Memorial Day

Annville, PA

“Our nation owes a debt to its heroes that we can never fully repay,” Barack Obama

 

Several Facebook friends posted messages about loved ones who served our country.  Mike Certa wrote this message: “This Memorial Day, I'd like to remember my godfather, Joe Certa, who was killed in action in Korea in 1950. I also want to thank all those who have served their country in the armed forces, whether in war or peace.”  As people flocked to beaches, often not heeding warnings about social distancing, Pat Wisniewski posted a clip of troops landing at Normandy Beach on D-Day and wrote: “Memorial Day is more than just a day at the beach.”  Stevie Kokos remembered his father (below), who served with the 82^nd Airborne and passed away within the past year.

For Hoosiers Memorial Day weekend traditionally means patriotic parades and the Indianapolis 500, often referred to simply as “The Race.”  Once widespread, visiting cemeteries with wreaths of flowers still takes place for many families honoring loved ones.  In fact, initially the holiday was called Decoration Day to honor casualties of the Civil War, with May 30 designated as the date because it was an optimum time for flowers to be in bloom.  Historian Ray E. Boomhower posted this quotation by Hoosier President Benjamin Harrison, grandson of “Old Tippecanoe” (William Henry Harrison) and a colonel during the Civil War” who fought under William Tecumseh Sherman.

    I have never been able to think of the day as one of mourning; I have never quite been able to feel that half-masted flags were appropriate on Decoration Day.  I have rather felt that the flag should be at the peak, because those whose dying we commemorate rejoiced in seeing it where their valor placed it. We honor them in a joyous, thankful, triumphant commemoration of what they did. We mourn for them as comrades who have departed, but we feel the glory of their dying and the glory of their achievement covers all our great country, and has set them in an imperishable roll of honor.

 

Changing Decoration Day to Memorial Day was similar to renaming Armistice Day, commemorating the end of the Great War (World War I) to Veterans Day, encompassing all who served in combat regardless of what war, or, for that matter, replacing Lincoln and Washington’s birthday holidays with President Day. July 4 still  reminds us of when in 1776 the Founding fathers signed the Declaration of Independence, but Columbus Day has been de-emphasized in the wake of revelations about the explorer’s mistreatment of native Americans.  One wonders how long Martin Luther King Day will endure. Christmas, Easter, and Thanksgiving seem safe in their commercialized form, as does Halloween, which has pagan roots and was banned by New England Puritans but celebrated by Irish immigrants who began arriving in America during the potato famine of the 1840s.

 

World War II was the last noncontroversial war, and those relatively few veterans are succumbing in shockingly large numbers in assisted living facilities.  So, too, are Vietnam veterans, now senior citizens (childhood buddy Paul Curry would be 77 had he survived Vietnam) often receiving inadequate care in veterans’ hospitals and homes.  On this day I not only mourn those who made the ultimate sacrifice in needless wars but those who survived combat but whose nation let them down upon their return and in their old age. Vince Emanuel posted this bitter commentary:

    I used to get angry when people would 'thank me' for my 'service.' These days, it just makes me sad. So many of my friends have died as a result of America's illegal and immoral wars. Millions of our brothers and sisters in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya, Yemen, Somalia, Pakistan, Palestine, and beyond have either been killed or displaced.  I have lost more guys from my platoon to suicide, cancer, and drug overdoses than we lost during the war. Imagine the stress and uncertainty you're feeling in the midst of this pandemic, multiply it by a thousand, add foreign troops kicking in your door, killing, kidnapping, and torturing your family members, then destroying your home, only to have it happen again in a few weeks, and you'll have a small idea of what it's like to be on the receiving end of Uncle Sam's madness. Imagine foreign troops bombing, shelling, and shooting up your neighborhoods just for fun. Imagine those troops mutilating the dead corpses of your relatives and friends, taking pictures and laughing. That's war. That's where your tax dollars are going. That's what I testified to U.S. Congress about back in 2008 (no one cared). That's what's being done in your name while you and your family eat hotdogs and fret about a non-existent baseball season. There's nothing courageous about flying halfway around the world and killing innocent peasants and unemployed workers with mechanized military equipment. There's nothing brave about serving U.S. Empire. That's why 22 veterans kill themselves every day in this country. They're not proud. They're ashamed. - Signed, USMC Veteran (2002-2006) 1st Battalion, 7th Marines, Alpha Company, 3rd Platoon, 1st Squad, 3rd Fireteam.

My late IUN colleague Jim Tolhuizen, grievously wounded when ordered to participate in Nixon’s 1970 Cambodian “Incursion,” never talked about his war experiences until learning I was teaching a course of the history of Vietnam. He began speaking to my students and never brought up his platoon mate Paul’s death but wrote about it for my Vietnam veterans Steel Shavings (volume 39, 2008).  During an R and R trip to Bangkok, Paul had bought the Beatles’s “Abbey Road” tape.  He’d play that tape over and over, and Jim’s last memory of Paul is their squad coming under attack on night guard duty and Paulosing his life trying to retrieve that tape.  After his week in Bangkok, Paul also returned with a photo of a Thai girl who’d been his “escort” and asked Jim to get rid of it should he be killed so his parents and fiancé wouldn’t see it.  Tolhuizen wrote:
    I packed that picture of Paul and his Thai girl away and haven’t seen it in years.  Sometimes I think I should find it and maybe send it to his family if I could find them.  It’s hard to believe anyone would care about the Thai girl anyway.  I don’t know, I made a promise, so I’ll keep it to myself.       

In “They Marched into Sunlight (page 45) David Maraniss wrote about a similar attack in 1967 near Vung Tau: “A squad of Viet Cong guerillas slipped past the listening post and the ambush squad and launched a surprise attack on the night defensive position with machine gun fire and claymore mines, killing one soldier, who had been sitting atop his bunker rather than inside it, and wounding eight others.”

Anne Koehler recalled growing up during World War II in the small farming village of Damendorf in the north of Germany:

    Nearby was the site of torpedo experimentation. They would shoot them into the bay and it was not safe to be on the beach, because some would go astray and surface there. All around the area were barrels which in times of imminent bomber attack would emit smoke to cloud the area and make targets invisible.  We were directly in the flight path of Allied bombers from England to the city of Kiel, where submarines were being built and thus a strategically important target.  We would hear the drone of the engines by the hour during the night. The sky would light in colors over Kiel from "Leuchtkugeln" or flares, dropped to make targets more visible. We called them Christmas trees. (I read once that Jimmy Stewart flew those missions). Sometimes bombers on their return flight would drop extra bombs into the fields nearby. We made a field trip with our school to look at the huge crater. Our village was never hit but toward the end of the war dive bombers flew right over our farm. An anti-aircaft batter or FLAS was on the way to our county seat, the Baltic seaside resort of Eckernfoerde.  I do not recall the end of the war on May 8, 1945, 75 years ago or how it was greeted in our village. I was only 10 and it was my mother's birthday. Prior to that time, I do recall hearing Hitler on the radio. He was screaming and I did not understand what he was saying. Hopefully WWII will be the last world war.


Our weekend routine didn’t change much.  Friday a violent storm left many Lake County residents without electricity or flooded basements, but we escaped except for large puddles in our back yard.  Dace’s family came over and brought homemade egg drop soup and the makings for spring rolls.  Toni provided shrimp, corn on the cob, and other ingredients.  Afterwards, we took pictures with Becca wearing her commencement robe, and I played space base with Dave and James.  I got in some computer bridge, including partnering with Carol Miller.  She had bought plane tickets to visit her son, who’s serving in South Korea, but the pandemic put the kibosh on that.