Protect the freedoms my brothers gave their lives in WWII to save | Opinion
I was born in Mount Pleasant as the youngest of five children parented by Jake and Sadie Stein over 80 years ago. Last Memorial Day the city of Mount Pleasant honored my two older brothers with a proclamation commemorating their service while fighting for our freedom in World War II. They were almost 20 years older than me, so I barely remember them. My sister, who was 14 years older, and parents never talked about them. They were so heartbroken they did not want to talk about what had happened. My other brother, Sidney, and I picked up only a few facts about them from our sister and our cousins, who were around the same age as them. My parents gave all of their medals and other war items to our cousins.
After my wife and I moved back to Tennessee, we connected with my first cousin, who still had a small dry goods store in Mount Pleasant. When he died, his wife found the Purple Hearts my parents had given him. I told Sidney, who was living in Atlanta, about the medals. He had recently retired and was having a difficult time adjusting. He asked me to send the medals to him, and he put together a presentation featuring them. He made several presentations, expanding them to include my father-in-law, who was at Omaha Beach on D-Day, and our brother-in-law, who flew bombers off aircraft carriers during WWII. He came to Nashville and gave presentations to the West High School alumni group and the Franklin Lions Club.
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My brothers enlisted soon after Pearl Harbor was bombed and went to different training programs. The older brother, Morris, went to officers' training, and the other brother, Hyman, went to regular boot camp. Morris served in the Pacific, and Hyman served in North Africa, Sicily and Europe. Hyman was in Normandy and was killed by a land mine about two months after participating in D-Day. Morris was killed by a sniper about eight or nine months later. After learning Hyman had been killed in Europe, Morris was offered non-combat duty. He refused and said his men needed him to keep leading them.
Mount Pleasant has a museum where the history of the city is documented. It had a display featuring men who had served in WWII, and there was a few pictures of my brothers and a few articles that recognized their service. The director asked Sidney to donate the Purple Hearts to the museum when he stopped giving presentations. Last year his heath prevented him from making his speeches, so he sent the Purple Hearts to the museum. The office of the mayor of Mount Pleasant issued a proclamation making Memorial Day 2022 Stein Brothers Day, recognizing their sacrifice serving our country during WWII.
It is so important we remember the fallen who have served our country to help us save our democracy. I feel our democracy is in danger of being taken away by a vocal minority. In the early 1900s my father was an immigrant from Eastern Europe, escaping persecution and seeking the freedoms offered by our country. His and my mother’s older sons made the ultimate sacrifice to defend those freedoms.
Sid Stein was born in Mount Pleasant, Tennessee, in 1936, and had two brothers killed in World War II.
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Opinion: Protect freedoms my brothers gave their lives in WWII to save
