We Will Remember

Just as they had done in the wars between the Greeks and the Persians, their countrymen remembered those that fell in battle, those that would not make it home for burial. They were remembered with monuments and speeches by some of the world’s greatest speakers, at that time. They were buried where they lay on the fields of battle. Like them, we come to remember those from our small town of Pittsfield, not only those who fell in battle in the name of democracy and liberty, but to remember those that did come home and died later, some as a result of their service time. The names on the panels behind me show those from Pittsfield who have served during a war. Those marked with a star, shows those that died on the fields of battle. Up until the Viet Nam War, our fallen laid buried in foreign lands, in pristine cemeteries in Belgium England, France and Italy. In the Pacific, after the war, many of those who fell on the Pacific islands of Guadalcanal, Iwo Jima, Saipan and the Philippines, and others, lay buried where they fell. Some, however, were repatriated and now lie in the Military Cemetery of the Pacific, more commonly known as the Punchbowl in Hawaii. Now, our war dead can come home to be buried next to their loved ones, so that we will remember them for the sacrifices they made.

On this day, we come to remember them, those of past wars that our Nation has been in to preserve and protect not only our nation, but other nations as well, when their liberty and their way of life had been endangered. President Ronald Reagan said: "Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it on to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children what it was once like in the United States when men were free." Our young men and women today are doing just that, protecting us and our way of life, often with the loss of limb, or loss of life. We remember those who came before us.

I remember one day in the early 1960s, visiting my father at the Long Beach, CA VA hospital, there was an older gentleman there, wearing what appeared to be a Civil War uniform, the blue uniform of the North. I sat down beside him and asked him why he had tears, he told me “Son, my daddy fought in Gettysburg, and on this day, I think back and remember what he told me, that he, along with those that did not survive that gruesome battle, should not be forgotten”. He went on to tell me that he would wear the blue uniform, just like his daddy did on July 1 – 3, 1863, this way he “could remember his daddy”. He served our nation in WW 1 and WW II, with distinction. When he died, a few days later, no one went to his funeral except for some veterans from the hospital. We will remember those that died in the Civil War for it was this war that started the tradition we have now, known as Memorial Day.

I also remember seeing at the VA, those that fought in the trenches of Europe in WW 1, who witnessed the use of new and advanced weapons. The ones who had been gassed, even though they could hardly breathe due to the damage to their lungs, they were always looking to tell someone of their war and to be remembered; now there are no more veteran.

I heard plenty of tales from the WW II vets, during those visits; tales of the different fields of battle from North Africa to Italy, to France and then to Germany. Close competition though was waged by those that served in the Pacific; telling me tales of Pearl Harbor, Wake Island, Midway, and Okinawa. I listened to the veterans tell me not only of the sacrifices they made but the ultimate sacrifices their buddies made and now lie in foreign soil that they helped liberate from aggression. When I would leave, they would ask me to do one thing; “Remember us, and remember those that did not make it home”. I remember them.

Korea, was a strange war, sometimes called a “police action” but also called “The Forgotten War”, 1950 – 1953, up and down the Korean peninsula, several times, from places with strange names like Pusan, Inchon, Chosen Reservoir – where the 1^st Marine Division did not leave one Marine behind even when they were called “The Chosen Frozen”. Contrary to popular belief, even though they were leaving the Chosen Reservoir due to heavy influx of Chinese troops in support of North Korea, when asked if they were retreating, it was said that their Commander stated “Retreat hell, we are just advancing towards the rear”. Let us remember the Korean War, remember those that gave their lives and futures in defense of a young Democratic nation of South Korea.

Vietnam, my war, where some choose not to remember it because it became an unpopular war,it was a war that because of politics and the media, not only turned the public support away from our men and women in the South East Asia Theater of operations but also how the war would be handled. There are 58,000 plus names on The Wall in Washington, D.C. now, they never came back home. Pittsfield has one name on The wall, CPL RICHARD ALBERT BROOKS, date of casualty, Apr 25, 1968, in Quang Tri Province, Republic Viet Nam. Let us pause here for a second to remember Cpl Brooks.

In a poem I wrote called “Names on the Wall” I mention that a young woman holding on to her young baby, finds a name on The Wall, she reaches out lightly touching a name she sees and says “You can now rest daddy, your baby girl that you never got to see, has found you”. Let us remember not only those names on The Wall, but those that came home, with injuries that are both visible and internal, and those that, even today, still suffer from exposure to Agent Orange.

The Gulf War began on August 2, 1990 when Iraq invaded the tiny kingdom of Kuwait. Even though we complied with the United Nations Resolutions to push Iraq back inside its own borders, the threat was still there. The people of Iraq now, from Sunni, to Shiite to the Kurds can now be a free and democratic nation, where they dip their fingers into a jar of blue ink to tell the world, “I am not afraid, I voted and I am proud of it”. It is hoped that by the year’s end, our active combat role will be finished, but those remain behind to train the new Iraqi Armed Forces will still be targeted. On 9-11-01, our nation received devastating blows in New York, Washington, D.C. and a farmer’s field in Shanksville, PA by radical elements of the Taliban and Al Qaeda, based in Afghanistan. Operation Enduring Freedom was a result of those attacks. NATO and other coalition countries are being successful but casualties will still continue. Since our nation is still at war, let us remember those that are no longer with us in the physical sense, but in our hearts and minds of the sacrifices they made for us to be free.

In 1892, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote a poem simply called Decoration Day:

Sleep, comrades, sleep and rest
  on this Field of the Grounded Arms,
Where foes no more molest,
  Nor sentry's shot alarms!

Ye have slept on the ground before,
  And started to your feet
At the cannon's sudden roar,
  Or the drum's redoubling beat.

But in this camp of Death
  No sound your slumber breaks;
Here is no fevered breath,
  No wound that bleeds and aches.

All is repose and peace,
  Untrampled lies the sod;
The shouts of battle cease,
  It is the Truce of God!

Rest, comrades, rest and sleep!
  The thoughts of men shall be
As sentinels to keep
  Your rest from danger free.

Your silent tents of green
  We deck with fragrant flowers;
Yours has the suffering been,
  The memory shall be ours

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