Remembrance at 3pm for those who Live In Memory
Carol Fisher-Linn
Monday, May 30, 2022. Whom will you be remembering on that day? Does your family history tell the story of some ancestor who served in the Armed Forces? Out of the 1.1 million total Americans (pbs.org) reported killed in all wars to 2019, surely every person reading this can reach back over time to remember the memory of at least one blood-relative whose life was cut short because of war. Maybe your relative was a rag-tag 15-year-old charging, face-to-face against the enemy in a farmer’s field during the Civil War, the farmhouse, and its inhabitants off to the side of the scene. 498,332 brave souls were buried where they dropped. Or perhaps he/she was dug-in, in WWI. Those traditional lethal frontal attacks were replaced by trench warfare. Digging-in was standard practice but still no defense for some of the new arms, tanks, planes, chemical weapons from which our soldiers could not hide. Buffalo Pride Trivia: Paul Faltyn, Curator at the Niagara Aerospace Museum, said that during WWI, 95 percent of the allied pilots learned how to fly on the Buffalo developed and manufactured Curtiss Jenny plane, including famous pilots Eddie Rickenbacker, Amelia Earhart and Charles Lindbergh. By 1919 the Curtiss Aeroplane and Motor Company in Buffalo was the largest aircraft manufacturer in the world. (Kendev.com)
Back home, Americans kept a stiff upper lip – singing songs like John McCormack’s – “It’s A Long Way to Tipperary” (find it on YouTube) or, George M Cohan’s “Over There” … sung with fervor and pride – “Johnnie, get your gun … Take it on the run … Hear them calling, you and me, Every son of liberty. Hurry right away. No delay, go today. Make your daddy glad to have had such a lad. Tell your sweetheart not to pine -To be proud her boys in line …” it goes on, “Show your grit, do your bit, hoist the flag and let her fly, Yankee Doodle do or die…” Those boys had such pride and wanted their loved ones to feel it too. 116,516 didn’t make it back to their families.
By WWII our weaponry had advanced, but so had the enemy’s. This is the war my generation remembers. Moreover, the War Effort comes clearly to mind. I still remember asking my grandfather for his tobacco box so I could gently remove the aluminum foil to be salvaged for the War Effort along with the foil gleaned from chewing gum wrappers. We made rubber band balls and Mama turned in the fats she rendered. By 1944, 37% of women (including Mama) were in the labor force, making airplanes, parts, and goods of war. Rationing prepared us for Covid (those of us who remember). Daddy finally made it home from the South Pacific when I was two, but 405,399 brothers and sisters, fathers and mothers, sons and daughters, husbands and wives, didn’t. Over 350,000 women enlisted and worked as nurses, drove trucks, repaired airplanes, and performed clerical work. Some were killed in combat or captured as prisoners of war. Over sixteen hundred female nurses received various decorations for courage under fire.
September 11, 2001 opened the path onto the Global War on Terror (6,852 brave souls, and counting) which was preceded by The Korean War (54,246), Vietnam (90,220) The Persian/Gulf War (1,565). Every one of those numbers is one individual – a human being with loved ones and dreams and ambitions that will never be fulfilled. Imagine! It takes my breath away!
Perhaps a good way to honor them on this Memorial Day is to pull one name from your family tree, say their name and do something in their name – perhaps something that they might have done if they were standing right next to you. If you think of them, they are alive in your mind and your heart. As for me, I’ll wear a red poppy and watch a parade for Dad (he would have proudly marched, along with Mama and her Auxiliary), have a hamburger and maybe even a boilermaker! I’ll reflect with my fellow Americans at 3pm. Here’s to you, Dad. We honor you and all your 1.1 million comrades-in-arms that we dedicate this day to. Our gratitude is beyond measure. God bless every one of you.