WASHINGTON  -  This Memorial Day, the sun will rise in Washington D.C. over a new tribute to the sacrifices of Americans in times of war.  The same sun will rise over a new tribute in Cape Girardeau to honor one of our most distinguished sons.  And it will rise over a new generation of Americans working hard to advance the cause of freedom in
the Middle East.

On the national mall, near the Korean War and Vietnam memorials, is a new  monument dedicated to the memory of World War II – its veterans, its survivors, its casualties, and its legacies.

To me, the most moving part of the new structure is a wall of gold stars, 4,000 of them.
Each star symbolizes 100 military deaths.  Unlike the Vietnam War Memorial’s black polished marble, in which we see ourselves, and unlike the Korean War Memorial’s gentle hill, which we climb with statues of soldiers, this memorial demonstrates the distance between us and the war that changed the world.  We see the uniform rows
of stars, linked and gleaming.  They represent, and rightly so, the untouchable honor and dignity of the Americans for whom they stand.

For our parents and grandparents 60 years ago, the war was a world away.  Though WWII demanded all from Americans that we had to give, it only briefly touched our shores.  We are no longer separated by oceans from the conflicts that tore families and nations asunder in WWII.  In the 1940's, rocket fire, bombardments, casualties were
not broadcast on TV. 

But what we prized then, and still prize today, is the courage of the men and women who
served both on the field of battle as well as on the home front.  Within families and communities, the linkages helped Americans through terrible times of separation.  And some felt the agony of loss when an American made the ultimate sacrifice.

Private First Class Richard G. Wilson was one such American, from Cape Girardeau.  At the age of 19, he left Southern Missouri to serve as a medic in the Korean War.  P.F.C. Wilson was killed in action when his unit came under attack near Opari, Korea.  A medic in the 187th airborne, P.F.C. Wilson returned to the field of battle, unarmed and against orders, to attempt to save the life of a soldier who was trying to crawl to safety.

Both were found killed, side by side, two days later.

P.F.C. Wilson was posthumously awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor – the highest military decoration that can be given to an American – in 1951. 

Last month, the U.S. House of Representatives unanimously agreed with a bill I
offered to honor P.F.C. Wilson.  Soon, the Cape Girardeau U.S. Mail Processing and Distribution Facility will bear his name and a plaque in his memory. 

This action is the least we can do to remember the value of just one sacrifice, to affirm
its place in our way of life, and to take up the standard of those who have fallen for the sake of others.

P.F.C. Wilson lost his life trying to save another, but every man and woman who has
suffered the same fate has also done the same.  For our nation, for our freedom, and for our children, all gave some and some gave all.

In the Middle East, and elsewhere around the world today, the sun will rise over a new
generation of veterans, and new memorials to those who give their lives.  In Iraq, where my stepdaughter is continuing in her family’s tradition of proud military service in the U.S. Army, the task before us as a family still looms large.  It will be too long before she, the many men and women I met during my tour of Iraq last year, and many others can return home to us.

Those who serve persevere under the patriotic banner of our flag – the greatest memorial of all.  When the American flag is raised each morning, I think of the stories I know about them.

 

Stories such as P.F.C. Wilson’s may not be reported on the front pages of newspapers.  Tales of individual valor are not engraved into any of Washington’s memorials.  Even the headstones in our cemeteries do not tell of all the courage that lies beneath them.

They can be found, however, in our family histories, in communities that remember the sons and daughters who returned only in a story, and in the veterans who survive to tell of the bravery they saw each day when, over the field of battle, the same flag was raised and the same sun rose.