May 30, 2021 (Sunday)
I wrote the following last year for a dear friend who had recently passed. She was the middle sister in this story, and as we grew up, she told us stories of Beau so that he came alive, although he died 19 years before I was born. Maybe it’s because I am a historian, but for the life of me I cannot think of those who died in our wars without thinking of the terrible holes their deaths tore in the fabric of our lives. This year, as I thought of what I might want to say about Memorial Day, it kept coming back to this: who would men like Beau have become, and what has the world lost by never knowing their children?
In the end, I decided just to rerun last year’s post from Memorial Day, because right now, anyway, I have nothing more to add:
Floyston Bryant, whose nickname was “Beau,” had always stepped in as a father to his three younger sisters when their own father fell short.
In September 1942, he enlisted in the Army Air Corps. He became a Staff Sergeant in the 322nd Bomber Squadron, 91st Bomb Group, nicknamed "Wray's Ragged Irregulars" after their commander Col. Stanley T. Wray. By the time Beau joined, the squadron was training with new B-17s at Dow Army Airfield near Bangor, Maine, and he hitchhiked three hours home before deploying to England so he could see his family once more.
It would be the last time. The 91st Bomb group was a pioneer bomb group, figuring out tactics for air cover. By May 1943, it was experienced enough to lead the Eighth Air Force as it sought to establish air superiority over Europe. But the 91st did not have adequate fighter support until 1944. It had the greatest casualty rate of any of the heavy bomb squadrons.
Beau was one of the casualties. On August 12, 1943, while he was on a mission, enemy flak cut his oxygen line and he died before the plane could make it back to base. He was buried in Cambridge, England, at the Cambridge American Cemetery and Memorial, the military cemetery for Americans killed in action during WWII. He was twenty years old.
I grew up with Beau’s nephews and nieces, and we made decades of havoc and memories. But Beau's children weren't there, and neither he nor they are part of the memories.
His sisters are all gone now, along with almost all of their friends. We are all getting older, and soon no one will be left who even remembers his name.
When Beau was a teenager, he once spent a week’s paycheck on a dress for his middle sister, so she could go to a dance.
I wish you all a meaningful Memorial Day.
I am 72 now and an XMarine Sergeant who attained rank in two years during the Vietnam era. I am always being thanked for my service. It is something I hide from as I am still here.
If you must thank someone, thank my friends such as Tim Gilson who was with 7th Marines and head shot while going to relieve another platoon of Marines who were surrounded. He was my friend through Boot Camp and ITR.
Paul Placzek and I were in Boy Scouts together. We camped together and did many thing until we left high school. He enlisted in the Army. While in country, he stepped on a land mine and was blown to bits. I can remember his father raging on the news in Chicago about the draft dodgers. Paul was a good person and friend.
Bobby O'Million lived on the first floor while we had the basement apartment. I used to go to his home in Highland Park, IL ands stay there, We would explore the area as it was still undeveloped. Bobby was killed while coming back from a hunting trip with his Sergeant First Class and five others in the Army. They were hit head-on by a drunk.
Three senseless losses for what, lies, human fragility, and things that should never have happened? Too much for the politics of the time. Being thanked for my service is an affront to me. Thank my friends as I always think about them.
I am here and my memories keep them alive.
On this Memorial Day, I thinking about how we stop the next war from happening ... the one that was triggered on January 6, 2021, and is now festering and growing until it is ready to burst out like pus from a boil. The cause like most wars is economic greed. Income disparity has handed all the raises that working people should have gotten over the last few decades to the ultra rich. Now a family needs two incomes to survive and the elite complain about the lazy workers that won't take minimum wage jobs that won't even pay for childcare. It is also about education that has been starved by budget cuts again for decades. Civics and character and how to think (not what to think) is not being taught. So now we have too many Proud Boys who need to carry a big gun to feel powerful. We have too many people who don't understand the with rights come responsibilities to protect the rights of all. Without that responsibility, that freedom these people insist they deserve is nothing but anarchy and narcissism. If the For the People Act doesn't pass I intend to join the non-violent resistance. If the For the People Act does pass I'm afraid the Insurrectionists will be called to overthrow those nasty socialists. They will say they are justified and this is what the Second Amendment is for -- to take back the government for the few with the many guns. But there will be no "well regulated militias" just anarchists. I fear we're in for a rocky ride. There's still some hope although time is rapidly running out. By December, the 2022 election will be all we hear about along with the obstruction of government. And, if the Republicans who don't believe in the climate crisis take back the House and Senate in November 2022, which is a likely scenarios by some counts, democracy is dead and the planet will be dying. Maybe it will be the military who saves America yet again. But at what cost. How many Beaus? Will it be as bad as the first Civil War ... or worse?