Remembering the Forgotten

Last year I wrote a little bit about remembering those who never made it home on Memorial Day. If you don’t realize the big difference between Veteran’s Day and Memorial Day, talk to any service member that saw combat.

Memorial Day we remember those who were lost, those who were killed in battle. Sometimes those who were lost in wars long before are forgotten. As relatives die off and decades pass by, sometimes graves are passed by, stories are lost. Sometimes families have moved on and don’t have the opportunity to visit those headstones. Just think in today’s time, those who try to deny the Holocaust happened.

So this year, I thought I’d share some of those stories that have survived in my family. I come from a family with many veterans in our ancestry. Some fought on U.S. soil, others fought for the British Army. One common theme seems to surround my family in battle, they all managed to narrowly escape one major event or another, or they were saved by sheer dumb luck.

My great-grandfather fought in the British Army during WWI, he started as a sniper and became a machine gunner. When he came home, he was a different person, he struggled with the losses. The family doesn’t talk much about it, but once in a while a story is shared that may point to the fact he had “warriors heart.” There is a pretty good story on how great-grandpa survived the war, that includes the dumb luck of him being smashed in the head by an Irishman with a shovel, and how the Irish technically saved his life, which in the long run of course saved my life. A story for another day.

Grandad said that the three brothers (his father and his two uncles) all went to war, and all of them came back, which was also unusual. Grandad said almost everyone had someone lost at the end of that war. One of those brothers survived because when the battle started he was frozen to the ground. The third also had a close call, although I haven’t heard that story yet.

There wasn’t a lot of focus on death, it wasn’t talked about. Everyone just sort of went on with their lives, but the fallen weren’t forgotten. Grandpa said that the British version of Memorial Day takes place on November 11, Remembrance Day. Poppy’s are sold and placed to remember the fallen.

My granddad (James Davidson) fought in WWII, he volunteered at the age of 15. He was part of the “territorial army.” He was part of the local defense, later changed to the Home Guard. The day he volunteered he was rejected because he was too young. But a gentleman next to him asked about his father, and grandpa said 20 minutes later he was in the war.

His skills in carpentry were used to build pods that went towards Normandy for the harbor to be used during D-Day. He also built a airstrip that became a landing area. Later he would be working in an aircraft as a gunnery after the war, and he was a drill sergeant.

His memories are of the Polish that came and took over part of their home home. There’s a story on how a Polish soldier killed his sister instead of leaving her behind with the Russian’s. Later he committed suicide because of the guilt. He remembers losing classmates to the war. He also had a few stories of people they met, an air force man who “mucked” up his boots chasing the kids near manure, who was later lost in a plane during the war.

At the end of the war grandpa remembers being in a small fishing village, he saw three things at the end that he still remembers to this day. He saw a German submarine surface to surrender. He was with a cousin-in-law on a grain field when a plane crashed, and when he looked to the sea he saw many ships, Russians passing through.

My dad served for the U.S. Marines. He missed the tail end of Vietnam, he served in Okinawa. He was the last of the replacements sent after a round of men were killed. He served as basic infantry and military police, but he also helped with mortars, and his last months were served as an instructor. Dad also doesn’t share a whole lot of stories of some of the terrible things he witnessed. But I’ve heard his story on how he came to post incredibly hung over and pointed a general in the wrong direction may times.

Dad always states that its kind of a Scottish thing to not talk about those lost over various wars and throughout history. I tend to argue that it’s not a Scottish thing, its a people thing. I think sometimes the lost are forgotten because we don’t like to tell those sad stories that come with war. But every piece of a story is someone’s life. A person who lived and breathed and served their country. Those who were lost and perished in war are remembered in those stories. That’s how they live on.

So this Memorial Day, I will not only remember my friends lost in combat in Iraq, I will remember the generations of stories passed down. Those stories are more than history, it’s a way to remember those forgotten.