Memorial Day May 2026

This morning I spoke on the phone, to my brother Joe who lives in West Virginia. I had called to wish him a Happy Memorial Day Weekend. We were both celebrating in the same way, watching movies and documentaries about World War 2. We were raised on the history of World War 2 because our father was in the US Navy and our mother not only vounteered for the Red Cross but also was a Courier at the Philadelphia US Navy Yard.

His participation in the War inspired in my intelligent father a life-long interest. He read so many books and watched every movie and documentary there was. He owned dozens of video cassettes. Over the years, Dad and I watched a German movie version of Stalingrad, a Russian movie versian, and an American movie version. We both loved history; it was one of the things we had in common. Before he died, I had brought him a book about the Battle of Tassaferonga; he was there and witnessed it from his ship.

My mom kept a Strawbridge and Clothier box under her bed with old black and white photos of her and dad in Florida in the 1940's.

my father had been in the CCC when he was 16. His wudiwed mother had gone to Ocean City to nurse her mother who had suffered a catastrophic stroke and was paralyzed. Dad was left on his own with an older brother, Clyde and wife. Edna, the wife didn't like having my dad around, so he joined the CCC and was sent to Skyline Drive to work on the scenic highway. He fell in love with the woods.

That's another thing my father and I had in common, a love of nature and the woods.

Back to the 1940's - after the CCC, my father followed his father's footsteps and joined the Merchant Marines. The second World War broke out and he went from the Merchant Marines into the US Navy. He and my mother met at the Philadelphia navy yard and fell in love. While my father was stationed in Florida, they married and Mom went to live in Miami with dad until he was shipped out. She came home pregnant with me.

We have been the lucky ones - immensely, miraculously lucky because my father came home alive and uninjured.

My teenaged boyfriend, Mike, was drafted in 1965. We were overjoyed when he got orders for Germany instead of Vietnam. My brother, Joe had joined the Marines and had been sent to Vietnam. Thankfully, he too came home alive and uninjured. So so lucky, this family.

My Uncle Yock, Grandmom Mabil's brother served in WWI and WW@, having lied aobut his age for both. Too young for one and two old for the other. His destroyer was torpedoed and sank in the North Atlantic and my father's troop transport picked up the survivors, including my Uncle Yock who got to live to an old age. They all got to live to an old age, Dad, Uncle Clyde (Dad's bother who also served in the Navy), Great Uncle Yock, and even my mother's father Joseph Lyons, who served in World War 1 on the Mexican border! All of them got to be old men.

To honor the memory of the risk and the suffering and the service of men like them, I devoted my weekend to watching documentaries about the conflicts that tore the world apart in our history. My family actually had a Civil War ancestor too, Hiram McQuiston, who was at Gettysburg, and a Revolutionary veteran, {eter T. Cheeseman and his brother Richard, both of served and survived (both of them on my mother's ancestral side). All of them lived to have families and futures and to experience the great gift of old age.

What struck me this year, as no doubt it had other years, was how young all thoe boys were - whether Civil War or World War 2, they were so young; boys really. And they were thrown into the maw of death and forced to see and experience unimagineable horror.

Last night I watched a brilliant and stunning new 6 part documentary called: World War 2 From the Frontlines, a British documentary which first aired in December 2023. Modern film techniques like much improved colorising turned the documentary into a new and lving experience.

A sample of the traumatic horrors the young were forced to endure: A pilot who had been ordered to bomb Hamburg, Germany during the last year of the war. The generals and president and prime minister decided that bombing military targets wasn't having enough effect. After the city had been firebombed to demoralize the German civilian population which still supported Hitler's efforts, the pilot was ordered to go back and bomb a post office building in which thousands of survivors had sought refuge. "This isn't us," he complained, "This is what Nazi's do, not Americans." He was ordered to do it anyway, and he had to follow orders. All his life this weighed on his counscience. All these young young men forced to see and do such terrible things, but because they persevered and carried the burden, the World Was Saved Because I was born in 1945, the year the war ended, it was a very real and living memory to everyone around me for the next ten years. When our family got a television, we watched solemnly and reverently every episode of Victory at Sea. I still her the theme music

I think, now, that watching that, and so many sea battles that my father was in or around, reminded him every day of how lucky he was to have survived. And my father really was a grateful man. he really savored life and he rarely to never complained. Life was good - no - better than good - life was a miraculous gift. Both of my parents seemed to radiate that attitude. They celebrated life.

It is all so long ago now, and in so many ways forgotten. Once about fifteen years ago, I went to the largest WW2 re-enactment in the world, which is held at Reading, Pa. It was amazing, and it awakened so many of my own early memories. I was raised on all the old music of the 1940's, the Big Band era and it causes my heart to race even now. I think we children absorb a lot of the emotional climate of our parents especially in those early years when we are absorbing EVERYTHING. So I feel something that is a ghost of the feelings my parents had from that time, the danger, the fragility, the innate and indescribably ephemeral nature of life, and the miracle of it.

All this week, until Monday, in honor of the sacrifice and suffering of the people who endured those times, I will immerse myself and remember.

Happy Trails! Be grateful!

wrightj45@yahoo.com