( This is a 9 year old post. My Uncle has since passed, but he returned to France for a 65th reunion)
I am as guilty as anyone else—planning my barbecue and perusing the paper for the best furniture sales of the year. It’s easy for me. I’ve never felt the dread of answering a knock at my door. A knock that would tell me I’d never see my father, brother, son, mother, sister or daughter again.
I was born in that magical decade between wars. By the time the boys I dated came of age, the draft became a choice and everyone I knew chose college. But there were plenty of people who did choose the service and plenty who didn’t come back. Overtime I learned that wars could be popular or not.
World War II was a good war for soldiers. Vietnam was not.
My uncle, an 80 year old World War II veteran, recently returned from Lorraine, France, where he and the remaining men of his battalion were honored for their liberation of France from Germany. A week full of parades and extravagant wining and dining marked their sixtieth anniversary of the Moselle River crossing. But what really moved my uncle, his son, and the grandson, who accompanied him, were the village people who clamored to hug my uncle and shake his hand. In a flurry of French and fresh tears they told their stories and recalled their memories, and though interpreters were on hand, the display of gratitude needed no translation.
My uncle’s visit brought to light how fragile and how desperately important freedom is. It further made me realize how much I take it for granted and how embarrassingly infrequently I think about those who serve our country and protect our security. I’ve become complacent about freedom, yet I know slavery exists today in 72 countries of our world.
Historically, there is some debate as to the how and where Memorial Day was first observed. Originally, it was known as Decoration Day. After the Civil War, people in both the North and South decorated soldier’s graves with flowers. While there remains as much divisiveness about the holiday’s origins as our own opinions about war, Memorial Day is not about politics and not about war—it’s about people.
It’s not just a day off from school or a furniture sale. It’s a day we need to teach our children about. Memorial Day is really quite simple: It’s a day to remember and honor our loved ones, our ancestors, our friends and even those we don’t know who’ve died in conflicts and wars in our nation’s service. The hardest part is simply remembering.
A little about Gil Unger: Unger and his unit fought in the Battle of the Bulge and went on to liberate the concentration camp in Flossenbuerg, Germany on April 28, 1945. He finished the war in Weiden, Germany as a clarinetist in the Army Band. He was awarded the French Legion of Honor and Croix de Guerre with Palm recipient, as well as being awarded a Purple Heart. My uncle was the most modest and simple man.. Unger landed on the beach in Normandy shortly after D-Day and described his experience in its aftermath:
“Shortly after the invasion,” he said. “The Allies were stuck on the beach and couldn’t move. They had to break the stalemate somehow, so they decided to do a carpet-bombing” of St. Lo, an area located in northwestern France, approximately 190 miles from Paris.
The carpet-bombing left the area devastated, and the Allied soldiers were finally able to advance.
“As we were driving through the rubble, I saw a baby,” Unger said. “I saw a baby laying in the road. I said, ‘Oh my God, there’s a baby there, so I banged on the roof of the cab and said stop. I jumped down, ran to the baby and picked it up.”
Here, Unger paused and chuckled. “It turned out to be a life-size baby doll.”
The baby doll soon grew from an amusing anecdote to a symbol of liberation for the French people.
“We decided to wire [the doll] to the radiator and name our vehicle the ‘Baby Buggy,’” Unger explained. Word about the Baby Buggy spread quickly, and the people of the nearby villages soon began to recognize it. The “Baby Buggy” became an iconic symbol and was made into a toy.
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