Memorial day

[Robin Lewis]

Well, Memorial day weekend is almost here and I hope everyone has a great weekend with family and friends. Many Americans only think of it as a long holiday weekend and never take the time to think about why its a holiday. I am sure that all of us that have served in the military think of it as it was intended - a day to reflect on the sacrifices of the men and women that gave all for us.

I saw this on the internet and thought I would post it for those who may be interested, I think its appropriate for Memorial Day.

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[Dean Romig]

I Remember Them

Thanks Robin.






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[David Dwyer]

Robin
I just finished "The Last Stand of Fox Company". A factual recounting of a Marine Company , 250 Marines, that held a hill in Korea against 50,000 Chinese Infantry. They lost 140 men and killed 3.500 in a 4 day battle. Memorial day is for all those incredible strong brave men.
David

[Dean Romig]

I hope nobody gets tired of my posting this each Memorial Day.



.Not Without Honor
From “Tranquility”
by Col. H. P. Sheldon
The Derrydale Press 1936

The most rock-bound of all the traditions of Tranquility Village requires each able-bodied householder on the morning of May 30th each year to rise early and unfurl Old Glory over his front porch. After breakfast the children of the village go to the woods to gather wildflowers with which to decorate the flag marked headstones in the old cemetery – they bring great bunches of wild violets, of crimson and white trillium, the creamy ivory of the bloodroot, and, when the season has been fortuitous, as often happened, there are clusters of the shy pink lady’s slipper and the rare marsh azaleas. While the village youngsters are thus engaged, the matrons cut sprays of lilac and syringe. All morning long, quiet groups wander among the gray headstones, leaving behind them dashes of fresh, lovely color scattered over the low mounds in that quiet place. That there were soldier graves enough to be decorated, Heaven knows! Here lay the founders of the village – the almost legendary Four Rangers – who had fought under Abercrombie at Ticonderoga and Wolf at Abraham’s Heights to win from the French the very land where they had settled when peace was won, and where now the children of their children’s children’s children laid bunches of blue and white hepatica on the sod above their old mouldering bones.
Only a small portion of Tranquility’s soldier sons slept in the village cemetery. The rest of them bivouacked in alien fields, places with names like Lundy’s Lane, Cowpens, Saratoga, Yorktown, Chapultepec, Cerro Gordo, Plattsburg, Manassas, Antietam, Cedar Creek, Yellow Tavern, Gettysburg, and San Juan, to name a few. Others slept out in “the pleasant land of France.” Long after “the Captains and the Kings” had departed, some but not all of those who had fallen on the Marne and in the Argonne came quietly home to Tranquility in their flag-draped coffins, and for a considerable time scarcely a week went by in which the old burying ground didn’t echo to the measured crash of volley firing and the poignant notes of “Taps.”
It is not, however, a day of public mourning. Far from it. Here and there among the graves some woman kneels and you see the flutter of her handkerchief, but in general the day is an occasion of solemn pride. There are apt to be some tight throats and wet eyes in Memorial Hall when the white-haired Post Adjutant rises and calls the roll.
“Allen!” “Ames!” “Arthur!” “Belden!” “Cummings, Edward!” “Cummings, James!” and so on down the list, with the cracked old voices answering up briskly, “Here!” “Here!” “Here!”
It’s a short roster now – only eight the last time – and the throat and eye trouble comes whenever the Adjutant calls a name and there is no answer save a brief silence broken at last by the roll of the drum.
The World War came along just in the nick of time to restore to these ceremonies some of the sparkle that used to mark the exercises in the days when the boys who had followed Grant, Meade, and Sheridan were still young enough to step out well in ranks and shoulder their muskets with snap and precision. For one thing the Legion Post had one of the finest bands in the whole country with a full complement of the long French trumpets which do so much for martial music. When Long Jim Forbes stepped to the front of the band with the twelve trumpeters ranked behind him – each man with his trumpet held jauntily against his hip – and when Jim raised his sword to signal for “Madelon” or “Le Regiment du Sombre et Meuse,” it would make any man tingle to see those bright bugles tossed high in the salute and to hear their gay challenging notes ring out across the old village square.
No; there is much about the day that is bright and vivid and brave and not at all sad, but one May 30th was an exception.
A few days earlier an old veteran of the Civil War had heard in his dulling ears a last “Call to Quarters,” and now the whole township was turned out to escort its old friend to the quiet bivouac on the hillside where his own place had been prepared for him by loving hands. There were signs of mourning in plenty – if one knew how to recognize them when he saw them.
The grocer would say to the harnessmaker:
“The old Major hez gone, they say. I swan, I don’t know haow we’ll git along without him. Next to old Colonel Cushing I suppose he waz about the best-liked man in Tranquility.”
“No daoubt about it,” the other would reply soberly.
“Hain’t goin’ to forget haow the two of ‘em took up my quarrel time that feller sued me on my title. The Major come from far away, too, but he couldn’t hev been no friendlier if he’d been born an’ raised right here in the village.”
Such humble tributes were current everywhere along the shaded streets. Their casualness might have kept the stranger from realizing that he was in a community truly bowed down by grief.
Gifted with an understanding even beyond that of most of her sex, the Dark-Haired Lady had repressed a housewifely urge to brighten up the tarnished gold of the wound and service chevrons on the sleeves of her Captain’s O.D. coat. A touch of silver polish on a wad of cotton would do it easily, but they had to be left just as they were and she knew it. Nevertheless every bronze button and every battle star on the campaign ribbon shone with a burnished luster when it was time for the Captain to dress. So did the Sam Brown belt, the saber hilt and scabbard and the sleek tan boots.
In the afternoon he would march at the head of the close-ranked platoons of his comrades, trig and taut and looking to her eyes just as he had one day a few years ago when she had watched his regiment march off to the tune of “The Girl I Left Behind Me” to a destination that the orders euphemistically mentioned as “Unknown.” The destination today was known and the route was shorter, yet in a way it was longer, too, since for one of them it reached out to eternity. The line of the march began at Memorial Hall, then down State Street, turning left on Washington and over Prospect to where the wrought-iron gates of Cedar Hill Cemetery stood wide in welcome to the one whom they would bring with them riding along on a caisson under the vivid flag and followed by a few old men in blue uniforms with black soft hats shading their old eyes.
From Memorial Hall to the Cemetery is only a scant half mile, but now it seems too great a distance for legs once good enough to carry their owners on many a forced march with the Army of the Potomac. In fact it has been customary for several years to provide horse-drawn carriages for the old soldiers. This year they needed only one.
Dalrymple, who owned the livery stable, told his boys to put the pair of chestnuts on the three-seated surrey.
“That’ll take care of all of ‘em,” he explained.
“Comfertably, too, naow ‘at the old Major ain’t ridin’ with ‘em. Le’s see, ain’t but eight of ’em left, is they?”
Nevertheless when Dalrymple pulled up his pair in front of Memorial Hall with a decorous flourish he met with an unlooked-for rebuff.
Uncle Bill Paraday, the fox and honey hunter – Sergeant William Paraday, of Stannard’s Brigade – ordered him indignantly and peremptorily to return his “danged burooch” to the stable.
“We’re a marchin’ today, an’ I ruther guess, by Mighty, we ain’t so dummed ol’ an’ crippled up but we c’n manage to foller the ol’ Major on foot an’ keep up to him, too, on his last ride! No, sir!”
So, after all, the horses and glittering carriage were not in the slow procession that moved along the street toward sundown. Eight old men in blue followed the lumbering caisson on foot, doing their very best to compel from stiffened joints and weary muscles some semblance of youthful gait and temper.
Judge Stovall for once in his career had stooped to ask for political preference. It was a strange plum he sought, too. Through his friend, the Governor, he had solicited the loan of a field gun and men to serve it, and word had come back to say the State was glad to honor a citizen so worthy.
The gun had arrived that morning and was placed in the Square with its slender muzzle laid level, its crew standing easy, the focal point of the eyes of all the urchins in town who had managed to escape the services in the Hall, which, no doubt, would have bored them anyhow. The parade was formed at last, and at the first note of the slow march a cloud of white smoke burst from the gun’s muzzle and the crash of its great voice echoed among the hills. As the cortege moved toward the cemetery the gun at minute intervals continued to do honor to the man on the caisson, its solemn thunder falling on the quivering air while the acrid smoke of the discharges drifted across the empty streets.
It ceased when the open grave was reached. A hush ensued, unbroken by any sound from the multitude that had entered the environs and now stood among the headstones. A thrush, a friendly bird, chose that perfect moment of silence to sing in the maples.
Parson Drake read the service ending with the humble, beautiful supplication,
“Lord, suffer now thy servant to depart in peace!”
Then Colonel Cushing detached his tall figure from the little group of veterans in blue and came forward to the graveside.
For a long minute he gazed down upon the walnut casket that gave what shelter there remained for his old friend.
When he turned there was a look of humility on his fine old face. The Colonel was an orator, a trained, expert and polished speaker, a man who understood the courtly, gracious usages of the spoken word. A few years back, when a group of rascals in high places had conspired to commit treason against the very nation they were pledged to serve, it had been his voice and words that denounced them in phrases that were like saber slashes and drove the money changers from the temple.
But this afternoon, with the sun sinking to the crest of Mount Defiance and the grave of the old Major open before him, he felt himself not in the mood for practiced oratory. He rested a hand on the dark polished wood and spoke simply.
“Some of you may not know how Major John Bristol happened to come to our town. I met him during the heat of battle at Gettysburg. We disagreed that day. But afterward while we lay for months in the same hospital we forgot our earlier differences. An affection developed between us that has lasted nearly sixty years. He was persuaded, when the war was over, to come to Tranquility and join me in the practice of law. There is no single person here who has not benefitted in some way from having known this kindly courteous man, myself most of all. We shall miss him – a gallant soldier, a loyal friend and a great gentleman.”
The clear voice faltered for the first time, but the gray head was erect, even though tears ran down either cheek, when he turned.
“He told me once, long ago, that if it should be not too inappropriate a request, he would greatly like to have his favorite marching song played during the services that we are performing for him today.”
He raised his hand to signal to Long Jim Forbes, who stood waiting for it, and who in turn faced his musicians and flashed his sword.
The long trumpets flourished, their silvery notes rang out. Then came the full band with the fifes screaming, the drums rattling and the horns perfectly launched into a gay and gallant refrain. It was both reckless and wistful – a soldier tune if ever there was one – the sort of thing that a column on route march likes to hear from its band when it is entering a village where there will be pretty girls looking out of the windows along the street. Not just the sort of thing you’d expect to hear at a funeral, perhaps, but then, if you listened, you seemed to hear the crying of lost, gallant things in the wail of the fifes that was enough to tear your heart out. It ran and raced and laughed and wept and rollicked among the old stones, and filled the place with strange ghosts summoned from far fields. Then the brilliant, sparkling, homesick thing swept to a close. There was a final dauntless roll from the snare drums, a skirl from the pipes – and silence.
Colonel Cushing and Sergeant Bill Paraday stepped forward and lifted the flag from the coffin.
There was nothing unusual about the rest of the ceremony. A Legion platoon fired the regulation volleys and a Legion trumpeter blew Taps in the twilight gathering under the elms and maples. No one there saw anything not in harmony with the spirit and meaning of the day in the fact that the soldier tune played by the Yankee band that day at the grave of their beloved townsman was the Southland’s “Dixie” and that the flag lifted so gently from the coffin lid by the two old Union veterans was the Stars and Bars.





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[allen newell]

I remember the Tet offensive. We steamed up the river and expected to have to evacuate the Marines holding out. Actually Marines don't hold out and didn't. They attacked. We provided five inch gun fire support. Such brave men. Never forgets

[Bill Murphy]

I served a temporary duty in the First Army and Fort Lee Honor Guard in 1968 and 1969 while I was on active duty stateside. Soldiers in the South and the Appalachian region suffered the greatest death rate during the Viet Nam conflict of any area of the country, as I understand it. I don't remember burying a rich kid and I don't remember meeting rich parents of the kids I buried. I know we are killing a certain number of company grade officers, now, as in Viet Nam. However, young enlisted men make up the greater number of deaths. I guess that will never change.

[Dean Romig]

Young enlisted men make up the greater number of deaths. I guess that will never change.



They are the expendables of war - the pawns of the bureaucrats and politicians.





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[Brett Souder]

They are the expendables of war - the pawns of the bureaucrats and politicians.





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Dean,
I whole heartedly disagree with that statement.

[Robin Lewis]

There are not many of these guys left these days, I wish there were, we need them now as much as in the 40's. All the men in the generation preceding me in my family went to War in the 1940's and all saw combat. One didn't come home alive and one came home never to walk again. They are all gone now, and so are all the many WWII vets that I knew personally in my lifetime. Their ranks are getting very thin.

The actor, Gary Sinise, is one of the few "Hollywood" types around today that genuinely respects all veterans. He stands almost alone working for vets today in the manor that so many "Hollywood" greats did 50 years ago. He is a real patriot. I wish more people with "The Bully Pulpit" would follow his lead; maybe then America could get its pride back again.

Check out what Gary is doing....
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[Dean Romig]

Dean,
I whole heartedly disagree with that statement.



I do too Brett. I vehemently disagree with the (some) bureaucrats and politicians who view the 'expense' of our men and women in uniform as the 'cost' of war.





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[Eric Eis]

I remember the Tet offensive. We steamed up the river and expected to have to evacuate the Marines holding out. Actually Marines don't hold out and didn't. They attacked. We provided five inch gun fire support. Such brave men. Never forgets

Unfortunately Allen, most people have forgotten about "Nam" and that part, about the Tet offensive most people (in their 20's to 40's) would never remember or even know where it was fought:banghead: Or could care less...............That's the sad part.

It's been a long time since I talked to someone who understood what this holiday was about.... I guess I am an old fart, pretty sad..................

[Austin J Hawthorne Jr.]

My uncle " Bud" will be 93 next week, and served as a gunner on a B-17 over Germany. We rarely speak about what he experienced in WW2, but sometimes when we look over the old family album, and come upon photos of him and my dad in uniform, the conversation fades, and you can watch his eyes well up, as I'm sure he is recalling things that he would like to have forgotten. We have the album set up so that after we pass his period of service, we come upon pictures of his father who was a "Doughboy" in WW1. Bud was as proud of his dad, as I am of my dad and my uncle "Bud".
I never made it into combat, since I have always wanted to be a Submariner. So after Boot camp, I went to Sub school and after graduation was assigned to the USS SHARK SS(N)-591. This was in the mid 1960's during the height of the Cold War. I have since had three children. My oldest son served in the Air Force. My youngest son served aboard the Carrier USS Enterprise, and my daughter served in the Air Force as an Air Police Officer while stationed in Bosnia during the conflict over there.
As you can see, we are a military family, and proud as hell to be one.

[Rick Losey]

As a little boy, I followed Dad to the local cemeteries, on the evenings leading up to Memorial Day

A couple church yards - one good sized town cemetery and several little family and cross road burying plots, and learned a lot while he placed small flags a dozens of stones- from the Rev War one just a quarter mile up the road from our house ( I used to stop at that one often when on the way to the one old lady's sun porch that served as a library and bookmobile stop to get another history book) to Korean War casualties.

I heard a lot about what we were doing and why. Then on Memorial day I would get up early with Dad and Grandpa, them in their American Legion uniforms along with other men from town and stand at attention, listen to a prayer and three rounds each from the Springfields they carried. Then back in the cars and on to the next - it took much of the day - but it was what the day was for- we weren't going to a picnic

it was a somber day - even to a child. I understood there were war dead there and that the day was for, but we honored as well those veterans whose time had finally come to join their former comrades after a long life the other did not get to enjoy.

hopefully - on this, Dad's first Memorial Day on the receiving end of one of those little flags - hopefully there is some other little boy and or girl standing behind their Dad and learning what debt this country owes and can never repay.

[charlie cleveland]

i will go put flags on my friends graves that fell and died in vietnam...i had just finished reading our small town paper in it were three of my friends pictures that fell..my dad served in world war 2 in the merchant marines i served in the army during vietnam 66-72...my dads favorite cousin HERSHAL SWINDLE had 11 brothers all served in world war 2 in combat and all 12 returned...to the guys who lost there lives and gave all and to their familys i salute ya ll....charlie

[Robin Lewis]

Respect is alive and well, watch these Marine Corps kids on a playground react when the trumpet sounds (hard to hear with the wind blowing). No adults directing, these kids know how its done! I'm impressed!

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[Dean Romig]

Kathy's father, Frank Nerden, a veteran of the South Pacific Theater in WW-II, and who today, at 94 years of age, is still very active supporting the active duty troops in harm's way. The older Frank gets the easier it is for him to talk about his experiences in the war. He's no hero - he'll be the first to tell you so... but he was there and he saw it and lived it for two years, right in the thick of it.
Col. Richard Moody USAF-ret. (with the American Flag neck-tie) started Operation Troop Support during the first Gulf War and continues it today, with dozens of volunteers of all ages helping to send packages overseas full of every possible need or want for the troops to know we care and support them. (To give you an idea of how much is sent over there, annual postage for these packages is well over $80k)

Frank was recently honored for his service to Operation Troop Support and awarded a plaque named after Gen. George Patton's granddaughter-in-law, Joanne Holbrook Patton (who, herself, is very active in OTS) and awarded by her at a huge testimonial dinner and celebration. They truly were The Greatest Generation - but the men and women who have served since have all marched in those same bootprints.



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[Dean H Hanson]

I remember my uncle who fought the Battle of the Bulge. I never might him and yet I miss him dearly. I thank my two of my brothers and one sister who together protected us for 36 years.

[John Dallas]

Like Murphy, before being sent overseas, I was the OIC of an honor guard at Aberdeen Proving Grounds. I handed a lot of folded flags to mothers, dads, wives and girlfriends who didn't understand why their son/husband died in a place they couldn't find on a map.

[Richard Flanders]

Two of my uncles and my father served in WWII. My father joined marines at 17(the lied about his age)and served in the Pacific theater. An uncle was a B-24 pilot in Europe. All three returned. My brother served in Viet Nam in Intelligence; he returned but as a total wreck and eventually committed suicide in 1986. Don't ever let anyone tell you that you ever get over that.

I met a security guard some years back late at night as I was in our local aviation museum checking on something. He had two sons who had served in the military and he had been in special forces of some kind. One of his sons was sitting a guard post outside the US embassy gate when the Tet offensive started. They found him at his post when it was over; there was 200+ bodies in an arc out in front of him. Unfortunately, he had run out of ammo and was KIA. His other son flies helicopters here in Alaska. This fellow was short and pretty overweight and 62yrs old when I met him. His gunny had called him from the middle east when he was 60 and said, "my best gunner got killed; I need you over here now". He was on a plane the next day and spent a year riding around in the back of a truck taking buildings apart with a .50 cal Browning...at 60yrs old. I could hardly speak after hearing this. I felt that I didn't deserve to be standing in the same place and breathing the same air as this guy. If you met him you'd think he was almost incapable of climbing a set of stairs. Not so. And here he was a night security guard at a park complex in Fairbanks. There's plenty like him amongst us, I think. I make a point to thank every guy I see with a hat on that shows what branch he served in. It's the least we can do and they always appreciate it, especially the V Nam guys. Hats off to them, I say.

[todd allen]

God bless our brave men and women who have paid the price for the freedom we all take for granted.

[Daryl Corona]

Thanks Robin for your link to the "Soaring Valor" video with Gary Sinise. I don't know if anyone noticed but there was a gentleman featured in the video, Jack Sinise who turns out to be Gary's uncle. See the link below to see more of how great a man Gary Sinise is. God bless him. We should honor him with an honorary PGCA membership because I'm sure if he shot a shotgun it would be a Parker.

https://vimeo.com/121604425

[bob weeman]

Just finished mowing the family cemetery plots and planting geraniums. My parents always did that on Memorial weekend to tribute those no longer with us. I like carrying on the tradition. My dad was a WWII vet serving on the USS Block Island. An escort carrier sunk in the Atlantic. As a boy I used to ride around with him visiting his friends and hearing the war and other stories. I miss listening to the talk and wish I had sense enough to write down what I heard back then. I remember much of it but wish I could remember down to the small details. The stories...war and otherwise...were very captivating to a young boy. Talk of men and what they had done and what they could do. Boy I miss those days!

[Robin Lewis]

I miss listening to the talk and wish I had sense enough to write down what I heard back then. I remember much of it but wish I could remember down to the small details. The stories...war and otherwise...were very captivating to a young boy. Talk of men and what they had done and what they could do. Boy I miss those days!

Me too!

[Bill Murphy]

Dean, could you identify by name the patriots you pictured in your grouping. What is the actual family relationship of the Patton granddaughter in law?

[Dean Romig]

Hi Bill - In my post, in which I posted the pictures, I am pretty sure I identified the 'Patriots' pictured. Gen. George S. Patton's granddaughter-in-law is Joanne Holbrook Patton and is the wife of the General's grandson. I don't know what his name was but he is deceased. The picture of the young soldier is of my father-in-law, Frank A. Nerden, taken when he was on leave in Australia. The last picture of the gentleman in the American flag necktie is Col. Richard A. Moody, USAF Ret. and is the founder of Operation Troop Support and was a childhood neighbor and good friend of mine.






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[Bill Murphy]

Thanks, Dean.

[George Lander]

My Dad was born in 1896. He left the University of Western Kentucky in 1914 and was mustered into the 11th Cavalry at Fort Oglethorpe. He served with General Pershing and Captain Patton on the Mexican Border chasing Pancho Villa prior to shipping off to France with the original 40 & 8. He reenlisted in 1940 and served until 1945. One of his favorite stories was when they first opened Camp Jackson (now Fort Jackson) the railroad did not extend all the way to the camp. The new recruits disembarked the train in Columbia and were put on busses for the 15 mile trip. He said that he had to guard one door with a 45 and his Buck Sergeant at the other with a billiy club to keep the new recruits from jumping off because the country there was so wild.

[Pete Lester]

I just posted this to my daughter's Facebook page. Sad to say his story has been overlooked to the point of being forgotten by the other side of the family. Thanks to the internet I was able to gather some information.

"Something for you to think about this Memorial Day. In the Normandy American Cemetery in Colleville-sur-Mer France there is a marker, plot C, row 19, grave 30, for a young Army paratrooper assigned to the 505th Parachute Regiment, 82nd Airborne Division. He was part of the first wave of the assault on D-Day, 6/6/1944. His unit parachuted into enemy territory at night and liberated the first town in France, St. Mere Eglise, where to this day a mannequin of a paratrooper suspended from the steeple of a church hangs in remembrance. He had previously jumped into combat in the fight for Italy where he was wounded. He was wounded again at Normandy and died from his wounds on 7/3/1944. This is your Great Uncle Private First Class John R. O'Byrne, your Grandmother's brother on your mother's side of the family."

[Dean Romig]

Good job Pete. That may be the best thing you will have done this year.






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[Steve Cambria]

Great stuff, Pete! Do you know what battalion he was assigned to in the 505th?
Track me down at Hausmann's. Have done a lot of research on the 82nd that fateful night.

[Pete Lester]

Great stuff, Pete! Do you know what battalion he was assigned to in the 505th?
Track me down at Hausmann's. Have done a lot of research on the 82nd that fateful night.

I have not found a record of which Battalion he was assigned, simply 505th PIR (parachute infantry regiment), Company F.

[Jim DiSpagno]

May the Good Lord, the Blessed Virgin Mary, & Saint Michael the Arc Angel bless, protect, & comfort all who have and now do protect our great country