Memorializing Some American Heroes

As I write this article on Memorial Day weekend, I am reminded of having lost an Uncle in WWII, a bomber photographer, Dean Wanless, (whom I never got to meet).  And also of my good friend Joel who succumbed to Parkinson’s about three years ago as a result of his exposure to Agent Orange in Vietnam as an Army nurse.  And all of the other veterans I cared for in two different (Madison & Denver) Veteran Hospitals as a nursing assistant while working my way through nursing school.  As I look back, I had entered quite the brother/sisterhood that continues today when I see a member in uniform and/or when we visit a base, no matter what branch. 

I have SO much gratitude for my/our service that took us to many locations to learn of many fallen heroes… like our four-year tour to Okinawa, Japan. While stationed there we attended an Episcopal Church named  “All Souls Episcopal Church” after all the souls lost in the Battle of Okinawa. In fact, while we were stationed there, the 50 year anniversary of that Battle was remembered as our church held services for the 100 days of the Battle.  The names of each of the more than 120,000 Japanese and American lives cut short in the war were offered in prayers for peace.  Wow…talk about bringing history back to life…or death as it were. 

One of our favorite islands to visit by ferry was Ie Island.  While speeding our way around the island on rented scooters, we came across a marker of America’s most popular war correspondent, Ernie Pyle. To this day, I’m still learning about this war hero.  In fact, a book titled “The Soldier’s Truth: Ernie Pyle and the Story of World War II” by acclaimed writer David Chrisinger brings Pyle’s journey to vivid life in all his heroism and experience.

There was a time when Ernie Pyle, as a journalist, was the most trusted man in America. He carried a portable Corona typewriter to the front lines of World War II, and gave the folks back home an honest, graphic look at life in the trenches for the grunts, the infantryman–his guys.

He called them the “underdogs” — “the mud-rain-frost-and wind boys that wars can’t be won without.” You can’t tell that story from the rear talking to generals, you have to be at the front with the grunts seeing it with your own eyes.

From North Africa, through Europe, to the final Pacific Theater including The Battle of Okinawa), Pyle told their stories, and every word was taken as gospel back home. War wasn’t about heroes and bravery, he wrote, it was about fear and constant anxiety, about scared boys who were barely men just trying to stay alive, have each other’s backs, and make it home.

A moving tribute to an ordinary American hero whose impact on the war is still too little understood, and a powerful account of that war’s impact and how it is remembered, The Soldier’s Truth takes its place among the essential contributions to our perception of war and how we make sense of it.

Drawing on access to all of Pyle’s personal correspondence, his book captures every dramatic turn of Pyle’s war with a powerful feel for both the outer and the inner landscape. With a background in helping veterans and other survivors of trauma come to terms with their experiences through storytelling, Chrisinger brings enormous reservoirs of empathy and insight to bear on Pyle’s trials. Woven in and out of his chronicle is the golden thread of his own travels across these same landscapes, many of them still battle-scarred, searching for the landmarks Pyle wrote about

On April 18, 1945, just six days after President Franklin Roosevelt succumbed to a fatal stroke, a bullet from a Japanese machine gun prematurely ended the 44-year-old journalist’s (Ernie Pyles’)  life. In less than a week, Americans everywhere found themselves collectively mourning—and publicly commemorating—the loss of two national heroes. Pyle is buried at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific on the Hawaiian island of Oahu.

May we never forget the honor these brave heroes gave us through their selfless service.  True history helps keep us woke, Warriors!

Spiritual Meditation: Lessons in life are like arrows in your quiver. They only work if you use them.  – Daily Medicine 

Political Humor:  May your bone spurs not hold you back from service or doing the right thing.