A Nurse Encounters a Soldier

Jeannine, shown visiting with family
 on Lake Winnipesaukee, NH.
(Bergeron Image.)

Yesterday, our family received this e-mail from Priscille’s sister Jeannine, who lives in Florida.  Although J. is now retired, she has had a long career in nursing, most of it with the VNA in Connecticut.  Always helpful, always cheerful, J. will go out of her way, always offering kindness and hospitality to others.

Below is J’s unedited account of her serendipitous encounter on Friday with one of America’s heroes, an Afghanistan veteran.  It is presented below in its entirety and with her permission.

"Good morning to all:  Would like to share a little story which shows how paying it forward can be rewarding to all of us.

Yesterday afternoon on my way back from running errands, I decided to stop at Five Guys to use the rest of a gift card.  In line in front of me, was a young man with a Vietnam emblem on a vest and on a cap as well.  He had 2 leg braces, 2 arm braces and crutches and was struggling to get to his wallet.

Obscured and Lost in the Fog of War

It seems obvious that we should remember the contribution of our men and women who have served and of those who are still serving in the Armed Forces of this nation.  Few Americans would deny this.
 

Likeness of Raritan Borough's WWII hero Sgt. John
Basilone, mounted on a truck of the Marconi Lodge
in the September, 2011, local parade.

Paradoxically, however, it is anything but obvious that we sufficiently honor these heroes.  Mostly, it is the families and friends of those who have died or who have been wounded and disabled in our recent wartime engagements that are left to pick up the pieces and to justify their loss.
 
Except for the American troops on the front lines who are fighting in desolate places like Afghanistan, the rest of us seem to have become too detached, going about our lives as usual – no sacrifice is asked of us, and none is offered. 
 
“Just keep signing the checks, and don’t ask questions,” the politicians in Washington seem to be intoning.

Commemorating what we Shouldn’t Forget

The 9/11 memorial at Harry Dunham Park (Photo/R. Bergeron)

During his recent visit to the nation’s Capital, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu impressed me a great deal.  There is in this man a core of stability, determination, consistency and integrity which cannot be ignored. 

The U.S. Congress, it seems, must share similar sentiments because, in a joint meeting of the House and Senate this week, he united Democrats and Republicans, as, on one point after another, they rose from their seats and enthusiastically punctuated his statements with applause and admiration – a gesture seldom expressed by that group with such frequency, especially for a visiting foreign dignitary.

I couldn’t listen to Netanyahu’s address without noting the unpretentiousness with which he speaks, and with the forcefulness by which he underscores his laser-like intent, which is to preserve the continued existence of Israel.

South Korea, a Grateful Friend

Had it not been for U.S. Armed forces under the initial direction of General Douglas MacArthur in the early 1950's, South Korea would have been overrun and absorbed by North Korean communist forces goaded on by the U.S.S.R. (the former Russian empire), with the support of communist China.

Without our help and that of other U.N. forces, the now vibrant and prosperous nation of South Korea might be non-existent, and its people living under the repressive umbrella of the failed communist regime which governs the north of the Korean peninsula today.

South Korea, with Seoul as its capital, lies below the infamous 38th parallel which partitions the two countries in half. It is a nation which does not need to be reminded of its friendship with America. Nor do South Koreans equivocate about the value of that relationship.

Their freedom was obtained at the price 54,246 American dead; 103,284 wounded; 7,140 captured; and 8,177 missing in action. Those numbers are engraved in stone on the grounds of the Korean War Memorial in Washington, D.C. Total casualties for all U.N. forces, including Koreans, were even greater.

The Korean conflict – dubbed "The Forgotten War" -- was a nasty, dirty affair whose ultimate political purpose, like that of Vietnam, was never clearly articulated by Washington. Yet South Koreans proudly have no reservations in expressing their gratitude for the American support that provided their freedom then and which guarantees it now.

If only certain of our leaders in Washington felt as unapologetic about the quality of the American character as they.

Photo Note:  South Korea Gratefully Commemorates its American Ally at the Korean War Memorial in Washington, D.C. (by Dick Bergeron)

So Easily Forgotten

Memorial Day, like so many of our national U.S. holidays, seems to have morphed into just another weekend only weakly linked to the commemoration of the events which originally gave them life.

This weekend fits that category very well. I’m just like many of you in the sense that I can find it easy to forget what it is that this nation is really celebrating in the next couple of days: the enormous sacrifice which American servicemen and women have made to secure the peace not only for ourselves, but for other nations as well. Not to mention the debt of fidelity which we owe them.

We need something to jolt us back to the reality that our freedom was won not only with the blood of our best men and women, but that it remains a fragile condition not to be taken for granted. In my case, that “something” is the memory of my own three brothers who served, as well as the visual reminders that I experience each time that I visit the war memorials in Washington, D.C.

In particular, the photo that I snapped last year while visiting the Korean War Memorial highlights an aphorism which we could well engrave in our hearts, as well as in our minds: “Freedom is not Free.”


Photo Note:  A wall at the Korean War Memorial, Washington, D.C.: A reminder of a plain truth so often minimized and sometimes forgotten. (by Dick Bergeron)

John Basilone Stands Over Raritan

Sometimes there can be a popular misunderstanding of the primary loyalty that all U.S. soldiers adhere to while in battle. We often think of it as an intellectual concept – the struggle for freedom. For Americans the defense of freedom is, in fact, the main justification for going to war. It is never to be minimized. But, when U.S. warriors are in battle, there is nothing intellectual – certainly not romantic – about it. Just think of the roadside bombs maiming and killing U.S. troops in Iraq as you read this.

Soldiers in combat think first and foremost about the protection and survival of their immediate fighting teams: their buddies to their left and to their right, in the front and in the back. No soldier wants to lose his best buddy on the field of fire. That’s why there is so much pain and agony for a soldier when a buddy loses his or her life in battle. Every soldier wants to be with his fighting team and is willing to lose his life to protect anybody on that team.

This came vividly in focus during a May, 2008 ceremony in which young Army Specialists Christopher Corriveau and Eric Moser were awarded the Distinguished Service Cross. They had been part of four American paratroopers who were outnumbered 10-to-l by “a massive al Qaida kidnap-and-execution operation in the Iraqi city of Samarra.” Two of the paratroopers were killed in that operation.

When interviewed after the ceremony, Corriveau said that he didn’t consider himself a hero, and that, “Any one of those guys would have taken a bullet for me and likewise for them. I would have taken a bullet for any of them.”

Similarly, that was the same kind of allegiance that Marine Sergeant John Basilone of Raritan Borough, NJ, demonstrated for his own buddies in the midst of warfare. In 1942, after having been awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for heroic action during battle on the island of Guadalcanal in the Pacific, Basilone returned to the U.S. But he grew weary of stateside duty, turned down a promotion to 2nd Lieutenant, and voluntarily returned to combat in the Pacific, where he rejoined his fighting Marines. In 1945, it cost him his life during the battle for Iwo Jima.

Such is the fidelity felt for comrades which, for men like Basilone and Corriveau, defines a “Band of Brothers.”