Dem
47
GOP
53
We intended to start these on June 2 (a.k.a. yesterday), but our production schedule sometimes makes it possible to get confused about which date is which. Sorry about that. Anyhow, we commence now, with an excellent remembrance from reader M.S. in Canton, NY:
Growing up, my father had two best friends, Bill and George. My father survived service in combat in World War II. Bill and George did not.
In many ways, Bill's memory lives on. A painting of him in his naval officer's uniform hangs on a wall at the university he attended. His family had the resources to publish a collection of his letters home; my father's copy stands on a bookshelf in my house. Most importantly, Bill—who was actually William Jr.—had a child, a son he never saw. Bill III is now retired after a long and successful career as a writer and entrepreneur.
But what about George? Is there anyone left who remembers him? My father is now many years gone. If George married or had children, my father never mentioned it. It is unlikely that any siblings would still be alive. Maybe there are nieces and nephews, now well into retirement age, who recall hearing stories about their Uncle George, how much fun he was, how painful it was to lose him. And it is just barely possible that somewhere there is still a member of the Greatest Generation who once in a while thinks back on the comrade he lost in France: "What was his name again? Oh, yes, George. So tragic to lose him. But we lost so many."
Most of the humans who have ever lived are now forgotten forever. Even for the tiny fraction whose names survive by chance in some written record, very few have meaningful significance to anyone alive today. So while George's name can be found in census records, or in old phone directories and the like, there is a real possibility that there is now no one left who would see the listing and say, "Oh, do you know who that is? I know who he was!"
Except, of course, for me. So I find myself wondering: Am I the only person left who has a tangible, personal connection to this young man who lived, and died, not so long ago? And if so, what responsibility comes with that last remaining connection?
Indeed, what does it even mean to say that I remember George? I never met him—he died years before I was born. I do not know if I have ever seen his picture; the photos in my father's jumbled collection from his early life were mostly unlabeled. An old family photo album holds a black-and-white snapshot of George's grave that my parents took during a trip to France in 1955. The marker is simple and standard, as is typical in a military cemetery, and tells nothing of who George was or what made him unique. But at the same time that the photo tells very little, it raises yet another version of the same question: Did anyone else ever visit that grave? Other than me, is there anyone today for whom that picture would have meaning?
Among my father's personal effects were a collection of letters from the days before and during the war, including a few from George. There is no great poetry in them, nothing you would read in solemn tones if you were making a documentary about the war and its awful costs. But they do reveal a young man in the prime of his too-short life. The letters, and the mere fact that my father saved them, confirm what I already knew: George mattered deeply to my father; he added value to my father's life; my father mourned his loss. Just by that connection alone, he also matters to me.
So on Memorial Day, I remember my father, who came home, and was buried in Arlington Cemetery with military honors 64 years after combat ended. I remember Bill, who never came home. And I remember George: In whatever small way I can, it is my duty, and my honor, to keep his memory alive.
Thank you, M.S.
If readers want to send in reminiscences of their, or of others', military service, we continue to welcome them at comments@electoral-vote.com. (Z)