Lest we forget

“I tried to save the Shire, and it has been saved, but not for me. It must often be so, Sam, when things are in danger: some one has to give them up, lose them, so that others may keep them.”

Frodo's words to Sam in the closing pages of The Return of the King by J.R.R. Tolkien

With the Memorial Day weekend just a few days away, our little town is beginning to feel larger as summer residents continue to trickle home and lots of relatives begin to arrive in anticipation of commencement exercises for the Chetek-Weyerhaeuser High School's Class of 2016 on Saturday evening. Nationally recognized as the unofficial beginning of the summer on account of the holiday weekend, weather providing lots of us will enjoy time in our backyard firing up the grill or out on our pontoon at the lake or frequenting the many graduation parties that will be hosted around the town over the next few days.

What I remember most of Memorial Day when I was growing up in the 60s and 70s is that I spent almost everyone of them in the back seat of our family car returning from a long weekend “up north” at Grandma & Grandpa Martin's cottage. Memorial Day wasn't a day to picnic or visit a cemetery. It was a day to endure the long four hour drive home and then, after maybe a little time to play with my friends in the neighborhood, get ready for bed because after all, as my mom would remind me, “tomorrow is a school day.” No, I had to move to Chetek to really appreciate what the day is all about.

We moved here in the fall of 1991 so our first experience of Memorial Day Chetek-style was the May 1992 gathering at the cemetery the following spring. Back then, the Legion and the Vets used to call upon one of the local ministers to give the address at the cemetery and as the rookie in town I was asked to speak. So there I was on the Long Bridge dressed in a suit and tie, surrounded by a sea of people decked out in shorts and flip flops awaiting the commencement of the parade.

First came the color guard, followed by the CHS Band decked out appropriately in their marching uniforms after which came members of the Boys and Girls Scouts bringing up the rear. The procession paused on the bridge while tribute was given for those who had served and died at sea including a 21-gun salute and a toss of a ceremonial wreath into Prairie Lake. Following this we all completed the walk in respectful silence to the cemetery for the gathering which included a few selections from the band and the seemingly endless playing of “Findlandia” while the Women's Auxiliary arrayed their memorial there. And then there was the speech. I don't recall what I shared. My guess is anyone who was there doesn't recall what I said either – the address system they used then was so antiquated you usually only heard a portion of what anyone said. After I was done, the program concluded with another 21-gun salute and the solemn playing of Taps. When the moment had passed, we were all invited to the Legion Post for dinner, the band recessed to the awaiting school buses and everyone walked home to celebrate the rest of the day grilling, skiing or working in their garden.

The Legion and the Vets call upon one of their own these days to talk at the service at the cemetery and several years ago they added the World War II warplane flyover (which never ceases to thrill me). But other than this, the parade and the service follow the same worn path that has been followed for decades so that being present is like stepping into a time warp of sorts, entering into a sacred liturgy if you will to remember one thing: the cost and price of freedom is beyond counting and we should be ever grateful for those who have done their part to serve and defend our country, that we may enjoy the freedoms and the blessings that we do.

Before the tradition of asking local pastors went away, I was asked several years later to speak at another Memorial Day gathering at the cemetery. In this case, I do remember what I said because I shared a family story that I will relate here in as terse a manner that I can.

My dad in camp "back in the day"

I never served in the military. Both my dad and my father-in-law did, however, serving in the Wisconsin National Guard in the late 50s and 60s. But beyond that it seems that the Martins missed out on all the conflicts of the 20^th Century – both World Wars, Korea, Viet Nam and Persian Gulf I. But in 1861, when President Abraham Lincoln called for 75,000 volunteers, three brothers from Oskaloosa, Iowa heeded the call – George Washington, Francis Marian and James Madison Martin, my second-great grandfather.

Not him but young like him when he left for war

George, the oldest, mustered into the 7^th Iowa Volunteers and saw action at the Battle of Belmont, Missouri that fall. The fracas, which pretty much ended in a draw, is more known for the fact that it was the first time a yet unheard of Union commander got his baptism of fire – Ulysses S. Grant. George was shot three times and while they were successful in removing two of the bullets a third, lodged right behind his left knee cap, was left in and for the rest of his life, when the temperature plummeted he experienced excruciating pain.

Francis served in the 9^th Iowa Calvary and his war experiences consisted of going out on patrols in Arkansas looking for one Confederate force or another but never encountering the enemy in the field of combat. He was mustered out in 1866 and by year's end he was dead of consumption. Following his death his mother wrote the War Department seeking his pension claiming that all those years sleeping on the ground brought about the condition that contributed to his demise. Her request was denied.

Not him but from the same unit

James joined the 15^th Iowa volunteers and was at Vicksburg. Like a lot of guys involved in that siege he spent some time in the camp hospital suffering from malaria. In 1864, his unit was in Georgia under General Sherman and at the Battle of Kennesaw Mountain he was shot in the left arm which led to its amputation. He spent the rest of the war in an army hospital returning to Oskaloosa a year or more after the conflict was over. 

He married, settled down on a farm and they had three children in short order, my great-grandfather Harry being the baby of that brood. But somewhere along the way, something went wrong with James. The way Cora, my great-grandfather's sister who lived to be a venerable old lady living into the Kennedy administration, tells it, one day, when her momma was sickly, James informed the family that he was leaving. Despite the children grabbing him around the legs and begging him not to go, he shoved them away and rode out of their lives for good. He crossed the Mississippi, married the woman he had taken up with and they settled in Minneapolis where he died in abject poverty in 1888. The local G.A.R. post buried him at was is now known as the Minneapolis Pioneers and Soldiers Memorial Cemetery at the corner of East Lake Street and Cedar Avenue. All that's left of him is a marker whose name was barely legible the last time I was there five or six years ago. And as for the wife he had left behind according to Cora she died of a broken heart leaving the children orphaned.

Three brothers heeded their country's call and marched off to war. One returned lame, the other mortally ill and the third with the use of only one good arm. They served like so many other men in that conflict without distinction. They did their part, they shouldered their weapons and because of their efforts and those of their fellow

servicemen, the Union was saved. But not necessarily for them. Certainly not for Francis, dead by 24, while his brothers' lives were irreparably changed.

So as I gather at the cemetery this Monday morning along with so many others from town when they get to the laying of the wreath at the G.A.R. Memorial, I'll be thinking of those brothers who like so many other young men in that conflict marched out whole to war and returned home wounded and lame or not at all. Regardless of what kind of people they were in life, their sacrifice deserves my respect and a pause out of a day set aside for recreating in a country that is gratefully still free all these years later.

Pvt. James M. Martin's marker

The Howard-Campbell-Ganske American Legion Post #179, AMVETS Post 25, and the Veterans of Foreign War Post #10331 of Chetek service will be held this Monday, May 30 at Lake View Cemetery. The parade will commence at 10:42 a.m., pause on the Long Bridge to pay tribute to those who died at sea and for the World War II warplane flyover at 10:50 a.m., and then begin the service at 11 a.m. at the cemetery.