Today is Memorial Day in the USA.
It reminds me of how very lucky I am to be alive and it keeps me conscious of my debt to those who paid the ultimate price.
You see, life is much different now than it was for my grandparents growing up.
At 18, my grandfather was a marine. He was severely injured by shrapnel from a Japanese grenade.
He was a lucky one.
My grandfather watched his buddies die by the score on Iwo Jima, Saipan, and Guadalcanal and somehow came home.
A navy corpsman held a finger in his back to keep him from bleeding out and saved his life.
I owe him mine.
I can’t even begin to imagine what that must have been like.
And yet, a few years later war broke out again, this time in Korea.
My grandfather and the other local marines with him who had returned home went to re-enlist. They were not about to let their buddies down who were already on their way back to another hell overseas. They would be fighting and dying right beside them. Again.
At the recruitment station, my grandfather forgot his wallet and had to return home.
And for whatever reason, when he got home, he had a change of heart. My grandmother may have had something to do with it. He had a wife and child depending on him. And he did not end up re-enlisting.
And of all of his buddies that went with him to that recruitment station, not a single one returned.
My father was born the following year.
My grandfather saw unspeakable horrors over “there” and came home and indeed did not speak of them. We simply wouldn’t understand.
I’ve found books about the war with his name mentioned specifically.
I wonder if some of the names listed with him are others who weren’t so fortunate. Those he simply could not speak about to us.
But I will speak of them today.
I will speak of the 5th marines. Of the 2/27 Fox company. Of those who re-enlisted, never to return home.
Of first Lieutenant Jack Lummus, my grandfathers commanding officer who gave up a professional football career with the New York Giants to fight overseas. He fought and died at the battle of Iwo Jima and received the Medal of Honor for his valor.
I will speak of the nameless Navy Corpsman who saved my grandfathers life, and in doing so, saved my life as well. I hope he made it home.
I will speak of the valor of those who fought and those who died.
I will give a voice of remembrance to those who lost their lives in order that I might gain mine.
To all those who have served and died…
Thank you.