Running into the Rockwell Museum one rainy day, I glanced up at the World War I memorial (now in Corning city hall) and saw the name of a man that I knew only as a young boy, from pictures taken by his aunt at the turn of the century. It was like seeing a child die.
*Likewise doing research for Hammondsport Central School’s Gold Star Memorial, I pored through yearbooks only to be stricken again and again at the sight of boys playing sports, going to class, mugging for the camera, and looking forward, as they had every right to do, to a long full life. But I knew that that would be snatched cruelly away from them.
*I don’t think we have yet reached that happy day that will mark the end of war. But I do think we have far too many of them, and I’m convinced that we go into them far too cavalierly. Americans are still dying in an Afghanistan/Middle East war that goes back to 2001, meaning that kids who were three years old back then could be getting killed in the same war right now.
*As I say, I don’t think that the world has yet outgrown war. But before we decide on war, we might all do well to walk down by the day care or the elementary school, watch the children at play during recess, and think about which ones of those children we’d be willing to have killed in whatever cause we’re thinking of fighting for.
*Let me introduce you to a few of the children:
*When Sid Cole (Corning) was a young boy, he and his little brother Glen liked to spend summers under canvas at Keuka Lake. Sid was killed in action in France on July 19, 1918.
*Thomas James Webster (Bath) was an Eagle Scout, an acolyte at St. Thomas Episcopal Church, and valedictorian at Haverling, where he also played football. He died of wounds in Italy on October 27, 1943.
*Bill Douden (Hammondsport) played sports in school. He was a class officer, and went to American Legion Boys’ State. He edited the yearbook and worked at Mercury Aircraft until being called up. Bill was killed in Germany on February 22, 1945.
*Reggie Wood (Hammondsport) was in the school band, the Bird Club, and the Boys Dancing Club. He was a Boy Scout, and played softball, and worked on the school yearbook and newspaper, and was president of the junior class. He died in an airplane crash in Germany on April 7, 1945.
*Steve Carrasas (Hammondsport) was in the school band. He played baseball and basketball, and was president of the Sportsmen’s Brotherhood. He died on September 27, 1948, at least in part from aftereffects of being blown off ship into the sea at Pearl Harbor, AND during the nighttime Battle of Kula Gulf.
*John Keegan ended one of his military history books quoting the long-ago song about how old soldiers never die, they just fade away. But armies, Keegan pointed out, are not made up of old soldiers. They’re made up of young soldiers. And they die in their millions.
*As far as I’m concerned, they’re not even young soldiers. They’re little boys. They’re baby boys, opening their eyes for the first time in their mother’s arms. That’s who dies in a war.