Memorial Day 2020 — More Than Just a Holiday

If you’re sufficiently determined, and not particularly time-challenged, you can rummage around the voluminous files of the National Archives and eventually, you’ll come across this item:

Hand, Sammy, hospital apprentice 1st class, USN. Parents, Mr. & Mrs. Albert Francis Hand, 823 W. Walnut, Herington.

Read across one more line and you’ll see the three dreaded letters that earned Gold Stars in the windows of 405,399 families across the United States during World War II: K.I.A.

Sammy Hand died a little more than a decade before I was born, so no, I didn’t know him. But I was pretty well-acquainted with a fellow who did: My father and Sammy grew up together in Herington, the county seat of Dickinson County, Kan. Two kids from a landlocked state who ended up in the Navy. Go figure.

Cancer reunited Dad with his old pal close to 15 years ago, but I never forgot the pained expression on the old man’s face whenever the war, Iwo Jima or, more rarely, Sammy’s name found its way into conversations with Mom or friends and family.

I think what really ate at the old man was the helplessness he must have felt aboard the USS Belleau Wood, back in March 1945. He was helping provide air cover from a position of relative safety off the coast of Iwo Jima while his childhood buddy was getting killed somewhere on that forsaken spit of land poking through the Pacific waves, and earning a posthumous Silver Star for his efforts.

In that respect, Dad wasn’t alone: Millions of ex-servicemen from that war came home to lead lives haunted by the question: “Why did I get to live?” Many of them answered it by finding true purpose in their lives, something not unlike the Lt. Miller’s parting words to Private Ryan: “Earn this.” And they did.

Memorial Day brings with it a brief annual reflection on Sammy Hand. I like to think that keeping him in mind staves off that old saying about how we really die twice—once when we take our last breath, and again when our name is spoken aloud for the last time.

At this point in our culture, it’s almost an act of defiance: A poll released last week showed that a majority of Americans don’t even know the true origin of Memorial Day, or the bloody difference between what it represents and what Veterans Day stands for.

That’s a pity.

On regular occasions, my movie-watching 14-year-old daughter will see themes of that war and ask some questions about the conflict and her grandfather’s role in it. She understands why Memorial Day is a thing, because I never fail to point out that the types of characters she sees making the ultimate sacrifice on screen—as with a recent viewing of The Patriot—were, in fact, directly related to the style of life and the basic freedoms she enjoys today.

My hope for her, and her siblings, is that they will always recall the sacrifices, from Bunker Hill to Berlin to Bagram, that so many have made. And that, long after I’ve been reunited with Dad, they’ll wonder out loud whether he’d gotten around to introducing me to his old high school friend.

Because if they do, that part of Sammy Hand will live on. As it should.

Have a happy—and memorable—Memorial Day.