Memorial Day Reflections

The Cemetary at Gettysburg

 

This Memorial Day, I again watched the classic 1941 Gary Cooper movie, Sergeant York.  It is the third or fourth time I have watched this movie on Memorial Day.  I even wrote about it back in Memorial Day 2014.

It is classic that it depicts an America of yore, of a man working the land who became a devout Christian and a conscientious objector that managed still to fight while grappling to stay true to his beliefs.  There are many good war movies for a day when we, as a country, remember those that gave their lives for this country.  The men that fight and die in wars are young, they are just beginning their adult lives.  They, as the saying goes, had so much to live for.  Yet, they went to war, they fought for their country, and too many have died doing so.

York did end up killing.  Upon seeing his comrades cut down by machine gun fire he did kill 25 Germans and ended up capturing 132 in the Argonne Battle.  He said he was against the taking of lives as ever but killed the 25 he did to save the lives of many more of his comrades.  It is an amazing history.  While I am sure it was exaggerated some in a movie made in 1941 to help nurture support for World War.  But, the core of the story is most noteworthy for Memorial Day.

The New York Times obituary on September 3, 1964, of York’s passing elaborated on his life after his feats at Argonne.  It seemed a few groups questioned if his exploits were real and only due to his actions.  I learned that York and troubles later in life with back taxes.  The Times article noted the following:

Until this century military history has been dominated by the names of generals and great strategists.  But with the rise of the popular press the common soldier was discovered and adulated.  Sergeant York was the first in this line – a line that was continued by Audie Murphy, Roger Young and a number of other World War II enlisted men. 

I had not really thought of this.  I am not sure I buy into this view.  The heroes of history are indeed the generals, the commanders, the leaders, and strategists.   They are at the forefront because their exploits were documented by historians.  Historians tend to look at things from a more macro perspective to understand how countries and borders, peoples and culture, evolved and developed.  They want to learn from the past to help but the events of today in perspective.  As George Santayana so eloquently stated in 1905, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

I believe that exploits and valor of individuals were always the lore and legend of family and village histories.  I know individual soldiers and sailors kept diaries and wrote memoirs of what it was like to be on the frontlines or working on a war ship.  I believe these personal histories were always “adulated” locally.  We have them in our own family.  I remember my great Uncle Sisag Gavoorian telling me of his time as Antranig Pahsa’s bodyguard in the days of the Armenian Genocide and the fight for independence.  We have a few books from close friends who published he memoirs of their father’s or grandfather’s experiences in the same era.  I believe “the rise of the popular press” amplified the stories and moved the telling and retelling from a family and village level to a national and even international level. 

I do not mean to relegate historians solely to the big picture.  They do tend to study eras and people on all levels.   The want to know how the common man lived on a day-to-day basis.   Though for their broad interest and in-depth studies it is the big names and events, the heroes and villains, the big wins and losses, that make it into the history books we study in grade and high school. 

Me, I am interested in both the macro and micro view.  I watched the heroic exploits of Sergeant York and then Admiral Nimitz and Yamamoto square off against each other in the movie Midway (2019).  It is good to reflect on war, the heroes big and small, and, especially, those who gave their lives on Memorial Day.