By name, not number

Memorial Day is a solemn holiday. It began that way when Gen. John A Logan led the first official Decoration Day at Arlington National Cemetery on May 30, 1868. Volunteers that day decorated the graves of more than 20,000 Union and Confederate soldiers which was an overwhelming yet small percentage of the almost 500,000 military personnel who died during the Civil War.

If you know someone killed in any of our wars, then every number affiliated with every generation of Americans is very personal.

The last American World War I veteran to die was Frank Woodruff Buckles (1901-2011), an Army corporal from Bethany, MO, who served with a detachment from Fort Riley driving ambulances and motorcycles near the front lines in Europe.

For America’s Greatest Generation it was World War II when 416,800 died serving this country, with the Korean War soon to follow. My father survived both these conflicts, serving aboard ship in the Pacific Theater and then stateside when recalled. One of the few times I ever witnessed my father crying was in reaction to innocent questions about a framed photograph of the repair ship upon which he served. This was decades after his service in the privacy of the living room at his Warrensburg home.

There were another 54,246 American service men and women who died during the Korean War. We risk much in reducing such sacrifice to mere numbers.

Death claimed Americans along the way during the Laotian Civil War (1953-1975), the Lebanon Crisis (1958), the Bay of Pigs (1961), the Simba Rebellion (1964) before Vietnam where 90,200 Americans died.

There are so many more instances where our service men and women died or were in harm’s way – the Korean DMZ Conflict (1966-69), Dominican Civil War (1965-66), Bolivia (1966-67), Cambodia (1967-75), South Zaire (1978), Gulf of Sidra (1981), Lebanese Civil War (1982-84), Grenada (1983), Gulf of Sidra (1986), Libya (1986), Persian Gulf (1987-88), Tobruk (1989), Panama (1989-90), the Gulf War (1990-91), Iraq (1991-2003), Somali (1992-95), Bosnia (1992-95), Haiti (1994-95), Kosovo (1998-99), Afghanistan (2001-present), Iraq (2003-11), North-West Pakistan (2004-present), Somalia (2007-present), Operation Ocean Shield (2009-16), Libya (2011), Uganda (2011-17), Iraq (2014-present), Syria (2014-present), Yemen (2015-present), Libya (2015-present)…

The casualties are so overwhelming that we tend to just lump the numbers into one sum: 1.1 million service members have died in all U.S. wars combined. In reflecting on these dead, we should also remember the sacrifices of those who survived to assure our freedoms. We risk much in reducing such sacrifice to mere numbers.

It is not for me to say whether my dad’s tears shed so many years after World War II flowed from a sense of survivor’s guilt.

Memorial Day is such a solemn occasion ignored by too many as most of us travel on highways to vacation or while resting at home or sharing in a backyard barbecue. Perhaps some of us feel guilty turning such a solemn day into holiday without much thought to the cemetery. If we’re honest, no doubt many if not most of us have experienced such feelings.

But there is also something to be said about doing the very things so many died to provide, to assure our freedom. We Americans are free to celebrate Memorial Day whenever and however we want. In fact, there is something right and noble about enjoying our freedoms to the fullest each and every day.

Thanks be to God for our service people in uniform, past and present. We only insult if we fail to remember their sacrifice …or reflect upon such things in terms of numbers rather than by name, personally.

Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.  – John 15:13 (NIV)

These are the names honored on plaques as you enter the first floor of the Daviess County Courthouse:

WORLD WAR I

(plaque erected May 30, 1924, by the Gallatin Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution, in memory  of Daviess County Boys who gave their lives in the World War 1917-1919)

Robert Adkison

Bert Ayers

Stanley Bernard

Lloyd Biddle

Daniel Collier

Martin Conaway

Alexander Dowell

Emmett Downs

Frank Frazier

George Hudson

Joseph Linville

Oather Lukehart

Wallace McAfee

Francis McCray

Ray Noll

Elmer Oak

William Robinson

William Seiler

Charles Shaw

Wilford Smith

John Tracy

Guy Utz

Earl Weist

John Whetstone

World War II

(plaque erected May 30, 1953, by the Veterans of Foreign Wars & Auxiliary of Daviess County, in memory of Daviess County Boys who gave their lives in World War II, 1941-45)

Clyde A. Athay

John E. Ayers

David Ayers

Franklin Bedford

Lowell Bruner

Virgil Cain

Zane Cunningham

Charles Duffey

Charles E. Foster

Lee R. Gillilan

Delbert F. Gwinn

Edward M. Harmon

Eugene Edward Helms

Lloyd L. Holcomb

Joe Holladay

Virgil Hoover

Ross L. Huston

Charles Laturno

Robert Edward Lee

William M. Lollar

Lloyd H. Lyon

Denver C. McQueen

Harold A. Mettle

Douglas Lee Bell

Cline C. Mills

William Nickolson

Jewell D. Osborn

Robert J. Place

Paul Dale Reno

Ralph E. Reynolds

Victor R. Savacool

Donald Andrew Stephens

Eugene Setzer

Wendell Smith

Jack D. Smith

Loye Dean Smith

Marion E. Smith

Darrel M. Terry

Herbert Tucker

Howard C. Weldon

Lloyd H. Weldon

Frank West

Donald Lee  Whitt

Donald C. Wilmot

William Burl Willis

H.B. Worley Jr.

Korean War

(plaque dedicated May 25, 1987, by the Veterans of Foreign Wars & Auxiliary of Daviess County, Missouri, in recognition of the heroic men and women who served in the Korean War — June 25, 1950 – July 27, 1953, dedicated to the memory of the Daviess County men who gave their lives)

Richard E. Thompson, Captain USA 01302233

Earl D. Shipers, Corporal USA 55257471

Granvil L. Bennett, Private First Class USA 17262813

Vietnam War

(plaque dedicated July 4, 1987, by the Veterans of Foreign Wars & Auxiliary of Daviess County, Missouri, in recognition of the heroic men and women who served in the Vietnam War, dedicated to the memory of the Daviess County men who gave their lives)

Darryl E. McCartney, Major USA 01930327

Rex K. Offield, Lance Corporal USMC 2268690

Gary H. Garner, Private First Class USMC 2521321

David A. Worrell, Private First Class USA 68040769