It didn't start out as "Memorial Day" but rather "Decoration Day," and is set aside to honor men and women who died while in military service. Across the country observances include visits to cemeteries and memorials, flags flown at half mast, and of course, parades. Miss Bob and I love parades!
The local papers reported that in 2008, our town of Waynesville, NC, would have a Memorial Day Parade for the first time in several years. State Senator Joe Sam Queen along with local veterans groups had been instrumental in making it happen. The parade would feature the U.S. Marine Band stationed nearby.
James Hyatt decided not to let another parade go by without him.
In addition to the band, floats carried veterans from several wars, and marching units featured re-enactment groups, ROTC organizations, as well as active-duty military units from several branches of the armed forces. The end of the parade was approaching, so Hyatt gathered his portable oxygen tank and got to his feet. He stepped off the curb and began his march down Main Street behind the last unit. Hyatt’s spontaneous participation was a fresh and unexpected surprise. Everyone thought the parade was over. The crowd lining the parade route experienced a contagious emotional reaction that began with smiles, waves, and cheers. For many observers, Hyatt personified their patriotism, loyalty, and resolve. A young boy joined him and waved a flag. Many veterans and supporters stepped out into the street and shook his hand; many saluted. When he reached the end of the parade route, there was scarcely a dry eye on Main Street.
A few days after the parade, I had the opportunity to meet him and his wife in their home for a brief interview. Hyatt served in the U.S. Army Signal Corp and landed in Normandy a week or so after the initial June 6 invasion. His group was responsible for land based communications, particularly by telephone. He was in Patton’s Third Army (as was my father) and went with them all the way across Europe. We had a lively conversation and he told me stories about the landing and how he had known a man who later became an assistant to President Lyndon B. Johnson.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Victor Lana
This is an inspirational story. Thanks for sharing it.
2 - Doug Taylor
As a native North Carolinina, (the story here took place in Waynesville), this is very inspiring to me. My Dad is a WW II veteran Navy divebomber gunner who was recognized in a town parade several years ago on Memorial Day of which he is still proud of to this day!
Thanks for such a great story!
3 - STM
We have only one of a number of WWII veterans left alive in our family; the two oldest made it well into their eighties.
One, Ron, was a tail gunner in an Australian heavy bomber squadron attached to the RAF in Britain, who made the full 30 or so trips over Germany and occupied Europe when the lifespan of a new British bomber crewman - and the same I think for the American fliers who joined the round-the-clock bombing effort - was just a couple of missions. I believe the official figure for the British crews (astounding, really) was that most could expect to be dead before a 15th mission, even the experienced ones. I had a look a few years ago at the crews stats for the Royal Australian Air Force squadrons based in England during the war and it's heartbreaking - whole crews of 18- and 19-year-olds dying violent, awful deaths on their first mission. It looks cold on the sheet: "KIA, first sortie". Others with, say, just two making it out alive from a bomber crew of eight probably going down in flames.
Ron spoke about the war but sometimes went to the Anzac Day parades, which are the equivalent of America's Memorial Day, or veterans' day, parades.
The other, Des, is still alive and is my father in law. He is now in a nursing home and served on a Royal Australian Navy corvette as part of the US Pacific Fleet (Americans are still regarded fondly in Australia, for obvious reasons) and who saw action at numerous places. While most Aussie ships were stationed overseas and served with Britain's Royal Naval, after the US entry to the war, those not recalled and more built later became part of the US fleet.
I hope none of us ever forget this generation of men. In Australia, they are not regarded the way they are in the US as "the greatest generation" (that honour seems to go the World War One vets, in which the British empire suffered a million dead and three million casualties all up), but they are still held in reverence for their sacrifice.
As an aside, American sacrifice in WWII is still honoured here too, at various locations and I have marched in an Anzac Day Parade in Sydney at which US service personnel also marched.
And a Royal Australian Navy memorial in Melbourne honours the crews of the two cruisers HMAS Perth and USS Houston, most of whom went down with their ships while battling together (with a couple of British destroyers) an entire Japanese battle fleet in the Sunda Strait.
The great sadness, and it must be the same in the US, is that many of the WWII veterans are now passing away, and the last of the WWI vets died here a few months back ... a boy who joined up late in that war and lied about his age to get in.
Interestingly, the young people of this country are recognising Anzac Day day for what it is: not about flag-waving but a memorial to the sacrifice of men who died so other generations could be free, and live in a free country. And they are now joining in, perhaps marching with their granfathers - or in place of them.
This all goes for the Vietnam vets too. However unpopular that war, people went to it believing they were doing the right thing by their country.
I know it sounds hokey, but the sacrifice of young people in the destruction of hate-filled ideologies isn't something we should ever forget.
I hope that memory extends to such things as 9/11, when on my TV down here in Oz, a continent and an ocean away, I watched live as NYC firefighters willingly went into burning skyscrapers to rescue trapped people ... quite possibly aware that they were going to their own deaths too, but doing it anyway.
Don't let the conspiracy nuts make that any less of a sacrifice than that of those who never went home from other wars or the old men marching on Memorial Day and remembering their mates and exactly what it was they were all risking their lives for.
Some things just should never be forgotten, and some causes are worth fighting for - even if wars should only ever be a last resort.
4 - FCEtier
Thank you all for your comments.
STM, as of Sept. 2009, our WWII vets were dying at a rate of approx 850 a day and their median age was 86.
5 - STM
Ron died last year. A remarkable man, but an ordinary bloke. I made a mistake in the comment FC ... it should have read "he never spoke about the war". It was like trying to squeeze blood from a stone.
We do know that the aircraft captain volunteered for a second tour of duty, and they all refused except one bloke (they didn't have to go on a second tour, and remember, by 1945, many of those who survived had not been home to Australia - 13,000 miles away - since 1940 or so.
That guy, remarkably, also survived. My father-in-law is also not travelling too well right now.
I loved your story and the pic of the old army vet marching with his ozygen tank. Rather poingnant ... I noticed there was a teary looking little girl (who could be just like my own daughter) watching him do for him what must have been an amazing walk. I suspect he went last so he didn't slow the others down, and I hope all the kids and young people like that little girl keep remembering what all these fellas (and others later) from the free nations did for us so that we could remain free of hateful ideologies.
I don't care how hokey that sounds, either. I believe it to be absolutely, 100 per cent right.
6 - FCEtier
I'm right there with you, STM.
My father was one of those who didn't talk much about the war. But, he shared stories with me via his favorite book about the war.
"When All The World Was Young" by Ferrol Sams. It's a great book and I recommend it highly.
7 - STM
I'll grab that and have a good look at it FC. Cheers. Thanks again for a great little story mate! I love reading that kind of stuff. Small-town America and small-town Australia are almost identical places, except you guys speak with strange accents and drive on the wrong side of the road.
8 - STM
Yeah, nice one Jesse; good spamming ruining a nice thread. What makes you think a bunch of Yanks is going to freecall a number in Australia to get heat-reflective roofing??
They get snow up there, anyway, not blazing sunshine.
9 - Victor Lana
"Small-town America and small-town Australia are almost identical places, except you guys speak with strange accents and drive on the wrong side of the road."
Having been to Oz twice, STM, I have to say I couldn;t agree with you more (or less). Cheers!
10 - Alan Kurtz
I loathe Memorial Day. STM (#5) admonishes us to remember "what all these fellas (and others later) from the free nations did so that we could remain free of hateful ideologies." If only it were true! STM's homeland may be free of hateful ideologies, but the United States is not, and never has been. Moreover, one side's "hateful ideologies" are another side's sacred principles. It all depends on who wins the war.
During the High Middle Ages, Christians conducted some of history's most ruthless bloodletting to rid the Holy Land of the "hateful ideologies" practiced by Muslims, pagans, Jews and other assorted enemies of the Pope. In their own eyes, Crusaders were god-blessed saviors of the one true faith; to their victims, these same Crusaders were goddamned lunatics slaughtering men, women and children with self-righteous abandon.
Of course, in our own lifetimes, we have waged only Good Wars, such as World War II. Strangely, though, even that highpoint of Western civilization manifests moral ambivalence. For one thing, not all 25 million combatants killed during WW II espoused hate. Those on our side were selfless freedom fighters seeking to do good. Only those on the other side were vile, despicable, subhuman carriers of hateful ideologies. Likewise among the war's 50 million noncombatant deaths: ours were innocent civilians; theirs were diehard collaborators, including children fried to a crisp in Dresden, Hiroshima, Nagasaki and Tokyo, each clutching his or her little flag with swastika or rising sun emblem. Nevertheless, in the final reckoning, our dead were just as dead as theirs, and smelled no better. How could that be?
This conundrum may partly account for why many victors have been reluctant to discuss their participation. STM (#5) tells us that tail-gunner Ron "never spoke about the war. It was like trying to squeeze blood from a stone." FCEtier (#6) concurs, "My father was one of those who didn't talk much about the war."
Various factors play into this. First, we forget that in response to the most popular call to arms in American history, many healthy young males of military age were reluctant to serve. Whereas 6 million men enlisted, 10 million more had to be conscripted. Maybe they sensed the Good War was not as good as recruiters claimed. And perhaps their postwar reticence derived in part from unwillingness to take credit for a victory that they had to be summoned to by official notice and under penalty of fines and imprisonment should they fail to show up.
Moreover, whether they'd volunteered or been drafted, there must've been tremendous survivor's guilt among those who returned alive. Survivor's guilt is almost always unjustified, but tell that to the guys who saw their best buddy's head blown apart by enemy fire.
Ultimately, though, I suspect the reluctance of veterans to discuss their service--and this applies to all wars--owes to that fact that they, of all people, know how ugly, stupid and futile war is. No amount of parades, in small towns or large cities, can disguise the fact that we are celebrating unnecessary death.
I loathe Memorial Day.
11 - STM
I don't think Ron felt survivor's guilt. I think he was just glad to walk out of it alive after watching lots of his mates get killed in a war they didn't start.
Same goes for my father in law, who also doesn't talk about his experiences but I'm sure he was pretty happy to get home and start a family, something he'd probably wanted to do before the Nazis started marching across Europe and crushing heads under jackboots and the Japanese thought it would be a good idea to start blowing the living sh.t out of everyone.
You can rave on all you like Alan about Dresden, Hiroshima and the like ... but the fact is, in 1939, both those men were young and enjoying their lives and the last thing they wanted to do was go to war.
When she was a child, my mother's street and the surrounding area was bombed to buggery in London by the Nazis, from 1940 on and with substantial loss of life because it was a hop, skip and a jump from the Vicker's aircraft factory.
She didn't feel much guilt about their hateful ideology being wiped off the map, I can assure you.
Truth is, as I said before, war should be a last resort. But had someone not stood up things might be a bit different; I'm glad I'm not speaking German, Japanese or Russian right now. Or six foot under because my skin's not the right colour.
Sow the wind, reap the whirlwind.
I respect your opinion Alan and your moral stand, and I understand exactly where you're coming from, but I don't agree with it.
I'm not entirely against that view, however; I chose not to join the air force here as a young bloke because I didn't want to run the risk of being sent to Vietnam as that war as far as any of us knew could have gone on for another 10 years. A small risk maybe, but one I didn't want to take.
However, that kind od attitude of mine should not take away from those who did go and believed at the time they were doing the right thing. 20/20 hindsight is a marvellous thing, especially when you get older.
12 - STM
And I don't "admonish" anyone. I express an opinion that others may or may not like. Whether you like it or don't is your bizzo.
13 - Manuel Bleimann
You can rave on all you like Alan about Dresden, Hiroshima and the like ... but the fact is, in 1939, both those men were young and enjoying their lives and the last thing they wanted to do was go to war.
14 - Ruvy
No amount of parades, in small towns or large cities, can disguise the fact that we are celebrating unnecessary death.
Well, Alan, you could have written this in German or Japanese, had Americans or Brits decided that war was just too messy and "unnecessary" for them to engage in. I wouldn't be part of the conversation, though. As a card carrying member of der Gegenrasse, I would never have been born. My parents, also card carrying members of der Gegenrasse, would have been executed - either by a Nazi collaborationist regime in America, or by the Nazis themselves. In fact, now that I think of it, one of our comment moderators never would have been born either. Even though he is not a Jew (and would be insulted were he called one), he would have been deemed one under Nazi regulations concerning such things. At least one of his parents would have been killed by the Nazis or a collaborationist Nazi regime.
Some deaths are necessary, Alan, to defend fundamental decency. Some wars are necessary to defend fundamental decency - even when your best buddy has his head blown apart by enemy fire, and it is something you would rather not talk about because it is too much of a nightmare to you.
15 - Alan Kurtz
Really, STM (#11), I did not "rave on" about Dresden, Hiroshima or anything else. I merely stated my point of view in reasonable terms and without excess emotion. You ought to respond in kind instead of taking the low road by crudely mischaracterizing my post.
16 - Ruvy
And Alan, those who die to defend your right to say "I loathe Memorial Day" deserve to be remembered for their sacrifice for you. Even if you would rather forget them.
17 - Alan Kurtz
Yeah, right, Ruvy. You of all people are lecturing me about being a patriotic American? You who turned your back on our country, fled with your family to the expatriate life in Israel, and write regularly in the harshest terms about how awful the United States is. What a hypocrite!
18 - Ruvy
I'm lecturing you not on being a "patriotic American", but on having a decent respect for those who saved your butt. In your case, they happen to be Americans. I note also, that had the Americans decided that war was just too messy and bloody, I would have died too, as my parents lived in America and would have been murdered off by a collaborationist rgime. But in the final analysis, those who guard my butt are Israelis. And I respect and salute those who fought for the independence of THIS nation, our ancient homeland where I live, and where my wife and I have planted roots.
That I, a foreigner, should have to lecture you not on patriotism, but on a decent respect for those who have saved your butt, is shameful, and is partly indicative of why your country is going down history's toilet.
19 - STM
Alan: "Really, STM (#11), I did not "rave on"
Perhaps we really are one people separated by a common language. To "Rave on" doesn't really mean that much here, and is not regarded in the pejorative ... it just means to forcibly make a point mostly in a socially-acceptable manner.
None of that alters my point of view, here, either. And Ruvy's right about writing that in German or Japanese.
I still believe, no matter uneccessary war is, that when people intend to kill you or subjugate you and intend to do terrible things to you, you're better off fighting back than waving flowers if you have the means to do so.
Militarist Japan, murderous Nazi Germany and fascist Italy (with most Italians led reluctantly, and the Nazis getting some help from stalinist Russia before they switched sides) started the war.
Our parents and grandparents, uncles, aunts, what have you, finished it because they had something worth standing up for and despite preferring not to do so (I mean, who would want to have to do that ... seriously???), no matter how unpalatable that notion might be to anybody.
Sorry, Alan, like I say, I respect your view but it's diametrically opposed to mine beyond not wanting to have my country or anyone else's involved in any war unless there is no other choice, either literally or morally.
20 - Sahar
I don't think the point of Memorial Day is to reflect on the politics of why wars happened, but rather to celebrate those who sacrificed so much to take part in what they thought was the right thing to do. In my opinion, anyone who is detached enough from their own personal concerns to see the bigger picture and is courageous enough to take action by, for example, becoming a soldier, is a hero. And all the veterans that I know are for peace - that's why they went to war.
Thank you to all veterans and all the people currently serving. You are quite an example to us all.
21 - STM
Ruve: "And Alan, those who die to defend your right to say "I loathe Memorial Day" deserve to be remembered"
Yep, that's the nail Ruvy, and you've hit it right on the head.
22 - STM
And FC's story is STILL inspirational.
23 - STM
But as I've made clear elsewhere, Alan, this is what I really think about war and the futility of it all , and so is this as well ...
But that doesn't mean some reasons for it aren't right.
And it's also why we shouldn't forget.
24 - Jet Gardner
#10-I believe a definition for the term "insensitive Jackass" has just been achieved.
25 - STM
G'day Jet. Good on you.