IN MEMORIAM---FOR ALFRED

Today is a very special day in my life, as it is for so many who have lived through world wars, police actions and wars on terror. All of us should bow our heads in prayer, remembering those who died for us.

In my case, I always remember my brother, Alfred, who was killed in World War II. He was the middle brother, I being the youngest who just missed out on that war, with the eldest, Henry, also in combat as a Navigator in the 15th Air Force in Italy where he flew 35 missions. Alfred was a T/5, the equivalent of a Corporal, in an L.S.T., the amphibian landing crafts that convert into tanks once they come out of the water , and was in on the invasion of the island of Leyte in the Phillippines in November 1944. Alfred had been part of the A.S.T.P. (Army Specialized Training Program) where he had been sent to college by the Army with the ultimate aim of becoming an officer and by a quirk of fate was assigned to the University of Cincinnati, much to my mother's delight since she lived in Hyde Park, a suburb of Cincinnati. Unfortunately, this idyll was short-lived, less than a year, because the Army needed more troops for the impending Pacific invasions, and in the spring of 1944 Alfred was assigned to L.S.T. training at Fort Ord on the Monterey Peninsula of California.

Alfred got home for a final furlough in July of 1944. He and I had gone to prep school together at The Hill School in Pottstown PA where Alfred graduated two years before me. When I saw him on this last furlough, I was taller than he for the first time---one of those silly memories you keep in that storehouse called your brain. I also felt more adult and less the kid brother on this occasion.

He went back to California, then to Hawaii before embarking on the big show in the Phillippines. While battling in Leyte, he contracted jungle rot on his arm, a fungus infection that temporarily put him in the hospital. He missed the battle of Ormac on Leyte, one of the last key engagements there but was anxious, as are all soldiers, to get back to his outfit and his buddies. He returned to his company on January 8, 1945 and was assigned to guard duty in a bivouac area. The battle was over, but there were remnants of Japanese soldiers holed up in the hills. One such group had a mortar and fired one shell---and it got Alfred. There is an old military cliche to the effect that you worry less about the bullet with your name on it than the one which says "To Whom It May Concern", and, ironically, that's how he died. He had turned twenty-one the previous November. Alfred was ultimately buried in the military cemetery outside Manila. The family thought it fit and proper that he should be with his fallen comrades, plus what was to be gained by reliving the pain of his death again with a funeral at home.

My father had planned to go to Manila and see his grave in 1969, but ill health prevented the trip. I had occasion to be in Asia on business in Taiwan and Hong Kong in 1977 and decided that I would make the pilgrimage to the Phillippines to see Alfred's grave. I flew into Manila on a Sunday evening, at that time under martial law with soldiers roaming the streets with rifles and machine guns strapped to their backs and imposing a nightly curfew as they were dealing with Communist insurgents. The next day I hired a cab to the cemetery. As you are probably aware, all U.S. military cemeteries are American property in the foreign country and maintained and paid for by the U.S.A.

I went to the guardhouse where I was shown the records containing the names and grave numbers and quickly located Alfred's grave. I thought after thirty-two years I could handle this moment emotionally, but, when I found his grave, I knelt to pray and totally broke down in tears. I took some pictures. I flew out that same day.

I thank God that I made that trip.

That is why Memorial Day is special to me---and to many others. Lest we forget...