Remember Those Who Died In Service

Memorial Day was this past Monday. Initially, it was called Decoration Day and was started after the Civil War to honor the Union soldiers who died in that conflict. After WWI, it was expanded to include soldiers who died in other wars and finally in the late 1960s, Congress passed a law declaring the official name of “Memorial Day” and also moved the observance to the last Monday of May from its traditional May 30 date.

I recently finished watching the multi-part series The Pacific on HBO. This Tom Hanks/Steven Spielberg production was a vividly realistic portrait of the incredible bravery of our fighting men and women who served in the Pacific theatre during WWII and the abject horror of that period. Prior to each episode, there were brief interviews with real veterans from WWII who clearly still had strong memories of that time even after 65 years. A common theme in these interviews and in the story-line of the series was the soldiers asking – why me? Why did I survive when so many of my comrades died? Their feelings of guilt over surviving were very strong, and many veterans do not like to talk about that time period as they do not want to bring back the memories.

It made me think of a CPA I knew when I was the Executive Director of the North Carolina Association of CPAs about 25 years ago. His name was Ken Spruill, and he was as fine a man as I have ever known – a true southern gentleman. Ken served as President of the NCACPA and I knew him for several years as he worked his way up in the leadership of the organization. Yet, I never knew he had fought in the Pacific until his wife mentioned it in passing when we were having dinner one night. It got my attention and I started asking Ken about it. Quickly, I recognized that he did not want to talk about it after he made some comment about it being the most horrible experience of his life and the fact that a lot of his friends did not make it back. Ken is no longer with us having passed away in 1995, but his comments and his reaction to my questioning are still clear to me today. It is understandable when you realize that according to experts, there were around 100,000 U.S. military casualties in the Pacific during WWII.

I hope that this Memorial Day we all paused and gave thanks to all the soldiers that have died in the service of our great country over our history. Yes, we have a great country, but freedom does have a price – it isn’t free. We should all thank and remember our soldiers who paid the ultimate price, so all of us can enjoy the freedom and benefits of being Americans. 

 

Comments

[Tracy B Stewart]

Thank you for this blog. My father fought in the Pacific and has never talked about it. I thought this was why.