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They came from the Deep South, from the hills of Tennessee, from rolling Kansas, from deep Texas and sprawling California. They came from the east coast and the west coast and the mountains and great plains between. From the coal mines, from farms and small towns buried in the heartland where preachers, long on judgement and short on experience, railed against big cities and their evil ways. Boys and men and old men hung by crackling radios on hot summer's nights, listening to ball games.
From all walks of life, they came.
Ancient deeds recalled as an aging building becomes nothing more than an indentation in the earth. They knocked down its granite walls, ripped off the rusting awning. Under its wing, man and wife, lovers, adventurers --- some dreading the low rumble of the great troop-hauling trains --- took their leave. An eyesore, a thing of history violated. Gone now as the rails are gone, as the coal-burning steam engines are gone, as the diesels are gone. All wail in silence.
They say the trains ran continuously during the war; long columns of box cars, and flat cars, and tankers. From coast to coast, north and south, east and west. Furiously hauling, earing the armored blessings of a nation at war. A unified nation, a frightened nation, a determined nation filled with a grim resolve.
The trains carried our nation's hope and fear and power; they carried the aspirations of millions of people caught up in extraordinary times. The Earth groaned under the weight of these metal behemoths.
It groans no more.
So much history oocurred beneath that old iron awning at 'the old depot' here. Arcola's forgotten depot sleeps in its grave now, and with it the ghosts of all but a handful who passed through it on their way to war. Farmers are gradually wiping out vestiges of the great railroad it served, planting crops where twin steel ribbons once ruled. Their existence is duly noted today by a bicycle path and nature trail. The New York Central yards here have given way to baseball fields, which seems, somehow, appropriate.
So much history.
It's been more than 60 years since World War II visited America with a vengeance, as her ships reposed in the waters of Pearl Harbor on a quiet Sunday morning. It's been more than 60 years since Japan forced us into a war our nation tried desparately to avoid.
But it came, nonetheless.
The anger then was as muted and savage as was our own following 9-11. Innocence gone, in a sense ---both the historical strength and weakness of America.
The depot is gone, the rails gone, the people gone, and what a people they were.
A few years ago, I read the accounts of wartime correspondent Ernie Pyle. He was long dead by then, having fallen as American forces closed in on Japan. Pyle escorted America into the foxholes and bunkers, through the mud and grime, the dust and heat. He was the poet laureate of the common soldier, reporting the bloody battles and quiet dignity of the American GI. He drove America's imagination with elegant simplicity.
Pyle took the romance out of war, reducing it to a thing that could not be glorified, yet could be immortalized. Pyle's voice is no more, drifting into obscurity his powerfully moving and real accounts of the life of the average soldier. We put the war in history books, count the campaigns, tally the ranks of the dead and wounded, wave the flag on Memorial Day, but do we remember it as Ernie Pyle taught it to us?
When the war ended, America returned to her farms, her factories, her cities and baseball stadiums, her country clubs and lodges, her schools, her professions. The warriors came home and Rosie the Riveter retreated to the kitchen. America went on a building spree. Retooled factories gave birth to legions of new automobiles, washing machines, TVs and a myriad of gadgets and conveniences. Veterans went back to school, learned new trades, worked to build their dream and make a future for their children and their children's children.
The reluctant warriors, who sacrificed so much in the name of humanity, they're in their 80s and 90s now, or gone.
In Washington, D.C., along the great Mall, anchored on one end by Lincoln, the other by Washington, the World War II Veterans Memorial will be dedicated Saturday; as Lincoln said long ago, "It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this."
I stand in awe of a generation that sacrificed so much and asked for so little. It is to them we owe our freedom, that most precious gift.
Some debts cannot be repaid, most especially the one we owe 'the Greatest Generation' of Americans. All we can say is "Thank you, and we're sorry it took so long. You do us much honor just being in the world."
May God bless you all, and thank you from the bottom of my heart.
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