Memorial Day

It is, in a way an odd thing to honor those who died in defense of our country....in wars far away.  The imagination plays a trick.  We see these soldiers in our mind as old and wise.  We see them as something like the Founding Fathers, grave and gray haired.

But most of them were boys when they died, and they gave up two lives - the one they were living and one they would have lived...

- Ronald Reagan

Originally called Decoration Day - Memorial Day is a day of remembrance for those who have died in service to our country.

There is an American Cemetery and Memorial located in Colleville-sur-Mer on the bluff overlooking Omaha Beach in Normandy, France.  Dedicated in 1956 the Cemetery and Memorial is situated closely to the site of the temporary American St. Laurent Cemetery, established by the U.S. First Army on June 8, 1944 - the first American cemetery on European soil in World War II.  

This is the final resting place of 9,388 of our military dead - most of whom lost their lives in the D-Day landings and ensuing operations.  If you were to visit this place you will note that upon the walls of the Garden of the Missing are inscribed an additional 1,557 names.  And because old battlefields continue to yield their dead - rosettes mark the names of those since recovered and identified.

In Plot E Row 26 Grave 37 rests James D. Johnston - Lieutenant Colonel, U.S. Army, 47th Infantry Regiment, 9th Infantry Division.  Jill and I walked this sacred place on a typical rainy Norman morning and while I have no direct connection to James Johnston, his life before the war, or his survivors following the war what you can discern from the marker is that Johnston was from North Carolina and was a commander in the same division and infantry regiment my dad served.  

Some of you know that my father landed at Utah Beach as an infantry replacement.  He was a machine gunner in a heavy weapons platoon.  Dad fought in the battle of the hedgerows, the breakout at Saint-Lô and Patton's mad dash across northern France.  His participation in the liberation of Belgium was interrupted by wounds incurred in combat.  Following his recovery in England he served for a brief period in the US Army of Occupation in Germany.

Dad returned home from the war and lived a full and rewarding life. He worked quietly in a public school system and never spoke about his war experiences in any great detail until I was in college. I am alive today to muse about this subject because he survived.  James Johnston never had the opportunity to sit on the stoop and share closely-guarded feelings about the war with a son.  

This is why Memorial Day is personal to me.

A bit of reading reveals that Johnston died from wounds suffered from the detonation of a German 88mm shell at the blood-stained Crossroads 114 near Acqueville just outside of Cherbourg.*  Death in combat was fickle in the skirmishes and battle for mere meters in the uneven and mixed woodlands and pastures of the Bocage.  PFC Gaertner survived - Lt Col Johnston did not.

When it came time for a permanent burial, the families of the dead were asked if they wanted their loved ones repatriated for permanent burial in the U.S. or interred overseas.  Lieutenant Colonel Johnston's remains lie here with approximately 461 graves belonging to 9th Infantry Division G.I.s.

Today it is useful to remember and honor the lives that brave men and women sacrificed.  

Both of those lives.
 

click on images for a closer look

 

 

_{*Eight Stars to Victory - Mittelman, The Battery Press}

Friday Music

Last week I posted video of a live performance of The Cranberries featuring the mezzo-soprano vocals, signature yodel and strong Limerick accent of the group's lead singer.

Unsurprisingly, this showed-up as a suggestion courtesy of the YouTube algorithm.

If you close your eyes the emotive vocals are eerily similar to Dolores Riordan's.

Beautiful cover by Erie Pennsylvania band First To Eleven.  Enjoy the spookiness...

If Only The Dead Could Talk

Ruben Ray Martinez, a 23-year-old U.S. citizen, was killed last year by an ICE agent, with the Department of Homeland Security accusing him of having struck an ICE agent with their vehicle. However, DHS’ account of the incident was fiercely disputed by Martinez’ childhood friend, Joshua Orta, who was present during the encounter and claimed neither had offered any resistance to ICE officers’ demands.

On Saturday, Orta died in an unrelated car crash while driving in San Antonio, Texas, with his stepfather confirming his death to the New York Times on Monday.

 

If Only The Dead Could Talk

Originally reported on Wednesday by Newsweek we learned of another Immigration and Customs Enforcement connection to the shooting death of an American citizen in March of 2025.  A shooting death kept from public scrutiny until only last week.

Coincidentally, and leading up to this, a review of internal emails obtained under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) indicate that senior Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials were informed of a significant rise in reported use-of-force incidents compared to the previous year.  In this case incidents in early March alone had quadrupled year-over year.  

Now the public learns of 23-year-old Ruben Ray Martinez shot last March in South Padre Island.  ICE's involvement in the shooting was not disclosed to the public until this last week.  

According to ICE documents, the episode, which occurred around 12:40 AM on March 15, 2025, Mr. Martinez failed to follow commands to exit his vehicle. Martinez initially did not follow officers' instructions but eventually slowed to a stop after receiving verbal commands.  Agents surrounded the vehicle and told him to get out of the car before he accelerated and hit a federal agent who reportedly landed on the hood of the vehicle.  Another agent then fired multiple times through the driver's side window.  

The Department of Homeland Security described the shooting as an act of self-defense, saying the agent had "fired defensive shots to protect himself, his fellow agents and the general public" after the driver "ran over" a Homeland Security Investigation special agent.

That agent was treated and released for a minor knee injury.  Martinez is dead.

According to Homeland Security Department policy an immigration agent is supposed to use deadly force only if the officer has reasonable belief that the subject poses an imminent threat of death or serious bodily injury.  Furthermore, the policy specifically states that officers should avoid placing themselves in positions in which they have no other option but to use deadly force.  

In ICE's own reporting this appears another instance of ICE agents not complying with department policy concerning placement of personnel in connection to apprehended vehicles.  Haven't we seen this before?

ICE has not reported the existence of dash cam or body cam video of the incident and no known public video has come forward.  Martinez had been celebrating his birthday with a friend known since elementary school.  He was employed at an Amazon warehouse in San Antonio and had no known criminal or arrest record at the time of this post.

Some will take exception to my view on this subject but I happen to believe federal agents concealing their faces behind a mask and not wearing identification is a bad look.  They need to be up-front like law enforcement we're all accustomed-to.  A sinister look invites nothing but trouble.  Sure, a few of you will tell me about doxing of federal agents.  But you know what?  If rampant doxing was as big as you might imagine, then all law enforcement everywhere would be masked all the time.  

It's not.  

Where I live law enforcement officers wear a badge with a number, including a name tag and rank, they don't hide behind a mask and produce a business card before we part company.  They're professionals and go about their job like professionals.  They're so good at their job they never, never, ever stand in front of a stopped vehicle.  Even I know not to do this.  Your local LEOs are likely identical to mine.  But I digress and apologize for the cheap shot.

Do you know what is an even bigger bad look than masked federal agents?  

Another of our countrymen gunned-down by a federal agent.  

Naturally, there's that small handful of my acquaintances who will bask in their ghoulish reflected glory over this and crow on social media about how Martinez had it coming and it was all his fault.  Nevertheless, I figure most people reading this are standard-issue citizens who understand that federal agents shooting Americans to death is just, plain, smarmy.  It looks terrible and doesn't poll well.  

Moreover, the image of the best professional ICE agents suffer because of this nonsense.  From the top down the reputation and credibility of the entire department suffers.  If, as a consequence, agency leadership comes-across as evasive or furtive the public will take notice and the people will mutter about it.  None of this is rocket science.  Hearts and minds; it is all about winning in the court of public opinion. Appearance counts for a lot.  

So, what do we know for sure? 

Martinez is dead and cannot speak for himself.  This is conspiracy fodder.

No dash cams, no body cams, no identification or accountability for the shooter.  Unheard-of in the world of professional law enforcement this is sloppy meatball policing for sure.  If this is a deliberate policy to never leave a digital trail; that is a really bad look.  (See about conspiracy above)   

How about the boss?  Yup, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem hiding this from the public as long as she has.  Or is this just another oversize example of garden-variety incompetence?  Both looks are really bad; the former is much worse than the latter.  

Hidden from the public for a year.  Sloppy or deliberate?  Reader's Choice - you pick.  

What are they hiding from us anyway?

If Only The Dead Could Talk

Somewhere along the line I shared that I refreshed my CCW training during COVID.

My instructor had some sage advice. Basically, she had this to say (I am paraphrasing):

If you happen to be legally carrying and someone invites you to a protest, an act of civil disobedience or a riot; run the opposite direction.  

The gist of this was in the wake of the George Floyd protests and the Kyle Rittenhouse shootings your CCW permit isn't a superpower against kryptonite circumstances.  A perfectly innocent legal carry situation is not a shield against an overzealous prosecutor.  Mounting a successful defense can drain your financial resources.  Worse case?  Worse case is always worse.  Use your imagination. 

Anyway, her words were good advice.  Prescient too.

Nevertheless, what happened in Minneapolis shows that ICE will treat the mere presence of a legal firearm as justification for lethal force.

Carrying a gun is not a crime, yet it was readily used as irrefutable proof of dangerous intent.  And now that Alex Pretti is dead and unable to contest that narrative; that’s the narrative.  

 

From the president on down the chain of command the instant narrative is this:  

Pretti was obviously a domestic terrorist and a would-be assassin.  Consequently, he deserved to die.  This was a good shoot.  

The practical upshot of this is if you are interdicted by the Federales while carrying - even legally - masked paramilitary forces without visible personal identification can and will kill you on the spot.  With the support of our government.

Judge.

Jury.

And executioner.

At this point there isn't much you can do about it; you're dead.  

Because our government has declared you guilty beforehand. 

 

Am I willing to be wrong about all of the foregoing?  You bet I am.  Yet the president has expressed a desire to impose martial law across the land.  And he usually gets around to trying to do everything he says he wants to do.  I'd also bet he'll continue to use his shadowy veiled paramilitary forces to terrorize a small blue enclave in Minnesota with only an estimated 130,000 undocumented migrants to provoke unrest.  

It's rather quiet where I live; not that counts for anything in a world where the Constitution counts for nothing....

Semiquincentennial

As March 5, 1770 dawned, tensions between colonists and British soldiers were running high as a consequence of troops occupying Boston to enforce civil law for two long years already.  The presence of soldiers to enforce order inflamed resentment.  The town was a powder keg ready to explode.

Trouble began in late February when a schoolboy named Christopher Snider was shot and killed by a British loyalist during a melee.  The boy's funeral, organized by Samuel Adams, drew thousands of angry Bostonians.

On March 2, a British soldier, seeking a job, was told to clean my shithouse.  This triggered rioting.

On Monday, March 5, rumor had it that there would again be trouble.  The town was filled with people, mostly boys and young men milling about.  Many from out of town.  This was one of many brawls and arguments that broke out in Boston on that day.  

This one began innocently enough with a dispute over a barber bill.  A wig maker's apprentice was pestering an army officer, tailing him all over town, insulting him about the debt - which had, in truth, been paid. Eventually the officer entered a tavern on King Street opposite the State House.  The apprentice continued his harassment outside.  A solitary sentry on guard at the nearby Custom House joined the argument and struck the boy with the barrel of his musket.  A crowd began to gather, someone rang a church bell - normally used as a fire alarm - and more people arrived.  Many had sticks and clubs.

At the 29th Regiment's nearby HQ, Captain Thomas Preston 'walked up and down for near half an hour' wondering what to do.  The lone sentry was surrounded by hostile citizens and clearly in danger.  Finally, Preston led a detail to the Custom House to escort the sentry to safety.  Upon arrival Preston and his eight men found themselves surrounded.  For fifteen minutes the crowd grew uglier as the mob confronted the soldiers.  Insults and profanities were hurled.  Ice chunks were thrown at the soldiers.  Snowballs mixed with horse dung from the street were thrown at the troopers.  A club was thrown hitting one of the redcoats and knocking him to the ground.  Under stress and confusion and presaging events at Kent State two hundred years later - the trooper stood and fired at point-blank range.  More shots followed.  

Preston frantically ordered his men to cease fire; but three already lay dead and two more were dying.  Five colonists were killed including an African American - Crispus Attucks - remembered as the first violent casualty of the Revolution.  Several other Bostonians were wounded.

Samuel Adams and Paul Revere played this for all it was worth for its value as propaganda.  Their perennial villain, Lt. Gov. Hutchinson was forced to evacuate the troops to Castle Island in the harbor.

Revere's engraving of the Bloody Massacre was plagiarized from an illustration by Henry Pelham and was factually inaccurate but was terrific agitprop.  Prints were sold throughout Boston, the other colonies and made their way to England. 

But Boston was not ready for war and with the troops removed the situation quieted-down.  Two ardent patriots, John Adams (future president) and Josiah Quincy  defended the soldiers in court and won an acquittal for all but two of them.  The two found guilty of manslaughter were branded on their thumbs and set free.  

First installed in 1887, the circular brick memorial was in the middle of the street near where it was said Crispus Attucks fell.  It's been moved three times since with the present location selected so visitors would be less likely to be struck by traffic. 

The incident deepened colonial hostility toward Britain and contributed to unifying the opposition further laying the groundwork for the Revolution.

click on image to read the grave marker

 

Dead To Rights

From the BUG Firefighters Car And Motor Show - behold 1953 Buick Super Hearse.  

Identification includes trademark features such as the signature "toothy" chrome grille - very distinctive for Buicks of this era.  VentiPorts; the three chrome portholes on each front fender identify it as a Buick Super (Roadmasters had four).  Sweeping side trim was classic to Buick’s early '50s styling.

The extended rear cabin and high roof line are indicative of those models manufactured specifically as a limousine - and convertible to hearse or ambulance use. 

This baby still has the original 6 volt electrical system, straight 8 engine and Dynaflow automatic transmission.

It's for sale - $18,000 OBO.

People are dying to own it....

 

Memorial Day

It is, in a way an odd thing to honor those who died in defense of our country....in wars far away.  The imagination plays a trick.  We see these soldiers in our mind as old and wise.  We see them as something like the Founding Fathers, grave and gray haired.

But most of them were boys when they died, and they gave up two lives - the one they were living and one they would have lived...

- Ronald Reagan

Originally called Decoration Day - Memorial Day is a day of remembrance for those who have died in service to our country.

There is an American Cemetery and Memorial located in Colleville-sur-Mer on the bluff overlooking Omaha Beach in Normandy, France.  Dedicated in 1956 the Cemetery and Memorial is situated closely to the site of the temporary American St. Laurent Cemetery, established by the U.S. First Army on June 8, 1944 - the first American cemetery on European soil in World War II.  

This is the final resting place of 9,388 of our military dead - most of whom lost their lives in the D-Day landings and ensuing operations.  If you were to visit this place you will note that upon the walls of the Garden of the Missing are inscribed an additional 1,557 names.  And because old battlefields continue to yield their dead - rosettes mark the names of those since recovered and identified.

In Plot E Row 26 Grave 37 rests James D. Johnston - Lieutenant Colonel, U.S. Army, 47th Infantry Regiment, 9th Infantry Division.  Jill and I walked this sacred place on a typical rainy Norman morning and while I have no direct connection to James Johnston, his life before the war, or his survivors following the war what you can discern from the marker is that Johnston was from North Carolina and was a commander in the same division and infantry regiment my dad served.  

Some of you know that my father landed at Utah Beach as an infantry replacement.  He was a machine gunner in a heavy weapons platoon.  Dad fought in the battle of the hedgerows, the breakout at Saint-Lô and Patton's mad dash across northern France.  His participation in the liberation of Belgium was interrupted by wounds incurred in combat.  Following his recovery in England he served for a brief period in the US Army of Occupation in Germany.

Dad returned home from the war and lived a full and rewarding life. He worked quietly in a public school system and never spoke about his war experiences in any great detail until I was in college. I am alive today to muse about this subject because he survived.  James Johnston never had the opportunity to sit on the stoop and share closely-guarded feelings about the war with a son.  

This is why Memorial Day is personal to me.

A bit of reading reveals that Johnston died from wounds suffered from the detonation of a German 88mm shell at the blood-stained Crossroads 114 near Acqueville just outside of Cherbourg.  Death in combat was fickle in the skirmishes and battle for mere meters in the uneven and mixed woodlands and pastures of the Bocage.  PFC Gaertner survived - Lt Col Johnston did not.

When it came time for a permanent burial, the families of the dead were asked if they wanted their loved ones repatriated for permanent burial in the U.S. or interred overseas.  Lieutenant Colonel Johnston's remains lie here with approximately 461 graves belonging to 9th Infantry Division G.I.s.

Today it is useful to remember and honor the lives that brave men and women sacrificed.  

Both of those lives.
 

click on images for a closer look

 

 

_{*Eight Stars to Victory - Mittelman, The Battery Press}

 

Wiley Coyote

A couple of weeks ago we came across this recently deceased coyote on a trail in the woods.  Inasmuch as this canine is the top predator around these parts I wonder what the back story is.  If a hunter killed it you would naturally conclude he would've tracked it and retrieved it for the pelt.  How this critter met its demise will remain a mystery.  Oh well.

Meanwhile these photos were taken only a couple hundred yards from the house. 

Is There Beer In Heaven?

One of the age-old existential of questions of countless generations of our forebears all the way back to the origins of fermented malt beverages has been:

Is there beer in heaven?

I'm here to offer evidence affirming its existence.  Depending-upon your belief traditions. 

The Vikings held firm to the belief that a goat dispensing endless beer awaited them in heaven.

It's true.  The belief anyway.

According to Norse mythology, the Vikings believed in a celestial goat named Heiðrún, who resided in Valhalla, the grand hall of fallen warriors. Heiðrún fed on the leaves of the sacred tree Læraðr, and from her udders flowed an endless supply of mead (a honey-based alcoholic drink), which sustained the warriors who had died in battle.

So, while it wasn't exactly beer, it was a never-ending supply of mead—pretty close! This endless feast and drink were part of the reward for warriors who fought bravely and earned a place in Valhalla.

The national Museum of Denmark describes current knowledge of Viking's pre-Chrisianity belief system as a patchwork quilt of information.  However, the two most most renowned sources on the old religion are the collection of poems on Norse gods and heroes in the Poetic (or Elder) Edda and the retelling of the Nordic myths in the Prose (or Younger) Edda.  The latter was written by Snorri Sturluson around the year 1220 AD.  Both describe Heiðrún, the goat in heaven.

Of note is the fact that is was Viking influence, during their rule over the Emerald Isle, that Christianity was introduced to the pagan Celts.  Which may explain why many of us refer to Guinness Stout as:  Mothers Milk.  But that is a story for another time.

____________________________________________________________________________

*That's what's so cool about the blog.  Come for the occasional politics and opinion; stay for the arcane....

Veterans Day

Of all the veterans in my extended family only a couple are from my generation.  One has been gone for fourteen years already and I would like to introduce him to you and a strange but true story.
 
Quite awhile ago Jill and I traveled to San Diego for a business conference.  We added some vacation days to hang-out, see the sights and take-in what the southern California city had to offer.

Highlights of this short trip included time with my cousin Pete and his family along with a concert and terrific food.  We also spent the better part of a day climbing all over the USS Midway.  The first of the Midway Class of carrier, CV-41 was commissioned at the close of WW II and decommissioned in 1992 following a deployment in Operation Desert Storm.  It is a museum ship nowadays.

San Diego has so much to offer.  It is easy to hop on the city bus or the train to visit all sorts of other points of interest on Terra Firma.  If you were to take a bus to the end of the line - Point Loma - your destination affords the casual observer one of the most stunning panoramas of San Diego Bay.  It also happens to be home to Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery.  One of the most picturesque of veteran cemeteries rivaled only by the Normandy American Cemetery at Omaha Beach and Arlington National Cemetery.

Unable to attend the funeral we took the opportunity to visit the resting place of my cousin Rob.

Rob was the third son and fourth child of my mom's older brother.   We were the closest in age of these four siblings.  As a member of the 'west coast family' my time with Rob was limited to his visits here and my visits there. 

One of my fondest memories of Rob was a beer-soaked Summerfest weekend in 1977.  What a pair of young Turks we were.  I was just out of college and working on my Masters Degree while Rob had graduated college OCS and was embarking on a career in the US Navy.  On a short visit to Milwaukee we seized the opportunity to make up for lost time.

Our contacts over the next three decades were rare yet we kept in-touch - but never seemed to find enough time to talk.  Once someone is gone for good the nagging regrets about sharing more conversations never seems to go away.  

Rob made a career as an active duty sailor and served for a period of time on the Midway.  With enough years under his belt Rob eventually retired from the Navy.  Regrettably, his adjustment to civilian life was fraught and just like an outlier number of veterans he ultimately took his own life.  Our personal family tragedy is just one of many excess veteran deaths relative to the general population.  An appalling and persistent problem. 

Back to the aircraft carrier.

When visiting a museum I often avail myself of an audio tour.  With a headset the disembodied voice provides the details of the impressionist painting I am gazing-upon or some long dead pharaoh wrapped in crumbling linen.  The Midway Museum allows you to do the same with five dozen interpretive points throughout the ship and a couple of dozen restored aircraft.

While strolling-about the flight deck I approached a static display of an aircraft poised for launch.  Pressing the appropriate code the narrator had this to say –  'Here is Lieutenant Commander Robert McNulty to explain the operation of the forward catapult.'  Holy crap!  It was Rob speaking to me.
 
In his own recorded voice - cousin Rob began detailing the preparation and launch routine for fixed wing carrier aircraft.  Including how the timing of the launch had to precisely match the momentum of a pitching ship at sea.

I suppose the dead really can speak to you.

Happy Veterans Day cousin.

Dendroarchaeology

Wooden finds are essential in gaining insights into climatic and land use changes but also societal development during the Holocene era.  Dendroarchaeological investigations, using tree rings, wood anatomy and techno-morphological characteristics are of great importance for a better understanding of the past as well as human-environment-interactions.

I have no shortage of oddities around the house.  Birds nests (with eggs), rocks, fossils, antlers, preserved turkey beards, fans and what-not.  One item is a four inch length of branch almost severed in two by a round from a deer rifle.  I kept it as a souvenir of a shot at a dandy buck that was deflected by an offending branch the hunter didn't acquire in his scope.  It doesn't take much to mess-up your well-planned shot; further evidence of the morphology of human interaction with wood.

Some of you readers know that we had our first floor flooring refinished.  This is a consequence of a botched dishwasher installation on behalf of a Green Bay big box retailer.  Details in a future post after the dust (pun intended) has settled.

During one of my daily visits to check on the crew and progress of the work the lead guy, Dan, said to me; Do you know you have a bullet in your floor?

Not that I'm aware-of, I replied.  To the best of my knowledge nobody's ever discharged a firearm in the house.  Dan,no,no; this is a bullet that has been in the wood all along.

Dan continued by explaining that about every five years or so his company discovers a bullet embedded in someone's wood floor.  Just like fragments of barbed wire, nails, bolts, bullets and even cannon balls are found in trees.  The large stuff is typically uncovered when it damages saw blades at the mill.  But the small stuff, most of the time, escapes notice.  In our case Dan knew enough to not remove the bullet  from the white oak plank.  He left it there knowing we would appreciate the dendroarchaeological value of having this left as a conversation piece.  He even shined it up a bit so that it glints when the sunlight filters through the windows precisely the right way.

The back story is that the bullet is likely the result of a hunter's stray shot.  Regrettably, there is insufficient tree ring data to trace how old it is.  Nevertheless, if you examine it closely you can see that as the tree continued to grow it also grew a callus around the projectile as a response to the wound.  

The tree is now dead, but the wood and bullet persist in our lives.  I'm glad Dan found it as I've been walking past it for a couple of decades completely clueless.  If only that tree could talk.  Maybe it wasn't a hunter's stray bullet.  Might it have been from a homicide?  A gunfight involving Chicago gangsters?  A conflict with the natives during European settlement?  Or some other violent event?  Who knows?

The next time you visit remind me to point it out.  And you can advance your own theories about how it came about.

Memorial Day

It is, in a way an odd thing to honor those who died in defense of our country, in defense of us, in wars far away.  The imagination plays a trick.  We see these soldiers in our mind as old and wise.  We see them as something like the Founding Fathers, grave and gray haired.         

But most of them were boys when they died, and they gave up two lives - the one they were living and one they would have lived.       

When they died, they gave up their chance to be husbands and fathers and grandfathers.  They gave up their chance to be revered old men.  They gave up everything for our country, for us.  And all we can do is remember.    

 - Ronald Reagan

 

Originally called Decoration Day - Memorial Day is a day of remembrance for those who have died in service to our country.                          

There is an American Cemetery and Memorial located in Colleville-sur-Mer on the bluff overlooking Omaha Beach in Normandy, France.  Dedicated in 1956 the Cemetery and Memorial is situated closely to the site of the temporary American St. Laurent Cemetery, established by the U.S. First Army on June 8, 1944 - the first American cemetery on European soil in World War II.              

This is the final resting place of 9,388 of our military dead - most of whom lost their lives in the D-Day landings and ensuing operations.  If you were to visit this place you will note that upon the walls of the Garden of the Missing are inscribed an additional 1,557 names.  And because old battlefields continue to yield their dead - rosettes mark the names of those since recovered and identified.              

In Plot E Row 26 Grave 37 rests James D. Johnston - Lieutenant Colonel, U.S. Army, 47th Infantry Regiment, 9th Infantry Division.   

Jill and I walked this sacred place on a typical rainy Norman morning and while I have no connection to James Johnston, his life before the war, or his survivors following the war, what you can discern from the marker is that Johnston was from North Carolina and was a commander in the same division and infantry regiment my dad served.  

       

Howard Gaertner landed at Utah Beach as an infantry replacement.  He was a machine gunner in a heavy weapons platoon.  Dad fought in the battle of the hedgerows, the breakout at Saint-Lô and Patton's mad dash across northern France.  

Among the first allied troops to participate in the liberation of Belgium his European excursion ended less than three months later by wounds incurred in combat.  By the grace of God (and fortunately for me) he was not killed.  Following his recovery in England he was redeployed and served for a brief period in the US Army of Occupation in Germany.        

 

Johnston died from wounds suffered from the detonation of a German 88mm shell at the blood-stained Crossroads 114 near Acqueville just outside of Cherbourg.*  Death in combat was fickle in the skirmishes and battle for mere meters in the uneven and mixed woodlands and pastures of the Bocage.  Lt Col Johnston was killed - PFC Gaertner was not. 

Dad returned home from the war and lived a full and rewarding life.  He worked quietly in a public school system and never spoke about his war experiences in any great detail until I was well into adulthood.  I am alive today to muse about this subject because he survived.  James Johnston never had the opportunity to sit on the stoop with a a beer and share closely-guarded feelings about the war with a son.        

This is why Memorial Day is bit more personal for me.        

When it came time for a permanent burial, the families of the dead were asked if they wanted their loved ones repatriated for permanent burial in the U.S. or interred overseas.  Lieutenant Colonel Johnston's remains lie here with approximately 461 graves belonging to 9th Infantry Division G.I.s.           

On this holiday it is useful to remember and honor the lives that brave men and women sacrificed.

Both of those lives.   

 

 

 *Eight Stars to Victory - Mittelman, The Battery Press

 

 

Sucks To Be The Opposition

Further evidence that in Putin's Russia if you stand up to the former KGB colonel you might perish from a 6th floor defenestration, your aircraft may fall from the sky or you die in a Soviet Gulag.

Sucks to be a member of the opposition......

If Only The Dead Could Talk

Most of you readers know that I am a consummate sucker for cemeteries.  The older the better.  I just love walking around imagining the lives of those interred or entombed underfoot or around me.  While traveling last month through the low country of Charleston, Beaufort and Savannah I scratched my cemetery itch on several occasions.  A walk through Bonaventure Cemetery included something special.  

Taphophobia - the fear of being buried alive as a consequence of being incorrectly pronounced dead.

This was a thing back in the 19th century.  The horror of burial alive  was rampant in port cities like Savannah, Georgia who had the plague of yellow fever epidemics visited-upon them.  The comas of the stricken could be so deep that the sick were sometimes mistaken for dead.  Ghoulish tales written by contemporary author Edgar Allan Poe put nobody's mind at ease.

Naturally, entrepreneurs and inventors capitalized on this and produced any number of gizmos to facilitate the resurrection of those buried before actually dead.  Many of these solutions involved some sort of alarm that could be triggered by the entombed to alert cemetery staff of their need for rescue.

At Bonaventure Cemetery in Savannah there is one such device that is present at the grave of Charles F. Mills.

Mills was a prominent and wealth Savannah businessman operating a steamship line on the Savannah River and served as president of the Marine Bank of Georgia.  He was buried in Bonaventure Cemetery on April 11, 1876 at age 74.  The vault is below this magnificent monument and his grave bell sits atop a pipe rising several inches from the ground immediately to the left of Mill's tomb.

The bell was connected to one of more strings or wires tied to the occupant's fingers or toes.  If the deceased woke, his movements would ring the bell and sound the alarm.  Cemetery staff could then pump fresh air into the pipe until the occupant was disinterred and rescued.

Naturally, by the time the 20th century rolled-around the widespread practice of embalming obviated the need for grave bells.  Nevertheless, these were a common sight at the graves of Bonaventure's wealthy occupants.  Most of them were later salvaged as scrap for wartime use during the first world war.  Because Mill's bell was cast in bronze it persists to modern time as the last intact grave bell at Bonaventure.

True story.