A Memorial's Story

Posted without comment.

Dulce et decorum est

"Let me tell you a story. Once, there were two brothers, Milton and Calvin. Milton was eighteen and Calvin was sixteen, and they lived with their parents on a small farm in red clay country, a few acres of bottomland. War came. Important men in fine clothes made fancy speeches, and of course they were right because they had university degrees and they were important and anyway war was a grand adventure, so Milton joined up. He joined the Guilford Greys and he had a fine uniform and a great hat. Calvin wanted to come too. He begged and pleaded and threatened to run away until it was decided that Calvin would come with Milton, and Milton would keep him safe. And so the boys went to war.

"It wasn't fun and it wasn't shiny. It wasn't glorious and it wasn't neat. It was horrible and dark and scary and the brothers stuck together, and Milton took care of Calvin. And then there was a terrible losing battle called The Wilderness, a running awful messy battle in deep forest with enemies and friends strung out all over the place, and Calvin was shot. The enemy was moving in, and Calvin was shot, and figures with bayonets were moving through the powdersmoke, and they were retreating. The lieutenant ordered Milton to retreat but he wouldn't. His brother was wounded on the field, and he wouldn't leave him. And so he stayed with his brother's unconscious body, and put his hands in the air when they saw him.

"Milton and Calvin were captured, and they were taken to a POW camp at a place called Elmira. 12,100 men were sent to Elmira, and 2,970 of them died there in the next twelve months, 24.5%, a rate comparable with Andersonville and British held by the Japanese in World War II. (For comparison, the death rate of Germans held by Americans in World War II was 0.15%.) Calvin was one of the ones who died. He was buried in a mass grave in a long burial trench at Woodlawn Cemetery.

"Milton was one of the ones who lived. When the war ended, some of the POWs were given train tickets home. Not Milton. He started walking. He walked eight hundred miles. He got home. He explained to his mother and father that he had failed. Calvin wasn't safe. He was rotting in a trench. He died when he was eighteen years old. Milton hadn't taken care of him.

"But Milton lived. He was now his family's breadwinner. He got a job on the railroad as a brakeman. He moved into town. Eventually he married and built a little house with four rooms right near the railroad track. He had two sons, Calvin and Luther. And he told them the story, he told them about Calvin. His sons did ok. Calvin became a fireman, and eventually fire chief. Luther became a master plumber and pipefitter, and he installed lots of new flush commodes in houses in town.

"My father remembered as a child when his grandfather Luther contributed to build the Confederate Memorial in Woodlawn Cemetery. It's a bronze stele of a young man in uniform mounted on granite with an inscription that reads "In memory of the confederate soldiers of the war between the states who died in Elmira Prison and lie buried here." It stands over the old mass grave amid rows of white crosses, one for each of the 2,970 men. Milton was dead by the time it was erected, in 1937, but Luther contributed in honor of the uncle he'd never known. Calvin left no works of art, no good work, not even fine installed toilets or trains that reached the station safely. He left no children, no genes to pass down the ages. He left nothing but a brother's love.

"Now the Nazis have claimed our story, have claimed our statues, and protesters march with banners and shout to tear down these memorials, these horrific symbols of evil people which were raised in hate to intimidate and frighten. They've taken our story, and we will lose the statues too. We will lose Calvin, and all the young men like him. We can't even tell the story for fear of being reviled. I can't post this out of friendslock for fear of destroying my life. If I do, I'll be called a Nazi and a racist and an evil person who should be killed. They've taken our story.

"Maybe, when enough time has passed, when these Nazis too are gone, we can tell it again. Or maybe it will be lost forever, like so many stories have been. Or maybe someone who isn't American can tell it, someone who is free from this particular constellation of issues. But right now all I can do is grieve -- for what the Nazis have taken from us, and from my friends who are posting that only evil people would defend these memorials. These memorials don't belong to them. They belong to Milton and Calvin. Maybe one day, if I live long enough, I can say that."