band of brothers

Dates stick in my head. If you are a regular to this blog you probably have figured that out. One date in particular is March 5, 1945. On this day 14 years before my birth, my dad's older brother was killed in action near Trier Germany. Palmer was a tank driver in the Third Army under the command of General Patton. Third Army was the terror of the German Army as they tore through Europe like a hot knife through butter, truly the stuff of legends. Obviously I never met Palmer but I grew up learning about him through stories told by family members. According to my aunts and uncles Palmer was a bit high strung but very friendly and loving. He and my father were close, they worked together, 'ran around' together, and no doubt did the things that brothers do together. He was very musical, he taught himself to play the guitar and mandolin. My grandmother played the organ, so they would entertain the family with their music after dinner. As a kid I would stay with my grandparents occasionally and I remember seeing his instruments hanging on a wall in their house all wrapped up in plastic, probably wrapped up after he died. I also remember seeing his Purple Heart that was given to my grandparents after his death. He did not have a wife or kids when he died so there is no direct connection to him, no cousins, no grandchildren. I understand he left behind a girlfriend who eventually married and lived a long life. I suppose she spent the rest of her life wondering what a life with Palmer would have been like. But dreams of a life together changed one month before the war in Europe was over. His Sherman tank was hit by an 18 inch German artillery shell, destroying the tank and killing an uncle that few of us cousins would ever know.

My dad was in Germany at the same time Palmer was, a crew chief on an anti aircraft gun crew. There is an iconic picture of Dad standing by a white wooden cross in a military cemetery with Palmer's dog tags hanging from the cross. No grass, no marble markers, just rows of wooden crosses with dog tags hanging from them.  After the war my grandparents chose to have Palmer's body exhumed from Hamm Cemetery in Belgium and reburied in the home town cemetery in Gully, Minnesota. There are pictures of the reburial ceremony held in October of 1948, of a soldier handing a folded flag to my grandparents, of the somber relatives and friends gathered  there three years after his death. Every year when we would visit Gully to see my grandparents, my dad would drive out to the cemetery to visit his brother's grave. He never talked about it much or outwardly grieved, but I could tell that the pain never went away, the grieving was ongoing. It was only years later I found out the depth of this pain and grieving.

In December of 1984 Dad passed away. After the funeral, Mom gave away some of his personal items. I got Dad's wallet. Like many wallets it contained the usual items: license, photos, receipts. After I got home, I went through the wallet and found a piece of yellowed paper tucked away out of plain sight. I removed this paper and realized it was a telegram, hand typed on thin paper, and it was old. It was dated March 25th of 1945 and bore the news of Palmer's death. My dad had carried this telegram in his wallet from March of 1945 until his own death, 39 years later. In that time, I am guessing he wore out a few wallets and that telegram must have been transferred each time. The gravity of this did not really hit me until   years later when my best friend died and I too was dealing with grief.

Over the years, I have given away a few items from that wallet. I gave the pictures of my nieces to my brother. I gave the picture of my mom to my sister. But I have kept the wallet and the telegram is still inside it, in the same place Dad kept it. Someday, that wallet will be the property of one of my sons. I hope they too will learn to appreciate the meaning of a very old piece of paper, that a young man who went off to war never came home.  And another young man, their grandfather,  who came home from war but would spend the rest of his life missing a lost brother and silently dealing with the scars that war inflicted on him.