Remembering war dead on Memorial Day

Opinion

May 26, 2012

Remembering war dead on Memorial Day

By Wyatt Emmerich, Syndicated columnist The Picayune Item Picayune Item Sat May 26, 2012, 07:38 PM CDT

PICAYUNE — The photo of Billy Elmore has always haunted me. It pops up every now and then as my computer screen rotates through thousands of stored photos.

He is a handsome lad, far younger than I am today. His appearance reminds me of my oldest son John. He has a long, handsome face.

I am probably the only person of my generation who could recognize his face. He died in World War II in 1942 and left no children. He was my great-uncle. My mother’s mother’s brother.

He died from leeches, which sucked his blood dry and left him plagued with disease. He was an engineer and he was helping to build the Burma Road — a winding 717 mile road through the jungle linking Myanmar with southwest China. It was a critical supply line in the fight against the Japanese.

My mother used to talk glowingly of her Uncle Billy. He loved to dote on his two nieces. I have an old photograph of the two cute girls each sitting on one of his legs giggling.

My grandmother told a story about the day she found out about brother Billy’s death. She dreamed that night that he was dead. She woke up and announced to her family that something bad had happened to Billy. That day, she received a call that he had died working on the Burma Road.

Sixty million people died in World War II. That number is so staggering one simply cannot comprehend it. Half were civilians.

The United States got off light, only 416,000 soldiers died. Still, a staggering number. Uncle Billy was one of them.

He died far away from home and anyone who loved or cared about him. Imagine the pain and grief this young man must have endured.

He died for freedom and liberty. Madmen were taking over the world and annihilating millions of innocent people. There was no choice but to stop them, at whatever cost in lives was required. So it was done. Billy was a casualty.

It boggles the imagination that the world had come to this, but it had. The economic turmoil left over from World War I sowed the seeds of fascism. The ultimate fascist madman appeared on the scene at just the right time for global bloodletting.

Hitler was indeed a madman. He was a quack, a kook, yet through violence and intimidation he gained power. This must never be allowed to happen again.

A decade before Hitler came to power, he led a march of 150 men or so through Berlin to overthrow the government. It was a crazy, insane march. They were armed only with pistols and rifles. They marched for miles and finally as they neared the city center, police opened fire.

The man standing next to Hitler was shot through the chest and died instantly. He grabbed Hitler’s arm as he fell, pulling it out of its socket. Hitler fled unscathed.

Just to think, if that bullet had been just a few inches over, Hitler would have been killed, World War II may have never happened and 60 million lives might not have been lost. But then such pondering is really not the role of mortals.

If you want a great appreciation of the true cost of our freedom read “Unbroken,” a book by Laura Hillenbrand, author of the best seller “Seabiscuit.”

It is the true story of Louis Zamperini, an Olympic star runner who had to forsake the cancelled 1940s Olympics, where he was predicted to win the gold medal. Instead, he enlisted and became a bombadier, flying missions in the Pacific theater.

Zamperini was shot down and survived 49 days on a life raft, floating over 2,000 miles with two other men, one of whom died. They fought off sharks, caught and ate albatrosses and fish, and drank rainwater. They washed up on a Japanese island where they were promptly taken prisoner. That’s when things went from bad to worse.

The book documents the horrific conditions suffered by the Japanese prisoners of war. Only half the POWs survived the torture, endless labor and starvation. This is compared to a 99 percent survival rate for European POWs.

Let us never forget that our blood has been spilled. The blood of our fathers, grandfathers, uncles, great-uncles, brothers and sisters. It is still being spilled today.

Enjoy Memorial Day. Have fun. And at some point think of what a price tag it was. Our freedom was paid for with blood.

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