Remembering the Fallen

There was a bit of excitement yesterday at church: We stood for the closing song (How Great Thou Art) and Richard’s pants fell down. He sat down immediately and recovered well. He managed to pull them back up and tighten the belt that was supposed to hold them up. I managed not to laugh out loud.We got through the song without further incidence.

On a more somber note…

A few weeks ago I finished reading John Grisham’s book The Reckoning.

Grisham again demonstrates his skill as master storyteller. The section of the book devoted to the experiences of the American and Filipino soldiers fighting in the Philippines describes in horrific detail the brutality they suffered at the hands of the Japanese on the Bataan death march and as prisoners of war. It is graphic and disturbing and very intense.

Well, today we honor those who died serving our country. All of the men in my extended family who served in the military returned home, except one. His name was Lester, and he was my mother’s cousin. I do not remember my mother ever mentioning him in discussions of her extended family. She occasionally mentioned her Uncles Albert and Ernest and her Aunt Myrtle, who were the siblings of her mother, but I never remember her talking about Lester or his brother Lyle, although I suppose she must have. I never saw a photograph of my mother and her cousins.

I knew nothing about Lester – or rather, perhaps, remembered nothing about him – until 2 years ago, when I was very surprised by a call from the Casualty and Mortuary Affairs Operations Division of the Army.

From them I learned that Lester was first reported missing in action and then became a prisoner of the Japanese. He died in 1942 of diphtheria in the Cabanatuan POW Camp in the Philippines.  The Army had recovered his remains in the Philippines and returned him to his father, in Montana, in 1949.

I guess the Army had made the connection from my mother to Lester's family--Myrtle was his mother--and then tracked me down through my mother’s obituary and asked me to send a DNA sample to the Central Identification Laboratory. From the documents they sent me, it looked to me like they knew exactly who they had dug up and sent back to the United States, but I guess they wanted to compare my DNA with Lester’s to make sure they had correctly identified the remains as being Lester’s.

It must have been such a time of sorrow for that family. I have no way of honoring his memory by decorating a grave, but I can acknowledge that he gave the ultimate sacrifice in service of our country.