Montgomery County resident U.S. Army Lt. Col. (retired) Warren Switzer gave the following speech at Saturday’s Memorial Day service in Mt. Gilead.
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen.
About a month ago, Jim Kiser came and asked me if I would be willing to make a
short presentation regarding Memorial Day. Honored, I accepted; although I doubt
that Jim knew how personal an opportunity this was to me. Memorial Day is a somber
reminder and it is well that we recall those U.S. military personnel who died while
serving and what in a larger sense makes their sacrifice meaningful. At minimum,
a few remarks are in order.
That said, and in keeping with the desires of those who have stood in formation in
the sun, I will attempt to make my remarks both pertinent and short. My memory
(while it fades with the passing of years) is very clear about standing more than
once in formation and watching the high gloss spit shine of my footgear melt and
run into the grass. Fortunately, today we have a near perfect day (although a bit
warm in this coat).
On this occasion, as on Veterans Day in November, any American can pass through
almost any cemetery in the United States and see small flags placed at the graves
of veterans interred there. Some of you have had the experience of visiting
Arlington National Cemetery near our nation’s capital; even with minimal
reflection the result is sobering. In that one location there are approximately
400,000 graves. If you have been and were not moved – shame on you.
But, sadly, we tend to forget those lying elsewhere typically in lands they helped
liberate, and those who lie in the deep, and those whose site is known but to God.
Outside the United States there are cemeteries and memorials located in 17 foreign
countries –with about 130,000 internees. The American Battle Monuments
Commission (ABMC) has tried to keep a tally. They created and currently maintain
25 American military cemeteries located in 10 foreign countries, including France,
Belgium, the United Kingdom, the Philippines, Panama, Italy, Luxembourg,
Mexico, Netherlands and Tunisia.
The ABMC also has created 27 memorials to honor those 124,000 marked
“missing in action” during World War I, World War II, the Korean War and the
Vietnam War. These are located in the United States along with 16 other countries,
including Cuba, Belgium, France, the Philippines, Papua New Guinea, Morocco
and South Korea.
Many of those who fell lie near their battle site. For example, those who fell at
Omaha Beach lie with their comrades at the Normandy Cemetery. It holds 9,387
graves. Further on in France is the Ardennes American Military Cemetery holding
5,329 (most from WW I). Far less well known (or visited) are the American
military cemeteries in Manila, Philippines (17,206), Mexico City (813 with 750
unknowns) or Tunisia (2,841). Perhaps the smallest grave site is located here in
North Carolina in one of Fort Bragg’s training areas. It is for an unknown Union
soldier who was killed in 1865. He almost made it home.
But for us, it is those small flags in nearby cemeteries that remind us of the costs of
freedom. I am told that this small place has 15 who have paid the ultimate price.
Great or small, each one has its own impact. In WW I, Canadian physician and
poet John McCrae wrote:
In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.
When you entered here today you saw the red buttonhole poppies; that is a British
tradition from WW I now extended – from Flanders fields.
Then there are those who are or were veterans, but not in uniform …
Wives of veterans … and their children …
Mothers and fathers … sisters and brothers …
And there are the unknowns about which we tangentially know … fighters for the
Resistance … messengers who never arrived … the families who at great risk
harbored U.S. aviators shot down over enemy territory …
And, of course, the truly unknowns …
All these I have mentioned are the folks we normally associate with conflict and
war. And they do deserve our respect and gratitude. But there are others – a great
many others – to whom we owe enormous, yet often unheralded, debt.
While many I will mention are Americans, there have been others – not Americans
– who have contributed greatly. All are a part of the great construction of the
orderly society. Peace, too, has its heroes and heroines and those quiet yet awe-
inspiring achievers who never wore a uniform or, if they did, their contributions
were not in a feat of arms. Some of these are known and we esteem them – often in
terms of their professions.
Some of these we know fairly well – particularly those in or associated with the
medical profession.
For example, Major Walter Reed and Lt. Col. William Gorgas (both U.S. Army) whose work led to the control of yellow fever.
The number of lives saved – at least 10,000 the first year and a still growing
number – is unknown and perhaps incalculable.
Edward Jenner, who derived the vaccine for smallpox – a scourge that scarred
multitudes and killed with agony. But the real impact was the understanding that
vaccines were possible to fight many of the diseases which destroyed so many.
We all know about Alexander Fleming’s near-accidental discovery of penicillin in
1920, and later progress in the mycin drugs further advanced to arrest diphtheria,
infections of all kinds, meningitis, (just a very few among many scourges rendered
impotent).
American Dr. Jonas Salk (and his colleagues) who developed the vaccine for
preventing polio. (Many of you are old enough to recall the pink sugar cubes.) Do
you also recall seeing someone who was stricken in the “pre-sugar cube era”? Oh,
and before I forget, Salk never patented his work – he made it a free gift for
everyone.
When we get away from the medical field with its momentous achievements, we
find that there are other giants – less commonly known – but gargantuan in their
achievements and impact.
Americans Peter Beyer –and his colleague Ingo Potrykus (a name that does not
come trippingly off my tongue) – brought us “golden rice” in the early 1990s.
What is ‘golden rice’? It is a genetic enhanced rice that has been augmented by a
gene from the common daffodil. What it does is provide vitamin A to rice which
was a nutritional shortfall that primarily affected children causing blindness and the inability of the immune system to respond. So far – so far – it is credited with saving 200,000 to 700,000 lives PER YEAR. (At a modest estimated average of
500,000 lives saved per year (32 years) that is 16 million . And still counting. Do you think that is a “contribution”?
American Norman Borlaug and (later) Yuan Longping (who applied it to China)
brought forth the Green Revolution (also called the Third Agricultural Revolution).
This momentous and multifaceted achievement incorporated mechanization,
improved hybrid seeds, herbicides, fertilization and irrigation in an integrated
system. It was a food explosion. By the 1960s the United States was feeding itself
and 37 other nations. Begun in the early 1950s and expanded/improved, it is
estimated that Borlaug and Longping EACH have saved over ONE BILLION lives
chiefly from preventing famine. Like Salk, Borlaug gave away his best ideas rather
than make an enormous personal financial fortune. Yes, I think that is a
“contribution.”
And then there are the ‘little people” of whom we should be mindful daily. The
reason I mention that is because a great number of those things which make our
Western world – the civilization into which we have been born and gotten used to
as “normal” – have gone unheralded. Trust me when I say that our “normal” is
shockingly “abnormal” in many places in our current world.
Would you like an example? How about the modern kitchen? We take almost
everything in it as “normal” but “normal” was very, very different only a century
ago. Hmm … I recall a conversation I overheard in my parents’ kitchen where my late
wife, my mother and my grandmother were discussing the greatest advance in the
home. My late wife opined that it was the microwave oven. My mother said no, it
was the modern range and refrigerator. My grandmother tut-tutted them both and
just said, “Water; clean water”.
Within a lifetime we went from buckets and cistern water (when the well went dry)
to pure, hot and cold water on demand, a range that could cook several dishes at
once under control, a refrigerator to add to food storage and safety, and the
microwave which sped everything up. I can assure you that in many places of our
current world, they still depend on buckets – if water is even available.
What about those things we hardly pay attention to like seatbelts for automobiles,
disc brakes, variable windshield wipers, anti-lock brakes, automatic hazard warning for a car’s perimeter.
What about paint? The Day-Glo variety that aids us
on the roads every day, and the non-leaded variety that undoubtedly has prevented
the ills of lead poisoning for millions of people. All of these few I have mentioned
probably have saved the life of more than one of us here.
And now we come to knowledge.
Recall that “lore” was passed down verbally – usually father to son, mother to
daughter. The introduction of writing allowed that lore to be circulated much
farther and over a much longer period of time. Yet, writing was a slow process and
prone to difficulties and high expense. (There is a big difference between the “copy
machine” being a Xerox spitting out 15 copies of an eight-page report (in color!) in
less than 10 minutes and a cowled monk hunched over his parchment pen in hand
in a drafty, unheated, badly lit scriptorium.) But the combination of making paper
(thank you Marco Polo for bringing it from China) and the printing press (thank
you Johannes Guttenberg) provided books – a great proliferation of books – and
the spread of ideas contained in them went everywhere … provided you were
literate. And, of course, the books had to be available – hence the creation of
public schools, and public lending libraries (and, again, thanks to the likes of
American Benjamin Franklin who founded the first lending library in the United
States – and also founded what is now Penn State University) and also great thanks
to the 13-year-old Scotch immigrant American Andrew Carnegie (who arrived with
$1.20 in his pocket) and who, after gaining great wealth ($350 billion)( !) built
3,500 libraries, filled them with books and even provided a starting stipend for the
hire of a librarian for each. His first principle of success? “Feel the future in an
instant, do not let your current situation hold you back.” Another? “Continuously
improve your skills.” The free public libraries were his way of giving back – of
assisting others to aspire in an upward manner. Carnegie not only perceived the
future – he helped build it.
Well, what about the so-called “ordinary people” – those we don’t think about as
“veterans” or “heroes” … yet they are ….
Would anyone deny that someone who gives of him or herself, who sacrifices their
own welfare for the benefit of another, is not a hero? Is not a hero one who has
provided – at no cost to the receiver – the best of which they are capable to advance
another? How many untold sacrifices does the “average mother” make in her life to
tend to her children … ? How many men have risen to their responsibilities and held jobs for year after year that they did not enjoy because their family depended upon them for support?
Humble jobs count – they count a lot – more than what credit we give them …
Take, for example, a dairy farmer – hard physical work, no days off, two milkings
a day, hustling bales for the winter, mucking out the stalls, worrying about the
weather and the market prices, and having cows for company. Yet, how many of us
are the physical stature we are simply because we had access to milk, cheese and a
host of dairy-associated products? (And hardly any of us every milked a heifer.)
This is a greater tale than just America; our world culture is a vast collection of
veterans – military and civil – heroes and achievers great and small, living and
dead, who have given us a legacy of “civilization.” Their countless efforts have
been built on the premise of “always upwards” and common humanity. It is the
stuff that binds us together as humans; the credo of “women and children first to
the lifeboats,” of treating each other as we would be treated, of being humble in the
face of the contributions made by those known and unknown others and grateful
for life in a marvelous world.
Our history – mankind’s history – is sad in so very many, many places, times and
ways. Yet, we do have our life heroes. Abraham Lincoln was absolutely “on mark”
when in his Gettysburg Address he stressed the foundation of “a new nation,
conceived in liberty.” He understood that while this Great Civil War was a
harrowing experience, it was a test “whether such a nation so conceived and
dedicated could long endure.” He understood that America was the “City on the
Hill” – whether the greatest experiment of earthly man – of “government of the
people, by the people, and for the people” should survive. And so it has.
But all those contributions – those millions – even billions – of lives saved, and
advances we now casually assume we should recall that without that environment
of civilization – of liberty and orderly society – NONE of those things would have
occurred as they did.
And every one of them is linked to a veteran.
It is our individual and collective legacy – a positive earthly legacy and, also, the
charge of preserving and championing “the good.” We should be careful guardians
of it even as we add positively to it.
And this brings me to the guardians we honor today – those veterans who have
made possible the opportunities which so many who have advanced us – indeed, have advanced all of humanity. Had they not done so, the progress of our civilization would have been bleak and our lives – ALL our lives – would have had
the characteristics of “nasty, brutish, and short.” I have mentioned the momentous contributions of many. They deserve their portion of credit. Their immense, sustained, and compounded gift deserves mention of credit where credit is due. But, to recall, here is where credit is also due in full measure:
It is the Veteran, not the preacher,
who has given and ensured us freedom of religion.
It is the Veteran, not the reporter,
who has given and secured for us freedom of the press.
It is the Veteran, not the poet or author,
who has delivered and secured our freedom of speech.
It is the Veteran, not the campus agitator,
who has given us freedom to assemble.
It is the Veteran, not the lawyer,
who has given us the right to a fair trial.
It is the Veteran, not the politician,
who has secured for us the right to vote.
It is the veteran, who gave his oath to support and defend
“The Constitution and Our Nation Against all Enemies, Foreign and Domestic”.
It is the Veteran who wrote a blank check payable to our country in the amount of “my
life if necessary”
And it is the Veteran who paid that price, and whose coffin is draped and whose grave
later marked on days such as this one by our flag.
Whether each individual’s actions be great or small, modest or majestic, those
veterans are a special category of hero. Our republic deems it so; we have gathered
many together where they stand their “last post.” In Arlington Cemetery you will
find privates lying aside generals, sailor cooks alongside NASA cosmonauts, a
WW II Army (WAC) nurse rests beside a Vietnam era Marine gunnery sergeant
and a Navy captain whose headstone includes WW II, Korea and Vietnam. Rank,
service, era, or gender is insignificant there – what you are because of what you did
– is what places you in that company. Sometimes, there is of that company a
singular hero – one marked by his or her ultimate sacrifice – since that is the
ultimate tribute we can render on earth. In the gospel according to John 15:13 we
find: “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his
friends.”
Truly, a great many gave up all their tomorrows for our todays.
We have our losses – losses that remain with us – losses that twinge us as a mother
who has lost her child years before. We lament that such a one has died. But there
is a far larger sense – we should be thankful that that such men and women have
lived. For in their living, doing, and sacrifice we live. As for them:
They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.
And, at this point I would like to make a very personal mention of six individuals,
all young, all of whom were killed in action.
Private First Class Darel E. Johnson – Flint, Michigan
Specialist 4 th Class Colon D. Young – Hickory, North Carolina
Specialist 5 th Class Dana L. Mace – Caribou, Maine
Staff Sargeant Charles E. Smith – Durham, North Carolina
Warrant Officer 1 George W. Grega – McKees Rock, Pennsylvania
Captain Michael D. Casey – Sallisaw Oklahoma.
Specialist 5 Mace was my medic, SSGT Smith was my acting platoon sergeant,
and Warrant Officer Grega was a helicopter pilot in the unit in which I also flew.
Last, Captain Casey (nicknamed “Blue”) was posthumously awarded the Silver
Star for successfully recovering, under fire, a wounded member of his platoon.
Sadly, ‘Blue” was mortally wounded in that action. He was my roommate.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.
Yes, we have our examples … We have our great commission …
And on Monday (and every day after) we have a Memorial Day … lest we forget.
Thank you for the opportunity, the honor and the solemn duty to speak of and for
those whose voices are now silent.