To Honor a Soldier

[tarbridge]

In Honor of National Purple Heart Day...

 

This is one of the most poignant Purple Heart groups I've had the honor to be the caretaker. This young man was a part of the 66th Division and was lost while being transported overseas on the S.S Leopoldville.

 On December 24, 1944, Lt. Gerhard Meyer, German submarine commander of the U 486 fired a torpedo that sank the S.S. Leopoldville as it transported 2,000 American soldiers to reinforce the Battle of the Bulge. Of these men, mostly between the ages of 18 and 21, 763 were killed. Forty-seven of the then forty-eight states were represented among the dead.

Wartime Prayer of Eleanor Roosevelt
             Dear Lord
         Lest I continue
    My complacent way
 Help me to remember that        
           somewhere  
     Somehow out there
    A man died for me today
 As long as there be war
           I then must 
      Ask and answer
Am I worth dying for?

 

This diaroma was loving and broken heartedly built by the hand of his father. I hope this remembrance somehow consoled the mother and father. We should take the time to remember the Purple Heart can have many different meanings, the honor of a nation and the devastation and melancholy of a family.

[Old Crow 1986]

Lovely remembrance.  The sacrifice and sorrow echo across the decades.  Thanks for being his and his family's caretaker.

[joeclown]

Amazing, beautiful and sad 

[Kurt Barickman]

Very nice and you can just feel the sorrow from the parents. I have similar display a mother of a KIA on Tarawa Benjamin Cope but not with  such an elaborate display but a simple wall hanging. Thanks for sharing Robert.

 

Kurt

[scottplen]

Very nice honor !