In Memoriam

As I gaze out my window at the clear blue sky on this lovely Memorial Day, my thoughts drift to my father. Seventy years ago, at the age of 17, he enlisted in the army. He volunteered because he believed that his country, which had been attacked at Pearl Harbor a few months earlier, was fighting a just war. He lied about his age. If a young man wasn't 18 yet, he had to have parental consent to enlist. My dad didn't know if his mother would object, and he knew it was easier to obtain forgiveness than permission.

He served in the Army Air Corps as a tailgunner. He was shot down twice behind enemy lines and was awarded a purple heart. Yet it was difficult to get him to talk about his wartime experiences. I thought maybe it was because he had been "shellshocked" - the old term for what is now called post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) - but I never quite figured out if that was so. I'm inclined to think it was really because, like so many others of his generation, he was just doing what he knew had to be done.

Many years ago I came across a lithograph of a scene from an air attack on the Romanian oil fields at Ploiești. It was in a box of old stuff of his, and I thought I remembered that it had once briefly been hung on a wall in his apartment. I asked him about it. I wanted to know if he had been part of that raid. He said he had, and he made it sound like it was no big deal. I thought maybe it was, because someone had thought it was important enough to make a very striking print of this scene of bombers in the sky over an oil refinery in flames. So I looked it up.

It was part of Operation Tidal Wave. It really was a big deal, from what I could tell. The Allies wanted to disrupt Axis oil supplies. More than fifty Allied aircraft were lost, and more than 600 servicemen were killed. Many years later I read Daniel Yergin's book, The Prize, and I learned much more about how important oil was as a strategic part of World War II. The only thing my dad would say about Ploiești was that the damage to the refineries was repaired in a matter of months after the raids, but maybe it gave the Soviets some valuable time to strengthen their forces in anticipation of a German invasion.

So much has been written about "The Greatest Generation," as Tom Brokaw called them in the title of his 1998 book. He characterized these Americans, the ones who had come of age during the Great Depression and fought WWII to make the world safe for democracy, as a generation willing to make sacrifices for the sake of their country and its ideals and for the future of the Free World. They did not do it for glory or because they wanted to be remembered with reverence. They did it because it was the right thing and because it had to be done.

So they went to war. Or they stayed home and worked in the factories to supply materials for the war. They endured shortages and rationing of things we take for granted, from gasoline to foodstuffs. If they ever complained, I was never able to find anyone of that generation who recalled hearing it.

I remember my high school history teacher, who had not been physically fit to serve, talking about how parents of the young men in his classes gave him gas ration coupons because they were impressed with his devotion to his students. (They knew he was courting a girl, who would become his wife, and they thought it would help if he could take her for a drive in the country on a Sunday afternoon once in a while. They'd been married 30 years by the time I heard the story.) He taught his students about Nazi Germany. The ones who enlisted in the service were very sure they were doing the right thing. He was embarrassed about being able to go for a drive that was purely for pleasure, but he thought it was important to get the girl. I don't know how his teaching of 20th century American history would have been different if he'd been able to serve in Europe or Asia. We certainly wouldn't have learned so much, from such a personal perspective, about the home front. But I also knew, when I was 15, that if he'd been physically fit to serve, we might not have been learning history from Mr. Soslow at all. That's a sacrifice he would gladly have made, but I've always been deeply appreciative of his not having done so.

Every year at this time we are reminded that this holiday is not about cookouts and barbecues, chili dogs and beer. It's not even about flying the flag and taking pride in what the United States has done in the last century to promote freedom and democracy across the globe. Rather it is a time to remember the sacrifices of those who died in the struggle for that freedom.

I've long felt a sort of special connection to the holiday because of a minor geographical coincidence coupled with an historical misunderstanding. I spent a good portion of my childhood in a neighborhood in Philadelphia called Logan, which shared the name of Civil War General John Logan, whose General Order No. 11 officially proclaimed Memorial Day in 1868. It was a long time after that connection first caught hold in my mind that I learned my neighborhood was actually named for James Logan, of whose plantation it had once been a part. That Logan had been an advisor to William Penn, the colonial founder of Pennsylvania (meaning Penn's Woods). But General Logan's idea was a good one. Those who have fought and died for their country must be remembered.

It is also important, I think, that they be remembered with gratitude whether or not we believe in the cause. As I mentioned earlier in this essay, my father believed WWII was a just war. He did not feel that way about Viet Nam, and he worried about the possibility that I might be drafted. I did not turn 18 until the end of 1975, by which time the draft had ended. But this man who had lied about his age to enlist in World War II said he would have personally transported me to Canada to keep me out of the Viet Nam War. I've always been glad neither of us had to have our loyalty to country tested in that way. Thirty-seven years after the fall of Saigon, with a little historical perspective, I think we made a lot of mistakes in Viet Nam, but I think we were there for the right reasons.

Our veterans deserve our deepest gratitude, whether they served in World War II, Korea, Viet Nam, the Persian Gulf, Afghanistan, or anywhere else the United States has put our servicemen and women in harm's way. I remember the way some returning Viet Nam vets were treated by war protesters when they returned. My sense of shame about that is as deep now as it was in the 70s. I hope that we never again allow our disagreement with the civilian government that decides where to send our troops to influence the way we treat those who have worn the uniform in the service of their country.

I know everyone who reads this has read and heard the phrase "Thank a soldier" dozens or even hundreds of times. I believe some of you still haven't done it. If you haven't, find an opportunity this week. If you have, thank you for doing it, and please do it again.