Memorial Day

     I have a great memory. When I was in elementary school, my fourth grade class performed on stage in the Memorial Day assembly. We recited a poem that began “On Memorial Day in peaceful May, we honor the soldiers the Blue and the Gray…”. Yes, that's a Civil War reference (and no, I didn’t go to elementary school in the 1800’s), but the line stuck with me all these years. There have been many wars since then, and America has lost a multitude of soldiers who fought in the name of freedom.

     My father, William Mullowney, was a veteran of World War Two. He survived the war, but he was also a casualty of it. He was underage at seventeen years old when he enlisted in the army, but in 1942, the country was desperate for bodies to help stop the horrors waged by the German and Japanese war machines. 

     He was sent to the South Pacific with his battalion to stem the tide of Japanese insurgence hellbent on controlling every country within their reach. My father told me stories of the war, the one’s he could talk about. On a Philippine island, in a dense jungle, he spent twenty-four hours alone in a tree, locked in gun battle with a solitary Japanese sniper. So close they could look into each other’s eyes and realize they were both there for the same reason and they really didn’t want to shoot one another. Or the time he fell asleep on guard duty and his rifle accidentally discharged, causing a scar on his nose and loss of hearing in one ear. Luckily those were the extent of his war injuries. The physical ones, anyway. 

     He returned home from the war at age twenty-one, and the war came home with him. Some things could not be forgotten despite the victory celebrations and the happy-days-are-here-again mentality that ushered in a new golden age for the USA. I found out later in his life just how much he was affected by the war when I accompanied him to a doctor's appointment at the Veterans Hospital in Boston. He had some health issues and during his examination the doctor asked him about his sleep patterns at night. He replied, “Every night when my head hits the pillow, I relive the entire war, from the day I enlisted to the day I came home.”

     “Would you like to talk to someone about that?” asked the doctor.

     “No. I’m fine with it,” my father said.

     But obviously he wasn’t. That explained the random flashbacks and the heavy drinking. But nothing he did for the rest of his life could erase the memories. War does that to a person, it changes you fundamentally. And the scores of friends who didn’t make it back remind you how “lucky” you are. Lucky to be alive even though you spend the rest of your life trying to forget.

     Sadly, my father passed away in 2011. He’s buried in the Woodlawn Cemetery in Everett in a section that doesn’t allow headstones. He has a flat bronze marker with his name, date and an inscription that reads “World War Two Veteran”. The plaque doesn’t do justice to the hero my father was. There wouldn’t be a memorial large enough to contain his legacy. The way the calendar dates fell that year, his funeral was on Memorial Day. The twenty-one gun salute and the presentation of the flag at the ceremony completed the fitting tribute to this soldier who is now part of history. I think he would be proud to know he was laid to rest on Memorial Day in peaceful May on a day when we honor war heroes who made the the ultimate sacrifice to keep our country free. Rest assured, Papa, you will never be forgotten.