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Remembering those brave ones
May 2, 2008, 12:05 AM
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There are times, when I read that yet another soldier has died in Iraq or Afghanistan, that I simply want to cry.
I recognize that we are fighting a war on terror - this, no matter how I feel pro or con as to how we are fighting - and realize full well that there are going to be casualties.
How would you, or anyone, feel when they hear that one of their sons or daughters has been killed? Then we hear of one family that lost not one, but two of their sons to the fighting.
Wars are never popular, usually, that is. World Wars I and II were both supposed to be "the war that ends all war." So much for dreaming.
And then we have wars like the Korean and Vietnam conflicts when, in some cases, men came home from overseas to be spat on, ridiculed, and called "baby killers."
No, neither war was very popular, especially Vietnam, but brave men who, when their government sent them to do a job, did it.
Duty to them was as simple as that.
I know first-hand for my second husband was one, and I met a lot of his mates, all of whom felt the reaction of those among us who detested the war and took their hate out on those who served.
Talk about being unfair and unkind.
All through my lifetime I have heard, or known first-hand of friends and family who have given their lives in the service of our country. It was never easy to hear of yet again somebody who I knew and loved had been killed. That kind of news we lived with daily, during all three of those conflicts, especially WW II.
Maurice (Pat) Davis was killed on Anzio Beach in Italy, the boy I almost married, the boy who will remain in my memory as that cute 19-year-old who escorted me to the local movie theater and later bought us hamburgers and cokes at the local White Castle.
Pat didn't have a car, not back then, and we used trolley cars to get from place to place, and couldn't have cared less. We were simply out having fun together.
Then their was my future husband's best friend, Frank Minick, whose training plane flew up about 4,000 feet, stalled, crashed, and killed Frank and the pilot. Frank had dreamed of being a pilot and going overseas. He, too, was 19.
We had another friend who was killed on Iwo Jima. That young Marine had a tiny daughter he never got to see. Tiny photographs, sent by his wife, were all that showed her sweet, smiling face to that brave man who was simply serving his country.
I remember him, although right now, after so many years, his name escapes me. But I remember seeing him with his beautiful wife, Virginia, sitting in a pew at church holding hands. For some silly reason, I remember that she was wearing a bright yellow dress and hat with all-black accessories. She was one stunning young girl.
Each day, during WW II, we would wait for the newspaper to come, and we would check the casualty list to see if anyone we knew had been killed, injured or was missing in action.
We didn't have television, not back then, and newspapers were very important to everyone.
Flags hung in living room windows with stars showing how many from that home were in the service, and if there was a gold star, it meant one was gone.
But the most difficult lose for our family was during the Vietnam conflict when my nephew Robert Oren Hill Jr. was killed.
One of Bobby's buddy's planes had gone down while on a mission to help a very sick Vietnam child. Bobby - although the weather was terrible, and he didn't have to go - flew his helicopter to search for his buddy. It crashed, killing everyone on board. The irony is that the first plane had made its landing OK, and everybody was fine.
War should never be popular. We should never want to send our vibrant, young citizens to go and fight a war, popular or not. But while I am not happy with the "way" this one was fought - at least at first - I believe that had we not done what we are doing, we would most likely be fighting right here at home.
Perhaps not as we see wars being fought, but more in line of more 9/11, and God help us all if that had been the case.
However, all of this wondering is a mute point.
We are in this conflict and had better hunker down and get it done.
- Edna Van Leuven is a resident of Fallon.
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