Memorial Day and the Forgotten

Yesterday I walked past this Vietnam War Memorial on a busy street in Venice, Calif.  It was painted in 1992 by a veteran of that war and lists by name more than 2,000 Americans whose bodies had not been found in almost 20 years since the end of fighting. 

The message at the top of the mural is this:  

YOU ARE NOT FORGOTTEN

This resembles, in a way, the main Vietnam Memorial on the National Mall in Washington, DC -- two long black granite walls etched with the names of the 58,000 service members who died in the conflict.  

Similarly, New York's 9/11 memorial includes names of the 3,000 dead etched in bronze.  

People now visit these installations to see the names of loved ones whose losses they are grieving.  After the survivors have died, the lists of names will remain to remind us that real people were lost in these terrible events.

Unusually, in Venice, the monument is to the forgotten dead whose bodies never have been found.  Its idea is to remind Americans not to forget those persons' loss.  

Except, sometimes, at least some of us do forget.  

Vandalism

Two years ago, on the week before Memorial Day, several young men sprayed silver paint over most of the names on the lower half of the Venice wall and then "tagged" it with their personal graffiti monikers.  

Below is the result and, below that, a closer example of how the names of lost soldiers were replaced with bigger, showier tags of a few young people seeking attention. 

   

Venice is a flaky sort of place and no hotbed of rah-rah military bravado. But this offended the community.  

Prolific taggers are not hard to find, and so authorities identified at least some of the four who left their messages.  One, who perhaps had a criminal record, was sent to prison for four years (two years, tops, now in CA), and another had to write a letter of apology.  Both were assessed hefty fines that neither is likely to be able to pay.

The vandals were in their early 20s, born years after the Vietnam War ended. Presumably they did not see the irony in "disappearing" even the names of people who had been missing for more than 40 years and then replacing those names with flamboyant look-at-me messages about themselves.  

After the tagging, veterans and local people worked in teams to wash off the graffiti.  This had the unintended effect of erasing many of the original names from the wall.  

Then, early the next year, another street artist or group of artists marked up the already-damaged wall.  

The volunteers went back to work.  They researched the records of the original painter, who had died.  They made templates of the names and lettering, and they restored the writing as he had placed it.  Between sweat equity and donated money, the mural was restored as seen in the top picture.  When completed, the mural was covered with a coating to protect it if -- or, more likely, when -- the next self-styled street artist tries to replace its message with one demanding attention for himself.

So we should be grateful for the public-spirited people who gave their own time and money to put things right.

But as for that message -- YOU ARE NOT FORGOTTEN -- I am not so confident.

Are we teaching our children about the perils of war and the respect owed to the war dead?

What does it mean when some young people see emblems of such recognition as opportunities to divert attention to their own wishes for grandiosity?

If the young do not learn history or respect its memorials, how will we protect them from future wars that leave us grieving new losses and with no sense of the reasons why?

Stories from Los Angeles National Cemetery

If you ever have driven on the 405 freeway through the Westwood section of Los Angeles, you have passed and probably noticed the headstones of Los Angeles National Cemetery, a military cemetery with 80,000 graves.  

Spread over 114 acres, the cemetery holds service members who fought in conflicts from the Civil War through Afghanistan.  Another 5,500 are entombed in columbariums, walls with interment niches for cremated remains.

The cemetery is full, but work is under way to expand it by another 13 acres, reachable on Constitution Avenue, which runs under the 405.  All the dead at the new location will be entombed as ashes in columbariums.  

When done, the expansion will more than double the capacity of the cemetery.  This is probably wise.  Much as we may wish for the end of armed conflict, the longer odds suggest we will always need space for military dead.  

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Fourteen winners of the Congressional Medal of Honor are interred in Los Angeles National Cemetery.

The first of the medals was earned by Charles Rundle, a Kentuckian who volunteered for an Illinois Infantry company at age 18 in 1862.  One year later, when General Ulysses S. Grant assembled Union armies to take Vicksburg, Rundle was one of 150 volunteers -- known later as the Forlorn Hope detachment -- who set out on a morning in May to take a well-armed Fort Garrett with ladders that were too short and not nearly enough firepower.  A quixotic effort.
     By mid morning two-thirds of the volunteers had been cut down by cannon fire.  The others took refuge in ditches below the fort, too low to be reached by Confederate cannons.  The Confederates lit fuses on cannonballs and threw them into the ditches;  fortunately the fuses burned long enough that soldiers were able to scramble away.  Rundle was one of the few who grabbed cannonballs and threw them back over the fort's walls to explode among the enemy.      
     That night, Rundle was among the 30 remaining volunteers able to scramble back behind Union lines.  After the failure of their impossible venture, Grant fell back to Plan B: Union armies laid siege to the city, isolating it from fresh military supplies and, worse, food.  Vicksburg surrendered on July 4, one day after Gettysburg. 
     Rundle mustered out in 1865, married, raised six children on a Colorado farm and, later, worked for the post office.  He moved to California for his wife's health, and both died there many years later. 
     As for his medal, he told a Colorado paper, "Nothing but death could make me part with it."  It is buried with him in Los Angeles National Cemetery.

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The last Medal of Honor represented in the cemetery was earned by a World War II infantry sergeant whose personal story is more enigmatic.  
     Christos H. Karaberis joined the U.S. Army at age 18 in 1942 in his hometown of Manchester, N.H.  We can infer from his name that he was from an immigrant family, possibly from Greece.
     In October 1 and 2, 1944, Sgt. Karaberis and his squad were in Italy, where they were assigned to take a ridge that led toward a German redoubt.  Here is the narrative from his medal citation:

     "When his platoon was pinned down by heavy fire from enemy mortars, machine guns, machine pistols, and rifles, he climbed in advance of his squad on a maneuver around the left flank to locate and eliminate the enemy gun positions. 
       "Undeterred by deadly fire that ricocheted off the barren rocky hillside, he crept to the rear of the first machine gun and charged, firing his submachine gun. In this surprise attack he captured 8 prisoners and turned them over to his squad before striking out alone for a second machine gun. 
       "Discovered in his advance and subjected to direct fire from the hostile weapon, he leaped to his feet and ran forward, weaving and crouching, pouring automatic fire into the emplacement that killed 4 of its defenders and forced the surrender of a lone survivor. He again moved forward through heavy fire to attack a third machine gun. 
      "When close to the emplacement, he closed with a nerve-shattering shout and burst of fire. Paralyzed by his whirlwind attack, all 4 gunners immediately surrendered. Once more advancing aggressively in the face of a thoroughly alerted enemy, he approached a point of high ground occupied by 2 machine guns which were firing on his company on the slope below. Charging the first of these weapons, he killed 4 of the crew and captured 3 more.              
      "The 6 defenders of the adjacent position, cowed by the savagery of his assault, immediately gave up. By his (one)-man attack, heroically and voluntarily undertaken in the face of tremendous risks, Sgt. Karaberis captured 5 enemy machine gun positions, killed 8 Germans, took 22 prisoners, cleared the ridge leading to his company's objective, and drove a deep wedge into the enemy line, making it possible for his battalion to occupy important, commanding ground."

     Not surprisingly, Karaberis was awarded his medal shortly after the end of the war. He stayed in the Army, rising to the top sergeant's rank and serving through the Korean War.  
     After World War II, he changed his name to Chris Carr.  Again by inference, we can guess that he wished to sound more American.  
     Chris Carr died in Orange County, CA at age 56 in 1970; his wife, Juanita, died seven years later.  No other personal information about him is readily available.  
     He is one of 45 military dead with the surname "Carr" in Los Angeles National Cemetery.

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Today is Memorial Day, devoted to the recognition of past and current members of the American military.  

At 3 p.m., as at other military cemeteries, there will be a moment of observance at Los Angeles National Cemetery. 

In Los Angeles, the traffic on the 405 will not slow down; the moment will not be a quiet one. But the dead will remain, in great numbers.

We should not forget them.   

D-Day Speeches

Today marks the 70th anniversary of the day Allied forces stormed five beaches in Normandy, setting the stage for the longer sustained effort to free Europe from German occupation and end the Second World War.

The bloodiest battle was on Omaha Beach.  Starting with Ronald Reagan in 1984, American presidents have joined the declining numbers of D-Day veterans there to commemorate each 10th-year anniversary with a speech about the significance of D-Day.

The speeches are aimed at the surviving veterans, but they matter to all of us.  They speak of the qualities our warriors displayed on D-Day -- bravery, persistence and honor in the defense of deeply held values -- and that we hope that we would bring if faced with such enormous challenges.

From each of the speeches:



Ronald Reagan, 1984:

The (2nd and 5th Army) Ranger battalions looked up and saw the enemy soldiers -- at the edge of the cliffs shooting down at them with machine guns and throwing grenades.  And the American Rangers began to climb.  They shot rope ladders over the face of these cliffs and began to pull themselves up.  When one Ranger fell, another would take his place.  When one rope was cut, a Ranger would grab another and begin his climb again.  They climbed, shot back and held their footing.  Soon, one by one, the Rangers pulled themselves over the top, and in seizing the firm land at the top of these cliffs, they began to seize back the continent of Europe.  Two hundred and twenty-five came here.  After two days of fighting, only 90 could still bear arms.



Bill Clinton, 1994:

During those first hours on bloody Omaha, nothing seemed to go right.  Landing craft were ripped apart by mines and shells.  Tanks sent to protect them had sunk, drowning their crews.  Enemy fire raked the invaders as they stepped into chest-high water and waded past the floating bodies of their comrades.  And as the stunned survivors of the first wave huddled behind a seawall, it seemed the invasion might fail.

Hitler and his armies had bet on it.  They were sure the Allied soldiers were soft, weakened by liberty and leisure, by the mingling of races and religion.  They were sure their totalitarian youth had more discipline and zeal.

But then something happened.  Although many of the American troops found themselves without officers on unfamiliar ground, next to soldiers they didn't know, one by one they got up and they inched forward, and together, in groups of threes and fives and tens, the sons of democracy improvised and mounted their own attacks.  At that exact moment, on these beaches, the forces of freedom turned the tide of the 20th century.



George W. Bush, 2004:

On this day in 1944, President Franklin Roosevelt addressed the American people, not with a speech, but with a prayer.  He prayed that God would bless America's sons and lead them straight and true.  He continued, "They will need thy blessings.  They will be sore tired by night and by day without rest, until victory is won.  The darkness will be rent by noise and flame.  Men's souls will be shaken by the violences of war."

As Americans prayed along, more than 12,000 Allied aircraft and about 5,000 naval vessels were carrying out General Eisenhower's order of the day.  In this massive undertaking, there was a plan for everything -- except for defeat.  Eisenhower said, "This operation is planned as a victory, and that's the way it is going to be."



Barack Obama, 2014:

By daybreak, blood soaked the water and bombs broke the sky.  Thousands of rounds bit into flesh and sand.  Entire companies' worth of men fell in minutes.  "Hell's Beach" had earned its name.

By 8:30 a.m. General Omar Bradley expected our troops to be a mile inland.  "Six hours after the landings," he wrote, "we held only ten yards of beach."  In our age of instant commentary, the invasion would have been swiftly and roundly declared, as it was by one officer, "a debacle."

But a race to judgment does not take into account the courage of free men. "Success may not come with rushing speed," President Roosevelt would say that night, "but we shall return again and again."

Twelve Americans won the Medal of Honor for heroism on D-Day.  Nine of the medals were awarded posthumously.

On the cliff above Omaha beach are the graves of more than 9,300 American warriors killed in Normandy, but in fact more died there.  The United States was the only country that allowed families to choose whether they wanted their dead service members returned home for burial.