I was raised by the Greatest Generation and their sacrifice and pain, and my gratitude, linger after all these years.
I LEARNED ABOUT Memorial Day early on. When I was a lad, World War II and Korea were both sharp in the memories of those who fought in it, those who left others behind in form but never in their memories.
I first became aware of Memorial Day when my Cub Scout group marched in the American Legion’s Memorial Day Parade. The parade formed up at the Legion Hall and went through town and out to Sugar Grove Cemetery where there was a monument to the war dead going back to the Civil War. I remember it was a long walk for kid my age and I most remember the rifles firing a salute. Wow!
Later, as a Boy Scout, the walk didn’t seem so long. I started to understand what it meant. The parade was led by veterans – the mailman, the teachers, farmers, lawyers, doctors, store owners. I never viewed them as heroes, just as the men I knew as a boy growing up. It was later that I came to understand the price they all paid in years of life lost, friends seen dying horrible deaths.
My father was one of those normal everyday men, but he never marched. He was in the Amry Air Corp in England, and it was not until later in life that I realized how much the war scarred this farm boy from a crossroads in Butler County, Ohio. Dad had graduated from college with a degree in theater. He was an actor, a teacher, wanting only to be in theater. But, when war broke out he left my mother and answered the call, becoming a lieutenant, then a captain.
He talked about being in England, about going into London to the theater during the blackout and one time having the entire cast and crowd move into a tube tunnel where the show continue to the glow of lamps, without a set of props.
HE NEVER DID talk about what he did exactly, but I got hints and when I saw the movie Memphis Belle, I sensed what he might have been. Vision problems kept him out of the air. He was a ground officer. If you recall the opening scene of Memphis Belle you’ll remember the officer standing alone in the tower with binoculars counting the returning planes, then going to the lockers of those who did not come back, retrieving their belongings and later sitting down to write sad letters.
I do recall Dad saying once that of all the air crews he posted with, only three or four survived the war. At some point he was assigned to Eisenhower’s staff and went into Europe. I don’t know what he saw there but he did come home with two Nazi dress sabers he said he took from Germans who no longer needed them.
Sometimes my father would become someone else. He would go to a dark place. I knew, later, depression ran in his family, but I know now it was more than that. PTSD did not begin with the Vietnam War, with our more modern wars. I think every soldier who ever went to war, since time began every civilian whom war burned out, bombed and plundered, has been touched by it.
But the Greatest Generation didn’t talk about it. They went to war when called, they fought, they suffered, they won. They came home and picked up their lives. Now I know that a part of every life was left somewhere else. They never were entire again. They lived with ghosts. Today’s soldiers are no different.
I would like to think there would never be another war but my faith in humankind is not strong enough to let me believe that. But, on this one day at least, it doesn’t seem like a lot to remember those who went to war and did not come back, those who went to war and came back forever altered and to say “thank you” for the life your sacrifice made possible for me.
Rich Heiland is a retired journalist and semi-retired consultant, trainer and public speaker. During his journalism career he was a reporter, editor, publisher, college instructor, part of a Pulitzer Prize-winning team and a National Newspaper Association Columnist of the Year honoree. He also writes the intodementia.com blog about his family’s experience with dementia. He lives in West Chester, PA and can be reached at [email protected].