Remembering

 May 24^th - Memorial Day Weekend 2014

I have a picture on my wall, a copy of one that adorned my Uncle’s Bill’s office, which I have taken from a book Bill wrote – the Americal Generation – about the men he went to war with in 1942, members of various units within the 23^rd Infantry Division, the Americal Division.

The picture was taken in December 1941, a few days before Christmas. In the picture are 12 young men and one older man – Tom Dorgan. They were the bulk of ‘Dorgan’s Baseball Club,’ and they were all friends from Dorchester, Mass., a section of Boston. Several of them, to include my uncle Bill (Bill McLaughlin) had already been in the National Guard before Pearl Harbor, but after it everyone who wasn’t already ‘spoken for’ went to the nearest enlistment center and signed up. Many of the members of Dorgan’s Baseball Club joined the Marines that December and came to be known unofficially as ‘Dorgan’s Platoon.’

The 12 young men in the picture are: Dick Hodgens, Tom Mulkerin, Maurice Driscoll, Harry Holtzman, Francis X. O’Meara (also an uncle of mine), Jim Sullivan, Jack Daley, Billy Walsh, John Hassan, Bill McLaughlin, Charlie Martin and Billy Martin.

They are perhaps a bit more conservatively dressed then would be a similar group today, but perhaps not – just young men in suits. The faces are, however, no different then what you would see in any bar or restaurant on a Friday night. They are young and alive, ‘full of piss and vinegar.’ In the lower right of the picture Billy Martin has reached around FX ‘Red’ O’Meara and is tickling his chin and whispering something – perhaps something slightly off-color – in his ear. Red is laughing.

I note them here because these men, as with many, many others, deserve to be remembered. 2,500 years ago the Greeks would have built temples to them and written plays in their honor. Several centuries later the Romans did much the same thing. But such practices seem to have fallen from favor and we quickly forget the courage, and the wisdom, that these men earned in the hardest school of all.

Bill would later describe them: “…These were all pretty average guys who were just in to do a job and get back to civilian life.”  Of these Bill would later tell me that every single man in that picture received at least one Purple Heart; each received at least one Bronze Star (at the time, Bronze Stars were only awarded as combat awards, what are now distinguished as Bronze Star with V (for valor)), several of them received Silver Stars, and Billy Walsh received the Medal of Honor – posthumously – on Iwo Jima.

Pretty average guys…

I was fortunate; Bill survived the war, as did Red. (My father and my 4 other uncles and 2 aunts also served and they all lived. And I heard stories from all of them. Most of the stories were funny.) But as I grew older I started hearing the other stories. Bill was both an historian and a superb storyteller, with an uncanny ability to remember poignant details. These figures came alive, coming out of the picture on the wall, with the humor and the hardship, and their stories taught a lesson in duty.

The ones who survived came home, and went back to work.  They helped to rebuild the nation after 12 years of depression and 5 years of war. They are all my heroes.  And I thank God they lived, and that I knew them.