Veterans Day, 2021

Veterans Day occurs on November 11 every year in the United States in honor of the “eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month" of 1918 that signaled the end of World War I. It is a commemoration of all who have served and makes me pause just a bit to remember. The average person usually goes about his business without giving it much thought; some even complain there is no mail delivery. I always try to give attention to the day in appreciation.

I’ve never worn a uniform but instead walk vicariously with veterans through reading and listening to their stories. A large body of literature attests to the sacrifices and efforts made by them. All the men and women who have served deserve recognition, but it is a rather small percentage who do the actual fighting. The rest serve behind the lines in support roles. 

One book I’ve read, “The Long Way Home” by David Laskin, deserves mention because it revealed a little known fact: the men drafted to serve in the U.S. army spoke 43 languages. It was a time of heavy immigration and foreign born people who had flooded through our borders found themselves draft eligible. It didn’t matter if aliens hadn’t yet become citizens; any able-bodied men, with varying degrees of skill in using the English language were fair game. One of my grandfathers found himself in this position. He, a Norwegian born immigrant, was drafted and served.

Many draftees were from countries we were fighting such as Germany, Poland, and Italy and some concern was voiced as to their willingness to be drafted. On the whole, though, draft registration went rather smoothly. The only resistance of note came from the Irish copper miners in Butte, Montana, who harbored strong anti-English sentiment. It intensified when a terrible fire in the mines killed 168 of them as they were mining copper demanded by the war effort.

One can’t be well read in terms of wars without having read “All Quiet on the Western Front.” Written by a veteran of the German army, it gives a stunning picture of what German soldiers were experiencing. Then with the rise of the Nazi party in Germany, the book was banned because they deemed it anti-war and supportive of the Jews. A rather popular movie was made of it where one night a Nazi mob entered the theater. They demanded the film be stopped and released mice and tossed stink bombs to clear everyone out.

Three years ago we were in Fredericksburg, Texas where in the National Museum of the Pacific War I bought the biography “Ernie Pyle’s War: America’s Eyewitness to World War II.” A reporter, his style of writing made lots of friends among the servicemen and women as well as the people back home in the USA.  Even while he worried he wasn’t giving a clear enough picture of the fighting, soldiers knew he came closer than any other journalist. He was killed on the battlefield by a machine gunner and a monument was erected on the spot inscribed with “At this spot the 77th Infantry Division lost a buddy, Ernie Pyle, 18 April 1945. 

He is buried at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu. When we traveled to Hawaii on a tour I remember riding a tour bus through the cemetery when the guide with a microphone said it was where Ernie Pyle was buried. When I looked down from the bus window, there was his gravestone beside the roadway.

His columns read much like Hemingway’s writing, simple yet expressive. His most famous piece was “The Death of Captain Waskow.” After watching a string of mules with each carrying a body come down the hilly trail, Pyle wrote, “‘This one is Captain Waskow,’ one of them said quickly. Two men unleashed his body from the mule and lifted it off and laid it in the shadow beside the stone wall.”

Stephen Ambrose’s book “The Wild Blue: The Men and Boys Who Flew the B-24s Over Germany” gives a readable account of what war in the sky was like. Special attention is given to George McGovern who piloted one for 35 missions. He received the Distinguished Flying Cross for landing his crippled bomber on a short runway used only by small fighters, thereby saving his crew and aircraft.

 

I once had the opportunity to visit briefly with George McGovern and asked what he probably thought was a stupid question.  “What was it like flying up there in midst of the flak and fighters coming at you?” He answered humbly, “I was scared all the time.”

David Halberstam’s “The Coldest Winter” deals with the Korean War. His writing in the book as chilling as the title. Korea was the downfall of the arrogant Douglas MacArthur when he kept acting on his own impulses instead of following policy from Washington, DC and pushed President Truman to the point where he fired him. MacArthur had strong supporters, but given time he faded away. Korea saw loss of American lives who were not well-enough equipped nor ready to fight again so soon after WWII ended. 

How many thousands of books have been written about warfare cannot even be guessed at. Too often, they are about the generals at the expense of putting the soldiers into a nameless mass to do their bidding. I prefer the literature written by those who fought in the trenches: “The Things They Carried” and the Vietnam War, “The Band of Brothers” and the invasion of Normandy, “With the Old Breed” in the Korean War. 

All the books I’ve mentioned are on my shelves, and reading them has put me as close as I’ll ever get to the veteran experience, but it’s what I can do. Praise be to the veterans!