The memorial Harold never saw

Many years ago, while living in the US, I wrote for a local newspaper in Northern Ireland. I had little editorial oversight, which allowed me to speak plainly. What follows is one of those articles, written around 2004. I knew its subject, Harold Lieb, he was my wife's grandfather, my son's great-grandfather. His story, and the system it reveals, is a signpost we continue to fail to heed.

“They were the greatest generation.”. This phrase is so very often used here in the United States when we wish to speak of those men and women who not only fought in, but also lived through the Second World War.

Somewhat belatedly, given their sacrifice, the United States finally unveiled the official monument to those four hundred thousand plus soldiers who freely gave their lives for an idea they believed in. Even then, twenty-one years ago, the monument was a long time coming for many people, and it was finally opened to the public at a time when the United States was losing veterans from that war at a rate of eleven hundred per day. Eleven hundred.

Harold Lieb, was an honest unassuming man from Western New York. Hornell to be specific. He volunteered to leave his home, to fight in that war, and was so similar in the eyes of his country to the hundreds of thousands of others who volunteered as to become nondescript- one of the many. He served on a ship that patrolled the South-Pacific and saw his fair share of fighting, and death. His best friend gutted by shrapnel, needlessly and horrifically. The ship they called home for so long was bombed and cut to ribbons while on active duty.

He returned home after the war like so many to resume his life, reuniting with his wife Jean to get back to the business of raising a family, carrying the weight of trauma that was never spoken of again. Harold was 81 years old when I wrote this in 2004. He has since passed. He never did make it to the memorial his country took fifty years to build, after it asked so many to give so much, and the damn country never seemed to stop asking.

While in his “twilight years” Harold found life under that Administration tougher than ever before. A man and his wife who sacrificed so much for their country found themselves on the scrap heap when their perceived usefulness expired.

It took the US fifty years to recognize, in even the smallest of ways, the fact that those people fought and died for something they believed in. The thought that the US was a cause worth fighting for, that the Constitution and The Bill of Rights were not mere pieces of dusty paper but something worth defending, things that should be honoured and fed by the blood of patriots if need be.

If we are being honest I doubt we can ever say that we have given Harold and his multitude of cohorts and companions on all sides the credit they have been long over-due. His plight was common amongst those remaining veterans of the Second World War, and is continued with veterans of Vietnam and all other foreign wars today. This monument came at a time when the US was engaged in yet another war on foreign soil (when is it not these days), this time a war of its own making. A war, which at the moment has not demanded anything near the sacrifice made by Harold’s generation, but a war which none-the-less has its’ toll.

So as that memorial took its’ place in Washington D.C. beside those other war memorials, The Korean and the Vietnam it seems that the United States Government has yet to learn the lessons of history, even to this day. It is clear it does not respect the deaths of its’ citizens. It continues to ply the trade of war around the world.

Perhaps those lessons learned from those previous wars were the wrong ones. Corporations learned that war meant profit: When a country goes to war it needs very specific materials and goods that can be sold at a high price for a healthy windfall. Politicians too learned that there is nothing better at uniting a divided citizenship than the threat of imminent attack from outside. With this unity comes obedience and uniformity- the politicians’ dream.

I am sure that those who died in the Second World War, in Korea and in Vietnam, and now Iraq, and Afghanistan to name a few, did not intend their sacrifice to be interpreted in this way.

What should have been learned from it all was that war is never cheap. That the price exacted from all parties involved is often too high to be paid. The United States in maintaining a policy of pre-emptive war is not only paying mere lip-service to those who have died it is in fact showing a distinct lack of respect for those who were, by far, it’s greatest generation.

In memoriam:

Harold never spoke much about the war. The trauma stayed locked away, as it did for so many of his, and other, generations. But he did his duty, came home, raised his family, and asked for nothing in return except perhaps to be remembered and we didn't even manage that much until it was too late. Harold died in 2004. He never saw the memorial. But his great-grandson knows his name. And now so do you. Thank you.