VFW holds Memorial Day ceremony
Temperatures were in the 90s when the Memorial Day ceremony began at 11 a.m. Monday, March 25. About 150 people were in attendance when retiring Commander Keith Keefer opened the ceremony.
“I’d like to welcome everyone here today,” Keefer said. “It looks like we have a lot more people this year than we did last year and a beautiful day.” The program began with an opening prayer, the national anthem and the Pledge of Allegiance.
The main speaker was new senior vice Commander George Bailey.
“This is a day of remembrance for those who sacrificed and died in our nation’s service,” Bailey said. “And while it was originally dedicated to honor Civil War soldiers, we know it today as a celebration of the memory of all those who fought for and defended our right to freedom.”
The idea of Memorial Day began with Civil War Gen.John Logan and his desire to honor those who died during the Civil War. On May 5, 1869. Gen. Logan issued his “General Order #11” stating that, “the 30th of May, 1868 is designated for the purpose of strewing with flowers, or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion, and whose bodies now lie in almost every city, village and hamlet churchyard in the land,” he proclaimed. The date of Decoration Day, as he called it, was chosen because it wasn’t the anniversary of any particular battle.
“In the Revolutionary War, 25,000 lost their lives in the initial pursuit of freedom,” Bailey said. “In the Civil War, 600,000 gave their lives when the very foundation of this nation was challenged. World War II claimed the lives of more than 400,000 and scores of others gave their lives in Korea and Vietnam. America continues to realize the never ending sense of duty that our armed forces have as they serve our nation around the world.
“From Key’s vision of bombs bursting in the morning air to the courageous memory of Marines raising the flag at Iwo Jima, the American flag is a symbol of freedom that we celebrate and hold sacred…. Harry Truman once said, “I think I know the American soldier. He does not want gratitude or sympathy. He had a job to do and he did not like it but he did it. And how he did it! Now he wants to come back home, start again the life he loved.”
“On this Memorial Day pause and reflect on what has been given and sacrificed so freely so freedom can reign across this great land,” Bailey said. “I am truly honored and I thank you for your support to our veterans.”
American Legion Commander Frank Taugner read a story from a book entitled: “Heart Touchers “Life-Changing Stories of Faith, Love, and Laughter). The story was written by Michael T. Powers.
“I’d like to talk about six kids,” Taugner said. “This is the story of a councilor for a bunch of 8th grade students on a Washington field trip. They were from Clinton, Wis.
On the last night of our trip, we stopped at the Iwo Jima Memorial. This memorial is the largest bronze statue in the world and depicts one of the most famous photographs in history — that of the six brave soldiers raising the American Flag at the top of a rocky hill on the island of Iwo Jima, Japan, during World War II.
Over one hundred students and chaperones piled off the buses and headed towards the memorial. I noticed a solitary figure at the base of the statue, and as I got closer he asked, “Where are you guys from?”
I told him that we were from Wisconsin. “Hey, I’m a cheesehead, too! Come gather around, cheeseheads, and I will tell you a story.”
His name was James Bradley and he happened to be in Washington, D.C., to make a speech. He was there that night to say just to say good night to his dad who had passed away. Bradley was just about to leave when he saw the bus pull up.
When all had gathered around, he reverently began to speak. (Here are his words that night.)
“My name is James Bradley and I’m from Antigo, Wisconsin. My dad is on that statue and I just wrote a book called “Flags of Our Fathers” which is #5 on the New York Times Best Seller list right now. It is the story of the six boys you see behind me.”
“Six boys raised the flag. The first guy putting the pole in the ground is Harlon Block. Harlon was an all-state football player. He enlisted in the Marine Corps with all the senior members of his football team. They were off to play another type of game. A game called ‘War’. But it didn’t turn out to be a game. Harlon, at the age of 21, died with his intestines in his hands. I don’t say that to gross you out, I say that because there are generals who stand in front of this statue and talk about the glory of war.”
“You guys need to know that most of the boys in Iwo Jima were 17, 18, and 19 years old.”
(He pointed to the statue) “You see this next guy? That’s Rene Gagnon from New Hampshire. If you took Rene’s helmet off at the moment this photo was taken and looked in the webbing of that helmet, you would find a photograph of his girlfriend. Rene put that in there for protection because he was scared. He was 18 years old. Boys won the battle of Iwo Jima… Boys… Not old men.”
“The next guy here, the third guy in this tableau, was Sergeant Mike Strank. Mike is my hero. He was the hero of all these guys. They called him the “old man” because he was so old. He was already 24. When Mike would motivate his boys in training camp, he didn’t say, ‘Let’s go kill some Japanese’ or ‘Let’s die for our country.’ He knew he was talking to little boys. Instead he would say, ‘You do what I say, and I’ll get you home to your mothers.'”
“The last guy on this side of the statue is Ira Hayes, a Pima Indian from Arizona. Ira Hayes walked off Iwo Jima. He went into the White House with my dad. President Truman told him, ‘You’re a hero…’ He told reporters, ‘How can I feel like a hero when 250 of my buddies hit the island with me and only 27 of us walked off alive?’ So you take your class at school, 250 of you spending a year together having fun, doing everything together. Then all 250 of you hit the beach, but only 27 of your classmates walk off alive. That was Ira Hayes. He had images of horror in his mind. Ira Hayes died dead drunk, face down at the age of 32… ten years after this picture was taken.”
“The next guy, going around the statue, is Franklin Sousley from Hilltop, Kentucky. A fun lovin’ hillbilly boy. His best friend, who is now 70, told me, ‘Yeah, you know, we took two cows up on the porch of the Hilltop General Store. Then we strung wire across the stairs so the cows couldn’t get down. Then we fed them Epsom salts. Those cows crapped all night.'”
“Yes, he was a fun lovin’ hillbilly boy. Franklin died on Iwo Jima at the age of 19. When the telegram came to tell his mother that he was dead, it went to the Hilltop General Store. A barefoot boy ran that telegram up to his mother’s farm. The neighbors could hear her scream all night and into the morning. The neighbors lived a quarter of a mile away.”
“The next guy, as we continue to go around the statue, is my dad, John Bradley from Antigo, Wisconsin, where I was raised. My dad lived until 1994, but he would never give interviews. When Walter Cronkite’s producers or the New York Times would call, we were trained as little kids to say, ‘No, I’m sorry, sir, my dad’s not here. He is in Canada fishing. No, there is no phone there, sir. No, we don’t know when he is coming back.’ My dad never fished or even went to Canada. Usually, he was sitting there right at the table eating his Campbell’s soup. But we had to tell the press that he was out fishing. He didn’t want to talk to the press.”
“You see, my dad didn’t see himself as a hero. Everyone thinks these guys are heroes, ’cause they are in a photo and a monument. My dad knew better. He was a medic. John Bradley from Wisconsin was a caregiver. In Iwo Jima he probably held over 200 boys as they died. And when boys died in Iwo Jima, they writhed and screamed in pain.”
“When I was a little boy, my third grade teacher told me that my dad was a hero. When I went home and told my dad that, he looked at me and said, ‘I want you always to remember that the heroes of Iwo Jima are the guys who did not come back… Did NOT come back.'”
“So that’s the story about six nice young boys. Three died on Iwo Jima, and three came back as national heroes. Overall, 7,000 boys died on Iwo Jima in the worst battle in the history of the Marine Corps. My voice is giving out, so I will end here. Thank you for your time.”
“There is a postscript here,” Taugner said. “If you look at the statue and count the number of hands that are raising the flag there are not 12 hands but 13. The man that made the statue was asked, “why are there thirteen hands?” His answer was, “it was God.” Thank you very much.”
“I’d like all of you notice that it says here on our Memorial ‘Some Gave All’ and ‘All Gave Some,'” Keefer said. “Memorial Day is a day when we honor the memory of all those that ‘gave all.’ Veterans Day is when we honor those that served. But there is a long spectrum between the two. I’d like to tell you about a boyhood friend of mine. We were both in the infantry and he was in a different division. One day he was in the field eating lunch and they told him to cover his food because they were spraying Agent Orange. This guy has had problems since he returned home from the war. He didn’t die in the service of his country but he was robbed of his life.
“It’s the same when young men and women come back from Desert Storm and Iraq they return with a whole different set of illnesses. Their lives have been short-changed. Some come home in wheelchairs or with artificial legs or arms. There’s a lot of distance between ‘Gave All’ and ‘Gave Some’ and we don’t have a holiday form those men and women.
The Honor Guard closed the ceremony by firing a salute and Keefer asked everyone to salute the flag as “taps” was played followed by a closing prayer.