Memorial Day is coming up and the melancholy reflection occurs to me that almost all the many World War II veterans I have known over the years are dead. My father in law, who served in World War II as a very young Navy cook and spent almost all of the War at sea on combat tours, has been gone now for twenty-four years. The passage of time is inevitable in this Vale of Tears, but we do not have to like it. Of course in reference to Memorial Day we have been down this path before. Started as Decoration Day after the Civil War by troops of that conflict so that their comrades who fell would never be forgotten, parades by veterans were a common feature throughout the country, and the nation thus witnessed as those stalwart young men year by year passed into middle age, old age and then merely passed beyond our ken into eternity.
When this country entered into World War II in 1941, it was eighty years since the beginning of the Civil War, and the veterans of that conflict were sparse on the ground, the few elderly survivors now being driven in parades, their marching days long behind them. We are of course now eighty years beyond 1941. At the time of World War II the men fighting that War would occasionally reference the men who had fought in prior wars to safeguard the freedom that they were now fighting and dying for. By their sacrifice they honored the sacrifice of those who had gone before. Not a bad reflection, and lesson, as we enjoy the Memorial Day weekend in this year of grace 2021.
Thank you for that reflection, Don. When growing up I always heard my parents talk about “The War” and how it affected them as kids. Now my dad is almost 88 and my mom is gone. When I tell my kids about their lives I feel like I’m part of a history book.
May God grant eternal rest to all those brave young soldiers who never came home. And eternal rest to those brave old men who have now passed on.
Something as big as World War II or the Civil War tend to leave a stamp on those who went through it. Some things have to be lived and can only be partially and imperfectly understood by those who come after the event.
I had an uncle who was in the Army Air Corps and his younger brother was in the Merchant Marines during WWII. They have both gone on to their eternal reward. I ad another friend, who too has gone on to Fiddlers Green, was a Gunners Mate who saw a lot of action in the Pacific during the war. Later in life, he worked at juvenile detention center. When the kids would ask him killed anybody during the war, he would reply,”Yep, and if you all don’t behave, I’m gonna kill a few more.”
”Yep, and if you all don’t behave, I’m gonna kill a few more.”
Ha! Cool guy!