the Full Measure
Went to my small town's smalltown funeral service Day parade Monday. It began ahead of the high school on Broad. shot a left onto Main. Clanged and tootled past the your children's clothing shop, The online flower shop, each of our deli, The independent book retailer, the, The big box store, The meat market place, And the cafe. Then rightangled at the Exxon station and doubled back into the town square between the mailbox and the Rite Aid pharmacy.
as well as, A italian granite monument commemorated our war dead, And on the breezeless morning a united states flag hung limp at halfstaff. A makeshift stage was piled deep with pols and Chamber of Commerce types,lacoste clothing, And before it were gathered the citizens who had marched with their groups, Now meshing together. VFW members making Boy Scouts' eyes bulge considering, uh, adornment. offer Firemen (Melting in your humidity in their highcollared tunics) complimenting Girl Scouts on how pretty they looked. Bagpipers skirling for having a laugh Brownies who covered their ears.
A small squad of a dozen marines, several graying and bald, Stood at parade rest off to the side, Forming an honor guard for solitary pilot is a, Riderless horse with backwardfacing boots from the stirrups. The marine corps, Dead serious in their pressed khakis and red polo shirts with the globe and anchor emblem, could've been scary. But you will know Marines. They do that purposely.
And as a local churchman gave an invocation plus the parade's honorary chairman,lacoste store, A Navy battle II Gunner's Mate, Was published, My mind wandered. So many American fighting men have told me so many significant things over the years. One of things, Imparted to me over and again, Came to mind as the high school band played the Star Spangled Banner.
"Memorial Day isn't for the veterans. It is for the militia, sailors, Airmen and Marines who never had the opportunity to become veterans,
The exact number of the millions of Americans who have died on foreign killing grounds or here on homegrown battlefields to preserve our freedoms and liberty should never be known. But on this memorial service Day, As the mayor asked the riff-raff to pledge its allegiance to the flag, for reasons uknown I thought of another Gunner's Mate who gave his last full measure of devotion. if you could spare a moment, And a decided, let me briefly share his story.
preceding to Joe Guio, jr.. Enlisted after Pearl Harbor and became a Gunner's Mate 3rd Class on the Destroyer USS Monaghan he was roughhewn coal miner's son from the hollows of West va. Quick with a grin that rarely left his face (And which friends named beginning at each ear),ralph lauren polo, Guio wore his wide, Wavy black hair cropped short on the sides like John Garfield. His sculpted torso looked as if it had become carved out of the Appalachian shale of his home state's piney hills.
Guio was on the Monaghan on 18 December, 1944 when Admiral bill "half truths" Halsey ignored the advice of all his weathermen and sailed the 170odd ships of the Third Pacific Fleet in the teeth of the most vicious typhoon recorded in the 20th century. For 24 hours the most powerful armada the world had ever known was bounced and buttressed by 150mileperhour winds and battered by waves that reached 90 feet in height. Three american destroyers turned turtle and cracked open in that cyclone. One advisors was theUSS Monaghan.
As the Monaghan bobbed on her side and gouts of water tossed the staggering ship, Guio repudiated abandon her; Instead he crouched beyond the hatch in the lee of the ship's afterdeck gun mount and helped pull to safety dozens of shipmates trapped below. One gurus was the Monaghan's "Oil important, online Watertender Joe McCrane, Who barely made it overboard before the Monaghan disappeared below the waves. Not long moreover McCrane, spent and forlorn from fighting the swirling seas, Was floating alone and about to give up hopewhen he heard a familiar twang. "sup, dude, Grab that raft back of you,
The sound belonged to Joe Guio, jr, Who well before being washed overboard himself had cut loose from the ship's tangled deck lines a balsa and canvas raft. McCrane lunged for the float and seized it with all of the his strength. When McCrane wiped the spume from his eyes he counted nearly 22 crewmates attaching onto that raft for dear life. most notable was Guio, Who sprawled naked in the well of flimsy craft, every one of his right foot missing. The hatch Guio had held open to allow so a great many others to escape had been slammed across his foot by the force of one, Last gigantic wave, Cleaving this method in half. They ran up and hollered and waved, But the vessel steamed on without recognizing them. McCrane sank back down into the well and again wrapped his arms around Guio, Who uttered his penultimate words and phraases. "may well, Can you see a thing,
McCrane thought Guio was talking about the passing ship. It was obvious to all his raftmates that Guio was bleeding out of his severed foot, And McCrane experimented with buoy his spirits. specific, he was quoted saying, He often see something. A yacht. Coming for him or her.
"could not see a thing, Gunner's Mate 3rd lecture Joe Guio Jr. starting from Hollidays Cove, West va, exclaimed, And closed his eyes and died naked inside a "Oil queen" Joe McCrane's body.
McCrane and another seaman produced the burial at sea. one more said the Lord's Prayer. Joe McCrane was an old man when he listed to me gazing one last time into the pallid face of the crewmate who had saved his life,lacoste polo. then he gently rolled Joe Guio Jr.'s body over the inside.
I am not certain why I stood at that parade's end this Monday past and looked at Joe Guio, jr. I would have chosen from the scores, unquestionably the hundreds, Of Americans I have written about who lost their lives in war. Perhaps it is the AllAmericanness of his name. person Guio, jr.. Or maybe it had something related to the parade's honorary chairman also being a World War II Gunner's Mate. the fact is, I had planned to write a post on this Memorial Day about a young Army Reservist, A boy who did not look much more aged than my 14yearold son, Whose useless body, chopped up in two by an IED, I helped to lift onto a Medevac chopper until recently in Iraq. suppose, subconsciously, That memory is still too raw. But since I reread these words, I understand so too is the distant memory of Joe Guio Jr.
I suppose it is exactly what Memorial Day stands for. The generational inactive intermingle, for example, the Marines and bagpipers and Brownies at parade's end. As long as they did not give their lives in vain, I tell on my own. I hope it is a fact.
Contributing Editor and chief military reporter Bob Drury has been nominated for three National Magazine Awards and a Pulitzer Prize. He has experienced from Iraq, Afghanistan, Liberia, Bosnia, n. Ireland, And Darfur among websites. marines in Combat (GroveAtlantic hit), The people receiving the Marine Corps Heritage Foundation's 2010 General Wallace M. Greene junior. grant for nonfiction.
His popular book, continue performing Men Out: The True Story of many Heroic Final Hours in Vietnam (Simon Schuster, 2011), Will build up as a paperback in April. his / her Kindle Single, trademark Wound, Is provided by Amazonyou can find it on their Kindle Single Bestseller List.
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