continued from yesterday. . .
A couple of years ago, I spotted a cross in an American war-dead cemetery far south in the Netherlands. The name is not particularly familiar to me, but it’s recognizably Dutch, as am I. From what I know of names and origins, I'm guessing he was from Marion County, somewhere around Pella, which means that sometime back more than a century ago before the man died--on his way to Berlin--some of his ancestors left Holland with Dominie Scholte, when that Leiden intellectual took off for the prairies of Iowa with a significant flock of followers, pious folks all.
Sgt. John Van Ooyen may well have died here, someplace close, maybe even not all that far from the neighborhoods his ancestors once left behind forever. Something got him--a bullet maybe, some anti-aircraft, maybe fire from a tank.
All I know is his rank, his company, his Dutch name, and the fact that he's one of 8000 American war dead who are commemorated here, even though what's left of his bones may well be elsewhere.
It's stunning to stand amid all those white crosses and to realize that what's there--row after row after row--is barely a decimal point to the many others who also never came back to places like Marion County, Iowa, or Mille Lacs County, Minnesota. There were thousands and thousands and thousands--and thousands more.
For what? For freedom. For righteousness. For peace. Sixty years ago, for Sgt. John Van Ooyen, an end to the thoughtless slaughter of millions the Nazis thought not good enough for their stupid master race.
My goodness, it cost a lot.
And then there's this. Beyond Van Ooyen’s cross, just a couple more back in a row to the right, is a white star of David--a Jewish guy.
I wonder if this Dutch kid from rural Iowa ever thought about the fact that he was dying for some New York Jewish kid too. I wonder whether that thought was in his head when he enlisted, or was drafted. I wonder if it was something a nice Dutch boy from Marion County, Iowa, ever thought about much at all, that his life was given for people who really were much different than he was.
I doubt it.
When I stopped back then and paid my respects to John Van Ooyen and 8000 other American boys, as we call them, I couldn’t help but thank him and them for what all of them gave up for me and my kids and my grandkids and some Jewish guy named Rudolph Nadel, a New Yorker, who died just two months later than Van Ooyen and who's remembered just a couple of yards down the row of alabaster crosses.
Maybe they knew each other.
Maybe not.
It doesn't matter, really. Jew and Gentile, New Yorker and Iowan, they both gave us what we have. They died for a ton of reasons.
And, strangely enough, I'm one of them.
So are you.
This morning of Memorial Day week, I'm thankful for my Uncle Edgar and John Van Ooyen and Rudolph Nadel, and countless others.
Amid all the celebrations, the fireworks, and John Phillip Sousa marches, it’s good for all of us to remember that so many have suffered, so many have died.
And it’s very good to remember what Job could say in his suffering. “I know that my Redeemer lives.” Finally, of course, that’s the only good news on life and death. But there’s more on this day of remembrance. Here’s what Job said, “And after my skin has been destroyed yet in my flesh I will see God.”
Even if my uncle Edgar’s scrapbook is finally destroyed, that doughboy will be made flesh once again. And not alone. Me and Edgar. Me and you.
Because there will come a day when every last knee on earth—torn cartilages, busted knee caps, —even those fallen into dust beneath the ground, beneath the waves, beneath the radar screen of all of our attention—there will come a day when every last knee shall bow before God’s rule. Everyone.
It's stunning to stand amid all those white crosses and to realize that what's there--row after row after row--is barely a decimal point to the many others who also never came back to places like Marion County, Iowa, or Mille Lacs County, Minnesota. There were thousands and thousands and thousands--and thousands more.
For what? For freedom. For righteousness. For peace. Sixty years ago, for Sgt. John Van Ooyen, an end to the thoughtless slaughter of millions the Nazis thought not good enough for their stupid master race.
My goodness, it cost a lot.
And then there's this. Beyond Van Ooyen’s cross, just a couple more back in a row to the right, is a white star of David--a Jewish guy.
I wonder if this Dutch kid from rural Iowa ever thought about the fact that he was dying for some New York Jewish kid too. I wonder whether that thought was in his head when he enlisted, or was drafted. I wonder if it was something a nice Dutch boy from Marion County, Iowa, ever thought about much at all, that his life was given for people who really were much different than he was.
I doubt it.
When I stopped back then and paid my respects to John Van Ooyen and 8000 other American boys, as we call them, I couldn’t help but thank him and them for what all of them gave up for me and my kids and my grandkids and some Jewish guy named Rudolph Nadel, a New Yorker, who died just two months later than Van Ooyen and who's remembered just a couple of yards down the row of alabaster crosses.
Maybe they knew each other.
Maybe not.
It doesn't matter, really. Jew and Gentile, New Yorker and Iowan, they both gave us what we have. They died for a ton of reasons.
And, strangely enough, I'm one of them.
So are you.
This morning of Memorial Day week, I'm thankful for my Uncle Edgar and John Van Ooyen and Rudolph Nadel, and countless others.
Amid all the celebrations, the fireworks, and John Phillip Sousa marches, it’s good for all of us to remember that so many have suffered, so many have died.
And it’s very good to remember what Job could say in his suffering. “I know that my Redeemer lives.” Finally, of course, that’s the only good news on life and death. But there’s more on this day of remembrance. Here’s what Job said, “And after my skin has been destroyed yet in my flesh I will see God.”
Even if my uncle Edgar’s scrapbook is finally destroyed, that doughboy will be made flesh once again. And not alone. Me and Edgar. Me and you.
Because there will come a day when every last knee on earth—torn cartilages, busted knee caps, —even those fallen into dust beneath the ground, beneath the waves, beneath the radar screen of all of our attention—there will come a day when every last knee shall bow before God’s rule. Everyone.
Think of it—men and women in cemeteries like this one emerging like hearty daffodils to shake off the slumber.
So, this holiday's week, let me add this image to the Mosaic. Think of a God who can, with a wink and a nod, turn this cemetery—and all of them--into Grand Central Station.
That’s the big story, really—bigger than a Washington crossing the Delaware River, the slaughter at Gettysburg, the raid on Pearl Harbor, the withdrawal to the Imjim River Line, the Tet Offensive, Operation Desert Storm, or the messes right now in Iran.
The big story this Memorial Day is the return of millions and millions of Edgars—and those who loved him, those who loved all of them from the beginning of time.
That’s the book on Edgar Hartman, an old story that, like the other worthwhile old stories, needs to be told over and over again until each of us recognizes it as our own.
That’s my addition—and his, this Great Uncle Edgar—to the mosaic.
That’s the book on Edgar Hartman, an old story that, like the other worthwhile old stories, needs to be told over and over again until each of us recognizes it as our own.
That’s my addition—and his, this Great Uncle Edgar—to the mosaic.
2 comments:
Thanks for not forgetting Edgar.
Remembering the war is something I also like to do. I wish I could say it is a commitment rather than a hobby or an amusement.
This activity bore some new fruit recently when my mom's second cousin came back from a trip to Holland. He has a smart phone picture of a street named "Mellema" and a sign that honors a distant cousin who was executed for helping the resistance.
thanks,
Jerry
In 1942 the population of the Navajo tribe was an estimated 50,000 with 540 of those enlisting as Code Talkers serving in the USMC. The first 29 were the ones who were given the task of developing the code and used in the Pacific against Japanese forces. Upon their return to their homelands of the USA, they were subject to the Jim Crow Lawas and denied their basic rights. Voting rights did not come to the Native American population until 1956. Citizenship came to the Native Americans in 1934. Over 500 messages were sent back and forth without any mistakes during the battle of Iwo Jima. It has been stated that without the help of the Code Talkers the USMC would never have been able to take Iwo Jima.
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