, now closing its 29th year. Enough for several lifetimes.

His speech was remarkable. He spoke of The Bivouac of the Dead, the Theodore O'Hara poem inscribed at the gates of Arlington Cemetery, and what he believed our fallen would tell us if they could speak. He spoke of Dover, where he greeted the fallen, and of Isaiah 6:8, the verse that has anchored a lifetime of service: "Here am I, Lord, send me."

Then he told a story few people in that park had heard from someone who actually lived it. On the night of the bin Laden raid, Secretary Panetta was in the room with President Obama and the national security team as our SEALs flew into Pakistan under cover of darkness. As they approached the compound, one of the helicopters clipped the wall and was disabled. In that moment he had to decide whether to call off the mission entirely. The SEAL commander came back to him. They had lost the helicopter, but another was coming. His men were ready. They could complete the mission.

Secretary Panetta made the decision to continue.

Then came the machine gun fire. Then the silence. Then the SEAL commander's voice: they thought they had Geronimo. Minutes later came the confirmation. The room went still. And then it became clear what those men had done, what they had risked, what their courage had accomplished. That is what service looks like at its finest.

What made the moment even more remarkable was something I noticed after the ceremony. Secretary Panetta had delivered that entire speech from two small pages of his dense handwritten notes. I asked if I could make a copy for the Carmel History Library archives and he generously agreed. Looking at those pages afterward I was struck by something. A speech of that power, including the bin Laden story told with such precision and emotion, had been written extemporaneously and delivered perfectly, with on-the-fly embellishments that made it feel completely alive and heartfelt.

I said in the introduction that Leon Panetta is one of us. Anyone who spoke with him before or after the ceremony understood exactly what I meant. Warm, present, unhurried, genuinely interested in the long line of people around him. For a man who has operated at the highest levels of American power for half a century, that quality is not just admirable. It is remarkable.

It was a great way to honor those who gave their lives for this country and a good day to be Mayor of Carmel-by-the-Sea.

(Note: To hear a podcast generated from this column, go to cli.re/memorial.)

Dale Byrne, Mayor of Carmel-by-the-Sea

dbyrne@cbts.us