INTRO & THANKS
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| Henry and Kevin Long - What would our town be like without them? |
Thank you
for being here today.
Thank you
for keeping this tradition of keeping the memory of our Veterans alive.
I’d like to
specifically thank all the veterans here among us now, including those in the
color guard for their time and efforts in attending to these programs,
and from
their countless tasks of serving our community,
from serving
at the funerals of our departed,
for bearing
the cold of December for Wreaths Across America,
for ensuring
every veteran’s grave is decorated with a flag,
and all the
countless other tasks you do.
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| A cold day in December 2020- Our UVO taking part in Wreaths Across America. |
You are ever
faithful in answering our community’s every need.
Henry Long - We miss you this year. Godspeed in your recovery. We look forward to hearing your trumpet again very soon.
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| Members of the Lehighton UVO Color Guard at Lehighton Area Middle School - May 2013: Glenn "Smokey" Troutman, my Dad, the original Double R, Randy Rabenold, forever with a trumpet under his arm, Henry Long, and members of the military storied Semanoff family, Major Pete Semanoff and father Gene. |
INTRO –
Who are you thinking about this Memorial Day Weekend?
Whose story lives within you?
I have
several stories to share with you today.
I encourage
you to do some further reading of these veterans by finding their stories on my
blog.
We can all agree, our AMVETS Hometown Hero Banners enhance our town.
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| Please scroll to the end of this post to find many more examples of Hometown Hero Banners. If you would like to have one place, please contact the American Legion Home Post #314. You may also email me and I can assist you in making the application. |
Each banner contains its own compelling story.
These
stories are filled with conflict and joy,
with sorrow
and sacrifice,
with friendship
and grief,
loyalty and
survival.
We can learn
so much.
This is a
tough year for me.
It is the
first Memorial Day since my father’s passing.
I’m grateful
for this opportunity to speak to you about some personal memories that play in
a perpetual loop in my memory.
When we were
young, my cousins and I grew up in the shadow of our Uncle Ezra Kreiss who was killed in the English Channel in the build up to D-Day.
His absence
created such a void in everyone’s life.
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| Though it was the week of Memorial Day and though all these are Americans who gave their all in WWII buried here in Cambridge England, only Kreiss's grave was marked by flowers that day in 2015. His decorated grave was easy for his niece Lt. Col Kathy Haas to spot. |
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| The Lehighton Area Middle School Operation Never Forget Club placed these flowers on Ezra Kreiss's grave in Cambridge England, Spring 2015. |
Years ago,
the Operation Never Forget Club placed flowers on Uncle Ezzie’s grave at
Cambridge Cemetery in the U.K.
By chance, my
cousin, Kathy Haas, a retired Lt Col in the Air Force, was doing Port Security
work in England that same week and had the chance to stop by Uncle Ezzie’s grave.
She’d never
been there before.
But when she saw that just one grave in the whole cemetery had flowers on it, she knew it was Uncle Ezzie’s grave.
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| Lt. Col. Kathy Haas's father Robert at Ezra Kreiss's grave while with the Navy in the early 1950s. |
My tough Lt
Col cousin, Kathy Haas, fell to her knees, and wept.
Veterans
understand the sacrifices given by those who came before us.
If you were
lucky enough to know Chester Mertz you will understand this.
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| Chester Mertz - Tending to his parent's grave - St John's, Mahoning Valley - June 2011. |
He was
helping me write his story.
Over several
weeks of visits and interviews it developed into a most compelling one.
Upon reading
the final draft, he handed it back to me and said:
“Well
done. I’ve enjoyed it.
But now do
one more thing. Shred it up and share it
with no one.”
A lesson in humility.
Veterans
can be the humblest people you will ever meet.
I didn’t
know Walter Haydt.
The Shoemaker-Haydt
Post #314 is named in honor of his death in his B-24 Liberator known as the“Texas Terror.”
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| The picture Walter sent home to his daughter Janice. |
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| Janice Haydt Gover and her father's hat. |
I did know Walter’s
brother Ray.
They said those
two brothers had the same laugh.
I met Walter’s
daughter Janice.
She has her
father’s hat to remember him by.
But when you
see Janice, it easy to see how she also carries her father’s exact same smile.
This I
know for certain: Sharing a smile, sharing a kind word, or a laugh, always goes
a long way.
Ira Smith lost his family farm after his father died, because his older half-brothers
wanted to cash out the farm.
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| Ira F. Smith grew up on the farm of his father Jonathan Smith in the Kistler Valley. By the age of 17 he was living in a neighbor's hay loft working for room and board. |
Ira fought
at the Battle of the Bulge. He was shot in
the wrist.
He was taken
prisoner and bombed by the Allies.
He fell
three stories through a warehouse where they were keeping him, and broke his
back.
He suffered through
his injuries for a year at the notorious Stalag 12A, and spent an additional
year recovering from his injuries at Valley Forge after the war.
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| Ira F. Smith as pictured in the May 1945 book "Pictures of the War." |
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| Ira Smith (Dec 1919-May 2011) & Rabenold at his home in 2010. |
But he did
not come home a bitter man.
When all those
older brothers, who sold the family farm, needed help in their old age, it was
Ira who went each day to bathe them, to give them a shave.
Now
there’s a lesson in humanity, in forgiveness and compassion.
Yesterday,
the UVO saluted the grave of my grandmother’s great-great grandfather PeterNothstein.
He served
the entire Revolutionary War.
He was among
the 200 of Sullivan’s troops who were trapped by the Hessians on Long Island early
in the war.
The Hessians
were taking no prisoners alive.
So, he swam
the entire Long Island Sound with his musket strapped to his back.
There are
some Veterans who were compelled to do superhuman things to survive.
A few years
ago, we honored Clarence Smoyer at the Elem Center.
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| The long overdue awarding of the Bronze Star with Valor at a special dedication at the WWII Memorial in Washington DC. Cpl. Smoyer receives the medal from Major Pete Semanoff. Semanoff as a boy helped ferret out Smoyer's story that led to the book Spearhead. Semanoff, along with Sgt. Major Dan Dailey of Palmerton, along with aide to Secretary of the Army Kenneth Wong made sure Smoyer finally got this medal, 18 Sept 2019. |
(Read how Smoyer received France's highest honor, the Medaille de la Legion d'Honneur in May 2019.)
And this
week, Smoyer will once again be going back to the Reading WWII Weekend.
Once again, he will hear the sounds of that time, when the Andrews Sisters once sang and Tommy Dorsey once played.
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| Smoyer signing books at Reading WWII Weekend June 2019, with lipstick marks to prove he was reliving his days of youth. |
At night, in
the hanger, the reenactors will come, dressed to the nines, and they will start
to swing.
A smile will come to Smoyer’s face, his foot will tap and his knee will bounce.
All of it,
like a dream.
The war required
that Cpl. Smoyer to do cruel things to our enemy.
Smoyer
watched many young soldiers die.
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| Before he ever met his wife Melba, as the war wound down, Smoyer fell in love with Ressi Phieffer (A picture of Pheiffer appears on page 64 of book). He parents used strong persuasion to convince Smoyer to marry their daughter but he was not ready at the time. While researching for the book, Makos tracked down Pheiffer and as it turned out, she indeed married an American GI and moved to America. But too late. They were only able to interview her widowed husband. Lehighton's Clarence Smoyer's story was told by NYT best-selling author Adam Makos. The movie is expected to be released by year's end. AnnMarie Bergoff (pg 175) was a love interest of Buck Marsh during the war. To read more about how Lehighton's Major Pete Semanoff's efforts in his Eagle Scout Project resulted in this story being published, click here. |
He saw the beautiful
Katharina Esser die in the crossfire at Cologne.
He bears the
grief of burying his Vietnam Veteran son,
of having his
beloved wife Melba dying in his arms.
One or the other had to be last.
Lesson:
We all must bear our own grief.
But we
can never fully understand the grief our veterans have been called to
endure.
Sometimes
in life, we must deal with our past before we can learn to live on.
Oscar Kromer
and the entire crew of Destroyer Escort #413 were sunk in the Battle off Samar
in the Battle of Leyte Gulf.
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| Joyce Kromer Heilman marked this photo of her father with his mates on DE413, "The Sammy B" known at Annapolis as the "destroyer escort that fought like a battleship" in the Battle of Leyte Gulf. |
(Read the book “The Spirit of the
Sammy B” for a full account. See footnotes here to read a 10-page excerpt from Kromer's memoir.).
His daughter
Joyce remembered her mother’s scream when she read the paper that his ship was
lost.
They waited more
than four days to know his fate.
Kromer had to climb over dead bodies to climb a ladder out the hatch of his flooded boiler room.
He floated around on debris for two
days, watching friend after friend get pulled under the murky waters by
sharks.
Then in 1983, after learning he had terminal cancer, Oscar began typing his memoir in secret.
Rehashing the story, 38-years later, still gave Kromer nightmares.
He presented
the 105-pages to his family on Christmas Day.
I have the
copy Joyce gave.
Dad was on bereavement leave when his buddies, his Cousin Nuny and the entire Marine Brigade were trapped by the Chinese who crossed the Ya-lu River.
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| Randy Rabenold, my Dad - June 1950 - Camp Pendleton, California. |
That’s where
Frank Mertz earned the Silver Star for bravery, his action saved many lives at Chosin.
My Dad was
making his way across the Sea of Japan.
They handed his loose company of men two bandoleers of ammo and told them
they had to fight their way back in, to help break out the brigade.
Without
question my research into my Dad’s story got me closer to my Dad.
Just like Oscar Kromer’s family and all the rest:
Many held onto their story until late
in life.
Dad was one
of six buddies who enlisted together.
He was the
last survivor of them all.
He too, had
to bury the love of his life, my mother Ruthie.
On Monday, June
7th of last year, with his lungs failing him and with just hours to live, Dad
wrote this last note.
“On Monday June
7th, 5 Boys Leave for USMC.
Then, “Korea broke out.”
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| Anyone who knew my Dad knew how compulsive he was about making notes. He never went anywhere without his notebook or stack of index cards. He noted everything his whole life: how many loads of wash he did, what he watched on TV, a verse from the Bible, and even how many beers he had that day. Known for his remarkable penmanship and style, these last notes of Dad's from just hours before he passed show both his decline but also his determination to remember. |
(June 7th
was indeed a Monday in 1948 as was as in 2020.)
As he held my brother's hand in his left, and mine in his right, Dad died with his last thoughts on his buddies on his 72nd anniversary of his arrival at Parris Island.
Let me
leave you with the things I am absolutely certain of:
When my 17-year-old Dad joined the Marine Corps, he did not know who he was going to become.
He had no idea what he wanted.
What I know of loyalty, I'm still learning from my Dad.
In life there
are many things we never want to forget.
For those
who served, there are many things they cannot forget.
War is a
terrible thing.
The least
we can do is remember.
The least
we can do is continue to share their stories.
Everyone
wants to be remembered for something.
No one
wants to be the last.
Our
veterans, though they may not have been born as warriors, always understood
their duty.
And that may be the greatest lesson of all:
To know your role in life,
And to be willing
to accept it.
Oscar Kromer served on the DE#413, the "Sammy B." He floated in shark-infested waters for two days will waiting to be rescued. He watched one by one as sharks pulled men under, never to be seen again.
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| Anyone who grew up in Lehighton prior to the 2000s has a story about Mr. Koons. He was the subject of my college entry essay as the person outside my family whom I most admired. |
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