Memorial Day means so much more to veterans who lost comrades during war

Janis Allen
·3 min read

When citizens pause to honor fallen service members on Memorial Day, they naturally think about family members or friends they've lost. When veterans or active members of military observe Memorial Day, images of their colleagues and buddies may be first in their minds — those they lost while serving alongside them.

Veterans participate in a past Memorial Day Observance on Memorial Day in Brevard.
Veterans participate in a past Memorial Day Observance on Memorial Day in Brevard.

Brevard’s Colonel Art Cole, USAF (Ret.), a pilot in the Vietnam War wrote, “I remember Captain Dave Panabaker, an HH-53 pilot of Aerospace Rescue and Recovery. A great, fun-loving guy whose life ended too quickly when shot down by a 37mm anti-aircraft gun in the tri-border area of Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam. We spent his last night rolling dice before that fateful morning, which is why I don't play dice anymore.”

Hendersonville resident and WWII P-47 pilot Col. Ed Cottrell, USAF (Ret.) said, “I lost one of my roommates during the Battle of the Bulge in 1944, 2nd Lt. Art Sommers. He got shot down. I didn’t see him go down, but he didn’t come back from the mission. We found out later that they found his plane and he had been killed.” Cottrell was able to visit Sommers’ burial place in an American Cemetery in the Netherlands in 2022, 77 years after his friend died. At age 100, Cottrell kneeled at Sommers’ grave.

Flat Rock resident and World War II veteran George Sarros places flowers on the grave of a WWI soldier in Flanders Field, Belgium.
Flat Rock resident and World War II veteran George Sarros places flowers on the grave of a WWI soldier in Flanders Field, Belgium.

World War II US Navy Motor Machinist George Sarros, a Flat Rock resident, served on LST 515 preparing for the D-Day invasion in April 1944. During training off Slapton Sands Beach, England, for the upcoming invasion on Normandy Beach, the flotilla of seven LSTs suffered a surprise attack by German U-boats. Three LSTs were hit.

Hundreds of sailors were in the freezing dark-night North Sea water. Sarros and his shipmates attempted to rescue them, pulling them into LST 515 and trying to revive all they could.

“I remember guys in the water yelling, ‘Help me, help me.’ We would yell back, ‘Hang on. We’re gonna pick you up. The small boat’s coming. Just hang on. Hang on, mate. Hang on, mate,’” Sarros said.

Sarros remembers being told to get a pillowcase and collect dog tags of those who were dead.

“So many,” he said. “I remember putting one man on the table where we ate, trying to get him to breathe, but it was too late. I reached into his pocket and took out his wallet. Inside was a picture of his wife and daughter.”

Sarros’ eyes well up with tears each time he tells this story, even 79 years later. He said, “about 1000 sailors died. We saved about 100.”

“Some buddies and I went back to Normandy a few years ago. The cemeteries. You see grave markers that no one knows. The marker just says, ‘God knows.’ It makes you cry,” he said.

Soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines experience these losses in a different way than civilians do, but their memories and grief can focus the magnitude of the loss and sacrifice more clearly to all citizens’ thoughts. Flat Rock resident Rear Admiral William D. Rodriguez, United States Navy (Ret.) spoke at the Transylvania County courthouse on Memorial Day 2021. He shared the touching poem many associate with Remembrance Day — now known as Memorial Day:

“After witnessing the horrors of war and walking through the aftermath in the field of battle in late 1915, John McCrae, a Canadian soldier and physician wrote the following poem:

In Flanders fields the poppies blowBetween the crosses, row on row,That mark our place; and in the skyThe larks, still bravely singing, flyScarce heard amid the guns below.We are the Dead. Short days agoWe lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,Loved and were loved, and now we lieIn Flanders fields.Take up our quarrel with the foe:To you from failing hands we throwThe torch; be yours to hold it high.If ye break faith with us who dieWe shall not sleep, though poppies growIn Flanders fields.”

A parting word from USAF pilot and Vietnam veteran Art Cole: “On this Memorial Day as you start summer's beginning, say a small prayer of thanks that you live in the land of the free because of the brave.”

This article originally appeared on Hendersonville Times-News: Memorial Day is a time to reflect on those who gave all for their country