Murder is Everywhere: Children during war

Monday, May 25, 2020

Memorial Day 2020

Annamaria on a Holiday Monday

Today's holiday used to be called Decoration Day and began as a day to decorate the graves of the fallen in war, starting with the Civil War here in the USA. Many towns and cities in the country have claimed to be the birthplace of the tradition. In 1966, President Lyndon Johnson awarded that official honor to the village of Waterloo, New York. Now part of Seneca Falls, a small, out-of-the-way place that also happened to be the scene of the first US Women's Rights Convention in 1848.

These days, when so many have and still are falling in a pandemic, I have been thinking of how we might memorialize them. The New York Times front page this Sunday has begun to attempt such a daunting task. Perhaps every town and village will have to have its own monument. Here is as much of today's front page as I can manage to display.

The sub-headline says:

"They Were Not Simply

Names on a List.

They Were Us."

In the traditional spirit of Memorial Day for the fallen in war, I share my post from three years ago. The good thing about writing of history, as I am always fond of saying, is that it never goes out of date.

I am thinking of World War Two, the war that shaped my young life, so my post today will be highly personal one. Here are some images that tell of the people who fought, the people who worked and prayed on the home front, of one who did not come back and one who did.

Here is the data; the numbers are in MILLIONS:

Here is the moral of the story:

Here are my personal remembrances:

My brother Andy and me (c.1945), wearing hats that belonged to our uncles.

My vague earliest memories are of saying our good-byes and of how tense my mother and my grandmother were for all those years.

A flag like this hung in the front window of the two-family house that my family shared with my grandparents. Ours had five stars, for my dad and for four of my mother's brothers. They were all blue until the last year of the war.

Our gold star was for my godfather John Pisacane, who served in Patton's army and then in a tank battalion under General Eisenhower. He was killed during the push to Berlin.

I was lucky enough to get my daddy back. Sam always felt to me like the guardian angel that he appears as in this post-war trip to the beach. I'm the little girl on the right next to my brother Andy.

The other children are my cousins Jimmy, Joann, and Tony.

I longed for my daddy so much for the years while he was gone that images of returning soldiers still move me to tears.

Every year, on Memorial Day I watch this clip from the incredible TV documentary series. Victory at Sea. If you don't see the link, PLEASE find it on YouTube: Victory at Sea Episode 26 Part 3--

Don't miss the footage of joyful reunions after years of separation.