Unsung Heroes
Ecclesiastes 9:13-16
Every year
Americans observe the holiday called Memorial Day. It is set aside to remember those who gave
their lives that others might live free.
Recalling their sacrifice should be the emphasis of the day, but many forget.
Maybe you saw the picture a couple
of months ago of children playing on the Women’s Vietnam Memorial statue which
faces the memorial wall in Washington D.C.
They were climbing on the body of a wounded soldier and through the arms
of the nurse holding him. Looking on, wearing a grimace of grief and sorrow was
a World War II veteran in a wheelchair.
When this
picture made the rounds on social media and on T.V. many were critical of those
children who appeared to be around 6 and 8 years old, but I was not. They were
just playing as children do. How would they know what they were doing was
wrong? They had no idea of the 50,000 killed in a war that ended 35 years
before they were born. They had no
knowledge of the pain and grief of those wounded or those who lost sons and
daughters, husbands and wives in this conflict that tore this nation apart. They didn’t know that what they were doing
was wrong.
But, their parents did and they
just stood by and watched their children treat this memorial like a jungle gym. They knew and they did nothing to stop them
until someone took this picture. When they
saw the photographer the parents slithered away in embarrassment.
That’s why
the stone and statues are not enough.
The stories must be told and retold or people forget. There is a passage in scripture that
describes this historical amnesia, but before we turn to it, let us pray:
Lord that
we may not forget; that we may always remember, speak to us through your word
and by your spirit. Amen
The Book of
Ecclesiastes begins with an introduction, “The words of the Preacher, the son
of David, and a king in Jerusalem.”[1] For this reason, many assume that Solomon
penned this because he was the only one who met the criterion. He was both a son of David and a king in
Jerusalem. The somewhat cynical tone of this book prompts the assumption that
it was probably written toward the end of his life because it reflects the
thoughts of someone who had been there and done that, who had seen it all and
done it all and is now trying to make sense of it all.
He calls
himself, “koheleth”, which has most often been translated as Preacher or
Teacher, perhaps because he shares the same struggle all of us who stand up
here on a Sunday morning face and that is, “Where can I find some good news for
people who daily face difficult obstacles and challenges? Where can I find meaning and purpose, comfort
and consolation? Where can I find
something that will get me and them through this coming week?”
Koheleth
though was coming up empty because when he rounded up the usual suspects, when
he looked to most of the places we look for comfort, he concluded that all of
it is vanity and striving after the wind.
He realized
that “The race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor
bread to the wise, nor riches to the intelligent, nor favor to the skillful,
but time and chance happen to them all. For no one can anticipate the time of
disaster.”[2]
In other
words, life is what happens after you have made other plans. Life is not fair. People don’t always get what they deserve,
good or bad. What makes this all the more frustrating is that those who do
important and significant work with their lives do not always get recognition.
The
Preacher said, “There was a city, with few men in it; and a great king came
against it and besieged it, building great siege works against it. But, there was found in it a poor wise man,
and by his wisdom delivered the city.
Yet no one remembered that poor man.”[3]
No one
remembered. Why? Why did they forget?
It could
not have been because his contribution was insignificant – he was credited with
saving the whole city. Why did no one
remember? Maybe they forgot because
they did not build a monument or carve a statue in his honor. That’s why we
build memorials and put up statues. We
don’t want people to forget but still they do.
When I
lived outside of Washington D.C. I
noticed there are statues and memorials everywhere. One in particular stood in the center of a
traffic circle I drove around to get to Presbytery meetings at the National
Presbyterian Church. In the center of that circle was a stature of a man in an
old time uniform. I must have driven
around that circle fifty times and wondered “who is that?” One day on my 51st
trip my curiosity got the best of me and I stopped. I walked up to the base and read the words,
General Artemas Ward. I had no idea who he
was or what he did and why someone went to the time and expense to put up a
statue in his honor. Do you? Did you know he was a Revolutionary War
general?
Statues and
stones are not enough. We still forget
unless we tell the stories that go with the stones.
Twenty
years ago marked the fiftieth anniversary of the end of the end of World War II. At that time there were a number of T.V.
specials that strung together the old newsreels to retell the story. General Norman Schwarzkopf narrated one that
chronicled the war in the South Pacific in places like Okinawa, Tarawa, Saipan,
and Iwo Jima.
I was
watching with my father who served in the Navy at this time. He was a radioman
and his job was to go ashore with the second or third wave of Marines to set up
shore to ship communications. He waded
in with a radio and manifest books that told him which ships had what supplies
– a manifest he said which was never right.
My ten year old son Kyle was in the
room but he wasn’t really paying much attention. He was more interested in
building Legos on the floor. I think he
thought it only as a movie. Then, one of
the newsreels showed a squad 18 year old Marines charging out of Higgins boats
through the surf and onto one of the beaches and into heavy enemy fire. My
father talking only to himself whispered, “I was there.” He was part of that. He was those marines.
When Dad
said that Kyle stopped what he was doing and looked at Grandpa and then at
those 18 year old Marines. He looked at
the Marines and then at Grandpa, and a light bulb switched on and he suddenly realized
that Grandpa wasn’t always old, that he was once 18 and facing enemy fire. After that his eyes were glued to the set and
with each new island invasion described he asked again and again, “Were you
there, Grandpa, were you there?”
When they
got to the invasion of Saipan, Kyle again asked, “Grandpa were you there?” Dad said, “Yeah, that’s where I was blown
up.” My jaw dropped and I turned to him and said “you were what?” He said, “A Japanese mortar hit a nearby ammo
dump and blew the jeep I was sitting in through the air. That’s where I was wounded.”
I had been
his son for 42 years and I had never before heard that story. I didn’t know he
had been wounded. In fact I didn’t
really know anything at all about his service because he never talked about
it. He only told the story because his
grandson asked.
Kyle will not need a stone memorial
to remember because it became real for him the day Grandpa told that story.
Nine years later the World War II
memorial was opened on the Mall in Washington D.C. and I asked Dad if he wanted
to come up and I’d take him downtown to visit.
He said he wasn’t really interested.
It was just something made of stone and he didn’t need it to remember. Then he said, the real memorial, the one that
made all the difference for him was the G.I. bill.
He had grown up during the great depression in
a small river town called East Liverpool.
His father was a laborer in the local ceramic factory but people weren’t
buying much fine china in the 1930’s so he didn’t work much. Dad figured he’d
follow in his father’s footsteps. He
never thought about college or owning his own home until he came home from the
war and the G.I. bill paid for his tuition to attend Ohio State and become a
plastics engineer ending up eventually at AMP in Harrisburg. He said, “If not for that I’d probably still
be in East Liverpool working in the ceramic factory and so would you.” He called G.I. bill a “living memorial”
because it changed his life and mine.
The stones are important only
because they remind us to us to tell the stories.
On the other side of that same war,
my mother’s brother Carl was serving as a captain in the Army Air Corp. He flew B-17 bombers over France and
eventually Germany. In 1944 he was shot down somewhere over Germany, and
according to the family stories and the testimony of his crew he steadied the
plane long enough for his crew could bail out, but not long enough for
him. No one knew exactly where his body
lies. For a long time there was not even a stone marked to remember, so my
Grandmother commissioned a local artist to paint a portrait of him off the only
picture they had of him in uniform. That
picture hung in a place of honor right over the mantle in grandma’s house for
as long as I could remember. I knew his
story because when seeing the portrait I asked who he was. They told me he was my uncle and a hero and
that he had perfect teeth – never had a cavity.
Don’t know why they told me that – but they did and I remember.
After my grandmother passed away
her household treasures were distributed throughout the family. We have her dining room table and hutch and
an antique bedroom set. But, I never
knew what happened to Uncle Carl.
Years passed and my parents retired
to live in Clearwater Florida. More years passed and my Aunt Pinkie moved into
the same building just down the hall. One day when visiting my folks I went
over to her apartment to pay her a visit.
When I walked into her living room, there was Uncle Carl hanging on her
wall in a place of honor. I hadn’t seen
him for twenty years but when I saw the portrait I remembered his story once
more. I remembered his perfect teeth and the day he died over Germany.
Meanwhile back in the South Pacific
John Johnston, who eventually became my clerk of Session at the North Branch
Presbyterian Church in Monaca PA, was serving as a marine. One day, when I asked him about his service he
told me the story of the day he was on a transport ship heading to invade another
one of those islands. His platoon was detailed to swab the decks in the
bow. It was a hot day and so he took off
the Sears Roebucks wristwatch his parents had given him when he went off to war. He laid it in a safe place.
After they were done they went back
down below to their bunks in the stern of the ship. Then he remembered his watch so John went back
up to the bow. At the moment he put his
watch back on two Japanese torpedoes cut his ship in half. The stern went down immediately taking his
entire platoon with it. The bow stayed
afloat long enough for him to be rescued.
He wore that watch for the rest of
his life and he told me he never looked at his watch without remembering that
day and his friends who gave their lives to the last full measure. He never checked the time without remembering
how precious time is. It was not stones
that helped him remember. That cheap
Sears Roebucks watch was his most precious possession because it helped him to
remember.
Koheleth
wondered about that hero who saved his town from a tyrant and yet was
forgotten. He wondered about other nameless, faceless unsung heroes, who are
forgotten because no one told their stories.
Does that diminish the sacrifice
and contribution they made?
He
concluded, “No, wisdom is better than might (or glory).”[4] The right thing is the right thing whether or
not anyone else recognizes it. A good
deed is a good deed regardless of the glory you may or may not receive. A
sacrifice has meaning whether or not anyone is in the forest to hear it or see
it. So this is for those we remember and
for those unknown whose monument is guarded with honor by soldiers in crisp
uniforms, marching their 21 steps.
In 2003
Hurricane Isabel charged up the eastern seaboard and into the Arlington
National cemetery in the middle of the night. A few week later I led a funeral
service there. While waiting for our time, I spoke to one of the chaplains. I asked if the honor guard stood their post
in the middle of that hurricane in the middle of the night? Everyone else was hunkered down so who would
know if they were there or not? He said, in fact for the first time ever the
guards were given permission and the choice to remain safe and dry, but none of
them did. They all stood their post in
the midst of this great storm in the middle of a dark night because they
believed it was their responsibility to remember and honor the sacrifice of
those who gave to their last full measure.
They believed it and so do I. So,
tell the stories to your children and grandchildren so they we remember and
treat with respect those monuments, those stones of remembrance.
Let us
pray:
