OPINION:
On a wall in my mother’s home, there hangs a memorial certificate which, along with the Purple Heart, was posthumously awarded to the uncle I never met.
On it is the inscription of powerful and solemn words authored by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. The words are as true today — especially on this day — as they ever were: “He stands in the unbroken line of patriots who have dared to die that freedom might live and grow and increase its blessings. Freedom lives, and through it he lives — in a way that humbles the undertakings of most men.”
The year was 1944, and my mother was at work in a Chicago office building when the call came.
It was short, her sister’s voice serious, and the message simple: Get home immediately. She didn’t ask questions. When you’re 16 years old, your country is at war and a call like that comes in, you get home.
The U.S. Army chaplain had just been to the Rossi home in Melrose Park, Illinois, to inform my beloved grandmother, Mrs. Rossi, that her only son had been killed in action.
By all accounts, my grandmother skipped the crying and went directly to the screaming.
Serving as a sergeant in Company A, 110th Infantry Regiment, 28th Infantry Division, my uncle died at the Battle of Gathemo, just weeks after landing in Normandy, France. His name was Bernard Frank Rossi. He was 23 years old.
Although he died 13 years before I was born, there was never a moment when memories of him were far removed from the conversations of my grandparents, my mother or her two sisters.
As a child, I had questions about “Ben” — about what kind of person he was and what kind of uncle he’d have been to the six nephews and five nieces he would have lived to know. Despite of my curiosity, there was so much that remained a mystery.
Did my grandparents, Italian immigrants, cry tears of joy when their only son was born? How could they have known that he would later die, one of 416,800 other brave Americans whose lives were claimed during World War II?
Although I’m certain I know the answer, was there anything that could have ever prepared them for that visit from the chaplain?
At the age of 12, while returning home in a crowded Buick after a celebration of my grandparents’ 50th wedding anniversary, I remember listening to my parents’ quiet conversation. My dad mentioned to my mom how subdued my grandfather had seemed throughout the night.
“I think he was missing Ben,” my mother said.
Silence followed. Sometimes there are no words.
In that instant, I only remember feeling angst for my grandparents, my mother and her sisters.
Looking back now, I’m sure my 12-year-old mind could not have fully comprehended the way I do know how broken multitudes of hearts have been over the course of our country’s history, the oceans of tears that have been shed or the terrible cost of freedom.
Now, at the age of 99, my mother is the last survivor of a Gold Star family that was forever changed by the loss of a brother and son. A family that, as President Abraham Lincoln wrote in a letter to Gold Star mother Mrs. Bixby during the Civil War, laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom.”
My mother has never gone to Brittany American Cemetery in France where her brother’s body, along with so many others, was buried. My cousin Linda did, though. She told the LaGrange Daily News in Georgia that the gravesite was “as beautiful a final resting place as any family could want for a soldier buried on foreign soil.”
As I gaze upon the smiles and innocence of my young grandchildren, I sometimes wince at how removed they are from life’s brutal realities. I wonder if they will ever live to experience such profound loss, the likes of which will forever change them. They are among my darkest thoughts and I do my best to avoid them.
Lately, malcontents in our society seem hellbent on fanning the flames of divisiveness and anger. Their attempts at silencing dissenting opinions reveal their hatred of our American values.
These efforts have manifested themselves in various forms of censorship, lies, greed and corruption in our highest levels of our government.
On behalf of our fallen, we mustn’t let them succeed. Because if there’s one thing we all share, it’s the freedom born of the sacrifices made by those who died serving this country.
This Memorial Day, as with all the others, it is fitting to solemnly remember those heroes who lost their lives in defense of the things we cherish most: our freedoms, our Constitution and our way of life.
Are we a country so separated by religious, political, economic and cultural divides that we can’t stop and take time to appreciate the freedoms purchased by the blood and treasure of so many American lives? I hope not.
Because amid all the nasty disagreements we will continue to have over the years, there’s one thing we should understand: The freedom to bicker does not exist despite the sacrifices made by those brave heroes; it exists because of them.
• Dave Del Camp is a retired Merchant Marine engineer and published author. He resides in Portland, Maine.
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