This essay is being dictated on the Friday evening of September 14. At the moment, I am in a thoroughly somber mood. The somber mood comes from having listened to the broadcast from Andrews Air Force Base, which was the site of ceremonies honoring the four dead Americans who perished recently in Libya.
If I may say so, at the possible expense of bragging, the American military is superb at welcoming home its fallen heroes. It may be that this expertise comes from continued practice. Military music has many critics. I am not one of them. There were three musical selections that were played for the ceremony. I suppose that this band would be considered a brass band in that there were no instruments such as violins or violas.
When the airplane rolled to a complete stop, there were four hearses with open doors waiting for the transfer of the fallen diplomats. Of course the band played “Nearer My God to Thee.” Next they played “America the Beautiful.” Finally, they played “Going Home.” Before the airplane bearing the bodies came to a complete stop, tears filled my eyes. Those tears did not leave until well after the ceremonies were completed.
I defy any thinking human being to remain unmoved by a ceremony such as this. I have been a crier at ceremonies such as this for our soldiers as well as for British soldiers and a few French and Polish soldiers as well. Am I given to blubbering when such a ceremony takes place? Of course not. When I think of those that are left behind, tears always fill my eyes. There are wives who are now widowed. There are fatherless children who will grow up not knowing the strength of a father’s hand. There are parents who raised this child to maturity who will miss him more than anyone can imagine. There are siblings who will remember jokes they played on each other as well as the affection they shared with their brother. And there are thousands of people who will miss the warm smiles of the one who lies in that casket.
The four diplomats who came home today were not known to me at all. Yet I feel tremendous warmth for those who gave their lives on foreign battlefields such as Libya.
At this juncture, I am an old man with my 90th birthday behind me. My recollections go back to the Second World War when the Americans suffered something more than 400,000 casualties. When I traveled to foreign lands, I often made it a point to go by a military cemetery. My visits were not confined to American military cemeteries. Often I would sit on a stone slab and wonder what had been gained or lost by the sacrifice of these brave men. I am not given to melancholy. I did this as a tribute to those who gave their lives in defense of liberty.
Now to bring it a bit closer to home. From 1942 until the end of 1945, I served in the United States Air Force. There were not all that many funerals that took place because when a warplane is shot out of the sky over enemy territory, there is no one to retrieve the bodies. I can understand that our enemies would not be anxious to provide a fitting resting place for our airmen who had been shot down. That simply goes with the territory.
And to draw the noose a little tighter, when faced by the prospect of death, my recollections are that I said to myself, “Good Jesus, so this is where it comes to an end, in this forsaken place.” I did not of course – did not – appeal to some celestial being such as God to save me. For all I knew, God or the Holy Ghost may have held the Germans in great favor. As far as I could tell, no one else in that situation was fearful of some punishment from God or one of His subordinates. Under attack, the ordinary human being, be he American or British or French or German, fought as hard as he could to preserve his life. More than anything else, this attitude tended to confirm my thoughts about my religious non-belief.
I grieved for those who had been shot down and did not fill the bunks in our tents or barracks. But the grief of any soldier has to be kept under control because tomorrow he may be the soldier who has to conduct an air raid in enemy territory. It is quite likely that there should be no grieving because tomorrow it may be me.
But I am always moved by ceremonies such as we witnessed today. The old Protestant hymn “Nearer My God to Thee” is well known to many of us who were subjected to religious ceremonies during our childhood. I often recall that the band aboard the Titanic played that hymn as the waters came to flood the Titanic.
I have often thought that “America The Beautiful” would make a superior anthem to “The Star Spangled Banner.”
When the band strikes up “Going Home,” it strikes me that it would take a brave man or a not-connected man to ignore that melody. The words are:
Going home, going home,
I’m just going home.
It’s not far, just close by,
Through an open door.
Mother’s there waiting for me…
At this point, I cannot recall all of the lyrics. It seems to me that the beautiful melody was the product of a Czech composer. The music was written by Antonin Dvorák (1841-1904). It is based on the Largo movement from the New World Symphony.
Dvorak was a man after my own heart. He combined the effects of symphonic music with his interest in Negro spirituals. When Dvorák took a job in this country, he insisted that it should not interfere with his interest in and study of Negro spirituals. I find those spirituals entirely moving. Good for Antonin Dvorák.
As I have said, I am thoroughly proud of the United States military who welcomed home the bodies of the four diplomats who were slain in Libya. This was a noble occasion.
At the very moment that these four were being returned, Mitt Romney was engaged in a political rally which he deemed to be more necessary than observing the rites for the fallen diplomats. Romney has been off his game for a while. This was an ignoble gesture. It tended to send the message that Romney thumbed his nose at the ceremonies for the four slain diplomats who were brought home. But as I said, Romney has been in a slump these days.
By dictating these lines, my mood has tended to improve. And when I think of sticky situations involving military combat, my thoughts always come back to Harry Livermore, my great and good friend. Harry was a religious man. His religion was in one place and his desire to win the war was in another place. Harry is gone now but I always think of him when situations such as those faced by the diplomats in Libya are involved.
So these are my thoughts on this somber afternoon. I do not wish to transfer my troubles to you. You have plenty by yourself. But I did want to record my thoughts, which explain why I cry at military ceremonies, particularly when the military band plays, “Going home, going home, it’s not far, just close by through an open door.”
E. E. CARR
September 14, 2012
Essay 695
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Kevin’s commentary:
Loved this one. September was a heavy, heavy month this year. And now to hear Romney freak out about the rhetoric used by Obama when his own actions… ugh. It’s just frustrating.
Some pretty big changes to the site today. Pictures were added to the essay “Can you read this upside down,” as well as a fuller version of the lyrics to Pop’s dirty ditty. Previous Pop comments from email conversations have also been added to the “Kevin’s commentary” section of earlier posts. Nearly every post from this past week now has a response from Pop to my commentary, and in almost every case they are fantastic. The meaning of Num Num Speck is revealed, for instance. Go check it out!