Those who read my original Memorial Day article may notice that this time I have left two words off the title: “and Hoping.”
This is because in the “Hoping” part of my original version I made some political and social inferences and judgments that perhaps were not appropriate for such a solemn occasion.
On this Memorial Day proper, I have omitted such “implications” as my purpose is to simply “Remember and Honor” all our fallen heroes.
If there is any “Hoping,” it is that I hope that my exemplars—epitomes of courage and patriotism —adequately represent all those who have made the ultimate sacrifice in all wars and conflicts.
If you have already read the original post, please read the (new) “Epilogue.”
The German torpedo that sank the U.S.S. Dorchester plying the icy waters of the North Atlantic in February 1943 didn’t know or care that among its 672 casualties there would be four U.S. military chaplains (all U.S. Army lieutenants): a Catholic priest, a Jewish rabbi and two Protestant ministers. After giving their lifejackets away to other soldiers, “the four chaplains” were last seen standing on the deck of the sinking ship, arms linked and praying together.
The Japanese torpedoes that sank the U.S. submarine Corvina in the Pacific during World War II didn’t care about the age, rank, race or religion of the 82 brave sailors who died for our country one fateful day in November 1943.
The enemy fire that hit and downed a Navy F4U Corsair fighter on December 4, 1950, during the Korean War, had no idea that its pilot, Ensign Jesse LeRoy Brown was black, and, furthermore, that he was the Navy’s first African-American aviator. After crashing on an icy mountain side close to the Chosin Reservoir, Brown also became the Navy’s first African-American pilot to die in combat.
The Soviet-built rocket that slammed into a ward of an evacuation hospital in Chu Lai, Vietnam, just before dawn on June 8, 1969, could not have known that one of its victims would be a 24-year-old U.S. Army nurse. First Lieutenant Sharon A. Lane would be the only American servicewoman killed as a direct result of enemy fire during the Vietnam War, albeit seven other American military nurses would lose their lives serving in Vietnam.
Those who ambushed and murdered Army Pfc. Lori Ann Piestewa and several other soldiers in March 2003, after her convoy made a fatal wrong turn into Nasiriyah, Iraq, didn’t know and probably didn’t care that Piestewa would be the first Native American woman killed in combat, and one of only a handful of Native American women serving in the military at the time. Neither did they know, or care, that Piestewa was a single mother raising two small children or, for that matter, that some 220,000 women would go on to serve in combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan over the next seven years and that more than 100 of them would make the ultimate sacrifice. (Another woman soldier on the same mission as Piestewa, Pfc. Jessica Lynch, survived the ambush and was dramatically rescued a few days later.)
The enemy grenade that killed Mexican-born Marine Sgt. Rafael Peralta on November 15, 2004, in insurgent-infested Fallujah, Iraq, when he heroically smothered the grenade explosion with his body saving the lives of six fellow Marines, did not care that Peralta had come to the U.S. as a teen without legal documentation.
The IED that took the life of Army Major Alan G. Rogers, an intelligence officer, while he was on patrol in Baghdad, on January 27, 2008, had no inkling that Rogers may have been, according to some, one of the first of more than 200 gay and lesbian service members who would die in the Iraq war.
To the roadside bomb that ended the life of Army 1st Lt. Mohsin A. Naqvi in Afghanistan, in December 2008, it was neither here nor there that Naqvi, a naturalized American born in Pakistan, was Muslim—one of over 58,000 members of our armed forces who have been naturalized since Sept. 11. As, Naqvi’s father said, “First he was American, then he was a Muslim.”
The roadside bombs and small-arms fire that killed Pfc. Christopher R. Kilpatrick in June, 2005, and Maj. Steven Hutchison in May 10, 2009, in Operation Iraqi Freedom didn’t know that Kilpatrick was only 18 and that Hutchison was already 60 years old, the oldest American service member to be killed in combat in Iraq.
Finally, the suicide bomber who so cowardly attacked members of the Marines’ 4th Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion in the Helmand Province of Afghanistan just four months ago will never know that one of his victims was a young Jew, Marine Lance Cpl. Jeremy M. Kane.
And so it continues…
The people, weapons and devices that kill or maim our soldiers don’t give a hoot whether their targets are gay or straight, male or female, black or white, Christian or Muslim or whether their surname is Smith, Jankiewicz, Nguyen or Rodríguez.
On this Memorial Day, we respectfully commemorate, honor and thank all our fallen heroes of all wars and conflicts. The courage and patriotism displayed by them irrespective of race, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, etc. is an awesome inspiration to all of us.
This article is dedicated to my Officer Candidate School classmates (OCS Class 63-A) who made the ultimate sacrifice during the Vietnam War and during the “Cold War.”
Image: Courtesy homeofheroes.com
Epilogue:
The image above depicts Navy Ensign Jesse LeRoy Brown and Navy Lt. (J.G.) Thomas Hudner.
Lieutenant Hudner, who was flying “wing” for Ensign Jesse Brown when Brown’s Corsair was shot down, crash-landed his aircraft to try to rescue Ensign Brown.
The official citation accompanying the award of the Medal of Honor to Lieutenant Hudner for “conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty” tells the rest of the story:
…Lt. (J.G.) Hudner risked his life to save the injured flier who was trapped alive in the burning wreckage. Fully aware of the extreme danger in landing on the rough mountainous terrain and the scant hope of escape or survival in subzero temperature, he put his plane down skillfully in a deliberate wheels-up landing in the presence of enemy troops. With his bare hands, he packed the fuselage with snow to keep the flames away from the pilot and struggled to pull him free. Unsuccessful in this, he returned to his crashed aircraft and radioed other airborne planes, requesting that a helicopter be dispatched with an ax and fire extinguisher. He then remained on the spot despite the continuing danger from enemy action and, with the assistance of the rescue pilot, renewed a desperate but unavailing battle against time, cold, and flames. Lt. (J.G.) Hudner’s exceptionally valiant action and selfless devotion to a shipmate sustain and enhance the highest traditions of the U.S. Naval Service.
To read the touching story about these two brothers-in-arms, please click here.
This article is dedicated to my Officer Candidate School classmates (OCS Class 63-A) who made the ultimate sacrifice during the Vietnam War and during the “Cold War.
The author is a retired U.S. Air Force officer and a writer.