I came across a photo of five young men with skis the other day; it was taken in 1935. These five were the ski team of Wells River High School – the four room school (K-12) from which my mother and her much older brother (who is in the photo) graduated. Standing next to my uncle is Donald Bidwell – he is shorter; he was maybe 12 when the photo was taken.
I know (or knew) a lot of the people my Mom grew up with in Wells River, but I never knew Donald Bidwell. I know where he is buried, though – his headstone is a stone’s throw my Dad’s, in the small, quiet cemetery in Wells River on land that used to be part of my grandparents’ farm.
Theirs are stories of Memorial Day for me.
High Flight, set to music here, was written by John Gillespie McGee, Jr., when he was 19 years old. Born in China and educated in the England, John McGee found himself in the United States (accepted at Yale) in 1940 when the war broke out. Unable to return to England, he slipped across the border to Canada and joined the Royal Canadian Air Force. Sometime between then and December 11, 1941, he penned the famous poem.
On December 11, 1941, he was killed.
That was my mother’s 12th birthday – four days after Pearl Harbor.
Some months earlier, when the United States was still neutral, Donald Bidwell, who had been on the ski team with my Mom’s older brother and had attended their same four-room school, had ventured north to Canada and joined the RCAF as well. He died in December 1941, not long after Mr. McGee. His funeral – which my Mom (now 82) still remembers – was held at the Congregational Church in Wells River. At Donald Bidwell's funeral, the congregation sang, Oh, Canada, – to this day, that anthem makes my Mom cry.
Other Pilots
My father’s father – born into wealth in New York in 1896 – abandoned Columbia University a few months short of his graduation in 1918 to join the United States Marine Corps.
During World War I, he flew over France, without benefit of radar or a parachute.
He was a member of the Quiet Birdmen – a group that included Eddie Rickenbacker and Charles Lindbergh – their name came from the fact that they never told tales of their exploits during World War I and/or that they met and held raucous (never quiet) reunions at steak houses in Brooklyn and Manhattan during the 1920s (I tend the prefer the latter version).
My Dad simply loved to fly.
As a child, he dreamed of being an astronaut. This was decades before the space program – but he was a lover of the stars and heavens from a young age. He raced through high school and was admitted to the United States Naval Academy when he was 17 – just as World War II was ending. He was at the top of his class academically, and became a pilot – hoping to join the nascent space program.
A childhood bout with pneumonia – which occurred before the advent of penicillin – left my Dad with scarred lungs, which prevented him from joining fellow USNA grads (such as Alan Shepard and Jim Lovell) in the space program – but he never lost his love of flight. There was nothing he loved so much as flying.
My Dad died in January 2001. His gravestone is a quick walk over thick grass – and under aging fragrant pine trees – from that of Donald Bidwell.
They, like my grandfather, were pilots. They served in the air.
As did First Lt. Roslyn Schulte.
Roslyn, like my Dad, simply loved to fly.
We honor their service – and those of all pilots – today.
Vietnam.
If you, like me, are in your late 50s or older, there is, perhaps, no single issue that shaped your worldview like the war in Vietnam.
Later this morning, the residents of the small village where I grew up will gather for the 92nd annual Memorial Day Parade. I haven’t lived there since the early 1980s, but I can picture the unfolding day in my mind’s eye down to the crepe-paper decorated bicycles that will be ridden by those too small to march with the Scouts or the high school band. The parade will end at the front of the school I attended from Kindergarten through 12th grade, where speeches and remembrances are offered near the flagpole to the hundreds of villagers who fill the school’s front lawn. The national anthem will be led by Dale, my friend Kim’s older sister. We have all known each other since nursery school; Kim became a grandmother earlier this year.
Memorial Day in 1968 was just the same, except that it wasn’t, because just days before, a young man who had attended our school had died in Vietnam.
I never met Mike Ransom. But I did know his parents and the two youngest of his five brothers. Before enlisting, Mike had graduated from Colby College in Maine. This is a picture of him at about the time of his graduation:
From a special issue of the Colby College alumni magazine:
Even as he entered the army in September 1966, Ransom and his parents were seriously questioning the conduct of the war. He told a friend to engage in every anti-war demonstration she could in order to end the war. Nevertheless, he attended Officer Candidate School and was commissioned a second lieutenant of infantry. Like so many others with those credentials, he received orders for Vietnam, arriving in-country on March 7, 1968, at Cam Ranh Bay.
(snip)
On May 3, 1968, Company A was moving into a night ambush position near Landing Zone Sue when a mine detonated. Mike Ransom was hit. Despite severe wounds, he urged his men to remain calm, organizing them into a tight defensive perimeter until they could receive assistance. He refused medical attention until other injured men had been treated.
Subsequently, he was evacuated to a field hospital where his condition deteriorated. He died on Mother's Day, May 11, 1968, his death officially attributed to pneumonia and peritonitis resulting from his wounds.
Mike Ransom's funeral shattered the village where we lived. The principal’s office at our school sent out a mimeographed absent list every morning to the teachers; the names of those not in school that day were typed in lists by grade. That day, the lists ran on and on.
2nd Lt. Robert C. Ransom Jr.’s name is one of more than 58,000 names etched into black marble on Vietnam War Memorial Wall. His is on Line 25 of Panel 58E. I never visit the Wall without rubbing my finger over it, saying a prayer, and shedding a few tears.
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The National Capitol Memorial Day Concert was interrupted tonight by bad weather -- an alert from the National Weather Service (rain, wind, lightning) resulted in its mid-celebration cancellation.
Before it ended, Selma Blair read a remembrance from Gold Star widow Brigette Cain. Spc. Cain was remembered here by SisTwo in 2009.
Ms. Blair's reading of the letter sent by Ms. Cain reminded everyone listening of the profound loss suffered by so many military families.
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Before the bad weather cancelled the concert, a tribute was played to those who were home; welcome home!
Welcome home.
Let us celebrate those who have come home. Welcome home!
(My Mom, leading the parade on Memorial Day, 1946, in Burlington, Vermont.)