Pausing to Remember
Friday, May 23, 2008
The following is an article written by my friend John Snyder about Memorial Day. John is a wonderful writer and I thought it would be appropriate to share it with you this holiday. It's an important message. The article will appear in several newspapers in his home state of Ohio.
PAUSING TO REMEMBER
BY
John Snyder
I am named for a man I never knew. His name is carved in granite on a wall just North of London. That wall is in a U.S. cemetery and carries the names of those missing at sea or missing in action, those whose bodies were never recovered.
John G. Snyder, my uncle, died 64 years ago next month (June 29, 1944). He was killed in a troop ship crossing from England to France three weeks after D-Day. The ship either hit a mine or was hit by a torpedo. He and many others were lost at sea.
My uncle was eight years older than my father and I was not born until several years after his death. The local American Legion post in my Ohio hometown is named for him.
He was married and left a young widow at his death, which came just after my father graduated from high school. My dad eventually became a member of the 82nd Airborne, and had the atom bomb not ended the war, he would likely have parachuted into Japan. It was estimated that U.S. casualties in an invasion of Japan might have been one million. My grandparents might have lost two sons and I might not be here.
I write this not because my family’s story is in any way unique or different. That’s the point: it’s not.
There are thousands of families who had sons go off to war; thousands of young brides who became widows; thousands of children who grew up without fathers and thousands of families who will forever and always have an empty place at the table.
My uncle has seldom been in my thoughts over the years. It’s tough to mourn someone you never knew. But he comes to mind now on the eve of Memorial Day and the anniversary of D-Day on June 6th.
In recent years I have gotten to know a great many veterans of World War Two: men who saw others die on D-Day, who survived the Bataan Death March and years as prisoners of war, a man who flew bombing missions over Germany, a veteran grievously wounded at Iwo Jima and a soldier with Patton’s 3rd army who was there at the liberation of a Nazi Death Camp. Almost to a man, they broke down when remembering what they saw and talking of those who never returned.
For the last five years we have celebrated Memorial Day and remembered D-Day while in the midst of another war.
For the record, I have been against the Iraq war from the beginning. I think it was started under false pretenses and more than a touch of arrogance, all wrapped in a cloak of inept administration. But when I think of the war I try not to think of what I consider failed policy, but instead think of young men going from building to building in Baghdad and other cities, places were death could come behind any door. I think of soldiers in convoys on dirt roads that could explode at any moment, and I think of men younger than my sons cradling friends who are drawing their last breath.
I have never been a flag waver. I think the flag has too often been used to cover up holes in the American dream, to hide the times this country has fallen short of the ideals on which it was founded. However, I know a great deal about the sacrifice and blood it took to protect what we cherish, and if sometimes we lose sight of what that sacrifice meant, if the sacrifice itself is lost in the pages of history, what it bought for us is evident every day. Despite our problems and our faults we do remain the “shining city on a hill” that the pilgrim preacher talked about long before we became a country.
My uncle’s war and the current one are separated by more than 60 years and a wide difference of opinion. But there is one way that the two wars, like all wars, are very much alike: young men die.
We will soon be remembering the sacrifice of men who fell at Valley Forge, Gettysburg, the Argonne, Normandy, Bastogne, Pork Chop Hill, Khe Sanh and yes, especially now, in Iraq. There have been many other such names in our history and there will be more in the future, places where men have died and will die for something greater than themselves.
The debate over Iraq will continue through and well beyond the presidential election, no matter who wins. History will have the final say on the war, but courage and sacrifice should always be honored. That’s something about which there must be no debate.
PAUSING TO REMEMBER
BY
John Snyder
I am named for a man I never knew. His name is carved in granite on a wall just North of London. That wall is in a U.S. cemetery and carries the names of those missing at sea or missing in action, those whose bodies were never recovered.
John G. Snyder, my uncle, died 64 years ago next month (June 29, 1944). He was killed in a troop ship crossing from England to France three weeks after D-Day. The ship either hit a mine or was hit by a torpedo. He and many others were lost at sea.
My uncle was eight years older than my father and I was not born until several years after his death. The local American Legion post in my Ohio hometown is named for him.
He was married and left a young widow at his death, which came just after my father graduated from high school. My dad eventually became a member of the 82nd Airborne, and had the atom bomb not ended the war, he would likely have parachuted into Japan. It was estimated that U.S. casualties in an invasion of Japan might have been one million. My grandparents might have lost two sons and I might not be here.
I write this not because my family’s story is in any way unique or different. That’s the point: it’s not.
There are thousands of families who had sons go off to war; thousands of young brides who became widows; thousands of children who grew up without fathers and thousands of families who will forever and always have an empty place at the table.
My uncle has seldom been in my thoughts over the years. It’s tough to mourn someone you never knew. But he comes to mind now on the eve of Memorial Day and the anniversary of D-Day on June 6th.
In recent years I have gotten to know a great many veterans of World War Two: men who saw others die on D-Day, who survived the Bataan Death March and years as prisoners of war, a man who flew bombing missions over Germany, a veteran grievously wounded at Iwo Jima and a soldier with Patton’s 3rd army who was there at the liberation of a Nazi Death Camp. Almost to a man, they broke down when remembering what they saw and talking of those who never returned.
For the last five years we have celebrated Memorial Day and remembered D-Day while in the midst of another war.
For the record, I have been against the Iraq war from the beginning. I think it was started under false pretenses and more than a touch of arrogance, all wrapped in a cloak of inept administration. But when I think of the war I try not to think of what I consider failed policy, but instead think of young men going from building to building in Baghdad and other cities, places were death could come behind any door. I think of soldiers in convoys on dirt roads that could explode at any moment, and I think of men younger than my sons cradling friends who are drawing their last breath.
I have never been a flag waver. I think the flag has too often been used to cover up holes in the American dream, to hide the times this country has fallen short of the ideals on which it was founded. However, I know a great deal about the sacrifice and blood it took to protect what we cherish, and if sometimes we lose sight of what that sacrifice meant, if the sacrifice itself is lost in the pages of history, what it bought for us is evident every day. Despite our problems and our faults we do remain the “shining city on a hill” that the pilgrim preacher talked about long before we became a country.
My uncle’s war and the current one are separated by more than 60 years and a wide difference of opinion. But there is one way that the two wars, like all wars, are very much alike: young men die.
We will soon be remembering the sacrifice of men who fell at Valley Forge, Gettysburg, the Argonne, Normandy, Bastogne, Pork Chop Hill, Khe Sanh and yes, especially now, in Iraq. There have been many other such names in our history and there will be more in the future, places where men have died and will die for something greater than themselves.
The debate over Iraq will continue through and well beyond the presidential election, no matter who wins. History will have the final say on the war, but courage and sacrifice should always be honored. That’s something about which there must be no debate.
posted by Terri Bennett @ 2:01 PM
2 Comments:
Terri and John: I too have oposed the war in Iraq from the begining for the same reason as you, john. I also want all of us though, to remember that we as a nation can support the men and women that are simply doing what their jobs ask of them, even if we do not support the ones that are asking them to do it. I as a Navy veteran fully understand the danger that they are in, and am gratefull for their sacrafices that they make daily.
THIS MAKES ME PAUSE TO SEE WHY SO MANY PEOPLE HONOR THE RETURNING WARRIORS FOR SO LONG, YET ONLY PAUSE TO REMEMBER THOSE WHO FELL IN PERFECT SERVICE TO AMERICA...THOSE ARE THE TRUE HEROES! I CANNOT EVEN HOLD THEIR CANDLES FOR LONG, THEY CAUSE ME TO BOW IN HUMILITY. SO YOU TIP THE FLAG IN THEIR DIRECTION, AND SAY THE PRAYER FOR THEM ONLY CAPT CTM,RET.
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