Bill Kirby: Take time to look for those who earned a Memorial Day
"No person was ever honored for what he received. He was honored for what he gave."
– Calvin Coolidge
Go look for them.
It is a Memorial weekend, and it's easy to take time for ourselves and forget the reason for the three-day break. If you look, however, you might discover someone in your family who gave a life for this country.
I admit I grew up thinking we'd been lucky. War had missed us. But I hadn't looked deep enough. My mother had.
Decades ago in her early years of retirement, she had begun an interest in genealogy and amassed boxes of documents with hard-to-read handwriting, old letters and copies of records. She would occasionally mention a discovery here or there, but none led to fame.
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When we moved her out of the old house, I got the boxes and began to sift through them, mostly looking for things to pitch, but discoveries followed.
Pension records revealed a Union soldier fatally wounded at 18, a month after his enlistment.
I found a War of 1812 participant who died in a clash with the British, but earned his surviving family a land grant in what is now West Virginia.
Those were distant, however, and three were much closer.
They were my mother's cousins, who went to Europe in World War II. One came home badly wounded. Two are still there in military cemeteries.
I asked my mother about them and why they were not talked about.
"It was all just so sad," she said. "We didn't talk about it."
The military didn't talk about it, either, never telling the family details on their final days. But if you look, you find out things.
One was Kenneth, who sent my mother a letter a few months before he died. He was killed by a land mine at the beginning of the Battle of the Bulge.
Another was Bruce, a 23-year-old sergeant killed a month before the war ended. Military records show his infantry regiment saw almost 200 days of combat in northwestern Europe as it surged through France, the Netherlands, Belgium and western Germany, fighting back several counter attacks as it advanced in late 1944 and 1945.
Bruce died in fighting around Paderborn, Germany, and is buried in the Netherlands American Cemetery in Margraten. That battle not only claimed him, but also Maj. Gen. Maurice Rose, the highest-ranking officer killed during World War II combat in Europe.
I did not know any of this until a few months ago.
When I asked, my mother said that my great aunt and uncle always kept Bruce's military photo displayed at their small Kentucky farm house. His parents have been gone for decades now, and their legacy seems to come down to an old mantle clock we still have and a son given in service to our country.
The latter should not be forgotten.
This holiday I encourage you to look for such members in your own family and give memory to their memorial.
Bill Kirby has reported, photographed and commented on life in Augusta and Georgia for 45 years.
This article originally appeared on Augusta Chronicle: Bill Kirby: Search your family for those who earned Memorial Day
