We Remember

Today is Memorial Day, when we remember those who have fought and died for our country and our freedoms. I'd like to ask a special remembrance for the "World War II" generation. My Dad was one of the youngest who fought in that war; he was only 19 when he was injured in a kamikaze attack on his ship, the U.S.S. Leutze. He had barely turned 20 when the war ended. He and Mom are both gone now. Dad would have turned 82 this summer.

The term "Greatest Generation" is overused and also somewhat inaccurate. They were not superhuman; some of the excesses of the 1960s are due to the all too ordinary mid life crises of that generation. But when I think of my Mom (age 17) and my Dad (age 20) eloping to Wichita, Kansas, I know that most today would call that foolish or worse. But, somehow I think that it can also be said that they trusted in God in a way that I can only imagine. When Dad died, he and Mom and been married almost 56 years.

I recently bought a canoe. Someone asked me what I'd named it, and I said the "Leutze II". If I have grandkids some day, I will tell them the stories of the Japanese suicide planes, and of Dad foiling the attacks on the American landing parties, and of the trick he played on the new Ensign, and of the young couple with the train ticket to Wichita, Kansas, and I hope that they will remember on all of the Memorial Days to come.