When I saw Alexi Whitney the second time, nearly forty years after the first, I was stunned. My vague memory of meeting him when we were both small children is that he was a wild child.
But at that second meeting, my second cousin was wholly transformed. He’d served in Afghanistan and Iraq as a Force Recon Marine, the best of the best, and seemed tranquil but was hyper-aware, and engaging. My wife at the time and I had him for dinner as he was passing through Washington.
Later that year, he threw me a small piece of contract work, low-intensity research really, which was very kind of him because he knew I was a bit desperate at the time. His post-military work included travel to dodgy places, dodgier than the ones I went to and in altogether less comfort-padded. I wanted to know him better.
But just before Christmas in 2016, I got a call while I was in Congo telling me that Alexi had been killed in action in Afghanistan. He was providing contract security for discrete activities of our government. He died laying down ground cover so his colleagues could escape an ambush. Not surprisingly, he died a hero.
Alexi’s father lobbied tirelessly for him to get the recognition he earned. I attended his burial with honors at Arlington and it was one of the more solemn and dignified ceremonies I’ve ever seen. His father also persuaded then CIA director Mike Pompeo to grant Alexi a star on Langley’s wall of honor, but getting to the director was the result of two years of pushing.
A year after Alexi’s death, I read an extraordinary story about a retired USMC colonel in Alabama who was running as a write-in candidate against Republican nominee Roy Moore in the 2017 special to fill Jeff Sessions’ seat. The colonel, I learned, sculpted the busts of fallen Marines and was in the midst of making one of Alexi. It was a background caption on the story but of course leapt out at me.
A day later, I packed my dog Pepper into the car and drove to Alabama and lived with the colonel through the election, volunteering as I could. His team was Spartan, a half dozen JAG officers-in-training at the law school in Tuscaloosa, a young member of the colonel’s fraternity, and a salesman of tiny houses. We got something like 5,000 votes, which contributed to Moore’s defeat, which was the point.
The colonel’s respectful, indeed reverent treatment of his subjects impressed me. He’d served as General John Kelley’s chief-of-staff in Anbar, Iraq, during the toughest years, and knew first-hand what sacrifice looked like. His hobby, casting these bronzes, was a form of tribute.
Every Memorial Day since, I have thought of Alexi. Some great-great from Ohio was supposed to have muttered “pro patria more est dulce et decorum (it is sweet and noble to die for your country)” as he loaded his slain sons onto a cart to carry them away from Antietam. That’s the idea, anyway. My deputy in Iraq and I used to sometimes quote the Latin saying with a hint of sarcasm, like someone else gets to say it and we get to do it (which thankfully we did not).
But this Monday, I take the saying at face value. Those who have given everything for our country deserve more than one day. Fittingly, though, theirs is the last one before the start of summer, in some ways the sweetest of them all. I’ll find some way this Memorial Day to be quiet, but aware, and grateful.
