Editor’s Note: No one has summed up the spirit of this day more eloquently than Arrias. I am not going to bother trying to pen something. I
am going to post his thoughts and drive over to Arlington and give your greetings to Mac, Dan, Vince, Rick and Scotty. It is a privilege to be able to do it.
– Vic
Memorial Day Weekend
I have a picture on my wall, a copy of one that adorned
my Uncle’s Bill’s office, which I have taken from a book Bill wrote – the
Americal Generation – about the men he went to war with in
1942, members of various units within the 23rd
Infantry Division, the Americal Division.
The picture was taken in December 1941, a few days
before Christmas. In the picture are 12 young men and one older man – Tom Dorgan. They were the bulk of ‘Dorgan’s Baseball Club,’ and they were all friends from Dorchester, Mass., a section of Boston. Several of them, to include my uncle Bill (Bill McLaughlin)
had already been in the National Guard before Pearl Harbor, but after it everyone who wasn’t already ‘spoken for’ went to the nearest enlistment center and signed up. Many of the members of Dorgan’s Baseball Club joined the Marines that December and came to
be known unofficially as ‘Dorgan’s Platoon.’
The 12 young men in the picture are: Dick Hodgens,
Tom Mulkerin, Maurice Driscoll, Harry Holtzman, Francis X. O’Meara (also an uncle of mine), Jim Sullivan, Jack Daley, Billy Walsh, John Hassan, Bill McLaughlin, Charlie Martin and Billy Martin.
They are perhaps a bit more conservatively dressed
then would be a similar group today, but perhaps not – just young men in suits. The faces are, however, no different then what you would see in any bar or restaurant on a Friday night. They are young and alive, ‘full of piss and vinegar.’ In the lower right
of the picture Billy Martin has reached around FX ‘Red’ O’Meara and is tickling his chin and whispering something – one suspects it’s something slightly off-color – in his ear. Red is laughing.
I note them here because these men, as with many, many
others, deserve to be remembered. 2,500 years ago the Greeks would have built temples to them and written plays in their honor. Several centuries later the Romans did much the same thing. But such practices seem to have fallen from favor and we quickly forget
the courage, and the wisdom, that these men earned in the hardest school of all.
Bill would later describe them: “…These were all pretty
average guys who were just in to do a job and get back to civilian life.” Of these men Bill would later tell me that every single man in that picture received at least one Purple Heart; each received at least one Bronze Star and more than half two or more
(at the time, Bronze Stars were only awarded as combat awards, what are now distinguished as Bronze Star with V (for valor)), several received air medals, at least one received a distinguished flying cross, several of them received Silver Stars, and Billy
Walsh received the Medal of Honor – posthumously – on Iwo Jima.
Pretty average guys in to do a job…
I was fortunate; Bill survived the war, as did Red.
(My father and my 4 other uncles and 2 aunts also served and they all lived. And I heard stories from all of them. Most of the stories I heard when I was young were funny.) But as I grew older I started hearing the other stories. Bill was both an historian
and a superb storyteller, with an uncanny ability to remember poignant details. These figures came alive, coming out of the picture on the wall, with the humor and the hardship, and their stories taught a lesson in duty.
The ones who survived came home, and went back to work.
They helped to rebuild the nation after 12 years of depression and 5 years of war. They are all my heroes. And I thank God they lived, and that I knew them, and today I will spend a little time thinking about all of them.
That’s what Memorial Day should be: a day when we all
stop and think. It’s not enough to simply set aside a day, attach a label to it, and then return to the grill. A memorial is nothing more then an object that serves as a focus for our memory. But, whether it is a picture on a wall, a folded flag, or simply
some obscure artifact with a relationship to someone known only to the holder, a memorial requires that we engage our intellect. Every memorial requires that we both know something about the individuals and events that are the focus of the memorial, and that
we spend the time to remember, that we dwell on the memory.
So, on Memorial Day, what we should be remembering?
The most obvious – and partially correct – answer is
that we should remember those who died in the service of our country. But, this is only a partial answer. To truly appreciate the sacrifice of all that have died for our country, we need to understand two things: first, we need to understand why these soldiers,
sailors, Marines and airmen, coast guardsmen, and a fair number of civilians (who are often forgotten) gave up their lives?
There is an old – and true – adage that soldiers in
foxholes fight for their buddies. But, while true, that is a bit too simplistic. From time immemorial soldiers have fought and died to protect their buddies, whatever side they were on. The riders of the Mongol hordes that ravaged central Asia fought and
died for their comrades. But no one remembers them.
There is a thread that runs through every war the US
has fought. And whether or not that war was in fact the product of the convoluted logic of cynical politicians who either willfully or inadvertently misled the nation – and those uniformed – the thread remains, and that thread is this: America fights for
right. Their will be the cynical who will deny this, and cite a long list of examples, probably starting in the 1800s, in an attempt to show that this or that war was nothing more than a power grab, a bit of ‘imperialism,’ an act of pure conquest.
But for the soldiers and sailors, for the men who actually
fought the nation’s wars, that has never been the case. Since the birth of this nation, the youth of this nation have left home, picked up their weapons and packs and headed to war out of a conviction that what they were doing was the right, the true, the
moral thing to do. Certainly that is what my uncles and my dad did. And two nephews. And a host of cousins. And a remarkable array of incredible friends of mine from all four services. Yes, certainly, they joined for adventure, for comradeship, even for the
pay. But beneath the youthful bravado there remains this thread, this belief that America did not fight for empire but for freedom and justice. The politicians, and many of the generals, may have been bitter, cynical practitioners of ‘realpolitik,’ but that
does not and cannot change the fact that the soldiers and sailors and airmen and Marines fought for what they believed was right.
We honor and remember them for that belief.
Second, it is important to remember what they gave
up. No one ever went off to war without a choice. Even when drafted there is almost always some means to avoid the front lines. The fact is that while everyone talks ‘a good game’ of avoiding the dangerous and difficult side of warfare, in the final analysis
few act on those words. Rather, they ‘shoulder their pack’ and move ‘towards the sounds of cannons.’ We, as a nation and a people, must be ever grateful that they do. But we need to be mindful of what those that died gave up, so that their deaths might provide
some meaning to our lives. They gave up their freedom and all the enjoyment of everyday life – for life in the service is devoid of a wide range of liberties that we all enjoy; they gave up their careers and dreams; they gave up their families and their loves;
and in the end they gave up their lives. Everything that they had or were, everything that they might do or become, offered up so that others may enjoy the blessings of freedom.
This great nation of ours is a land filled with nearly
infinite possibilities. We can do anything we set our minds to do. But it requires some sacrifice. No achievement comes without sacrifice. We are all charged with using our lives here on earth to improve the world around us, to make use of the gifts we have
been given to make things better. That will require some sacrifice. Those that we remember today have given, as Lincoln said, ‘the last full measure of devotion’ to the idea of America. Let us remember them, remember their sacrifice, and awake tomorrow determined
that their sacrifice was worth it, that we too will sacrifice a bit, that we will build a new and greater nation, one that will continue to be that ‘shining city on a hill.’
May they all Rest In Peace.
Copyright 2017 Arrias
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