Wonder if Patrick Henry had any idea that, 175 years after making that statement, it would become a practice drill for students in typing classes all over America. Even today, when I type those words, in my mind I hear a 'ding' at the end of the sentence and have to resist the impluse to reach for the lever on the old Royal typewriter and manually return the paper carriage. It was a sentence that typing experts felt would encourage students to break away from the confines of the 'home keys,' and stretch for those new letters that would allow us to not only expand our thoughts, but also to be more expressive in our written language---to exercise that freedom of speech Patrick Henry spoke so ardently about---- hopefully, error-free and at 60 words per minute by the end of the semester, of course.
Now it is Memorial Day weekend, 2013---almost 250 years since Patrick Henry published his work under penalty of imprisonment, and almost 45 years since Mrs. Gurley's typing class---and here I am, at the computer, flexing my free-speech muscles because, over the years, many good men came to the aid of their country. Today I want to remember some of these men who have been so important to me.
Benjamin R. Burril
I knew this man as "Daddy." It was only later that I learned he was a sailor in the United States Navy. Daddy grew up on a farm in South Mississippi. He hated farming and always said that the best thing that ever happened to the family farm was the A & P. He was the second of ten kids and it was the Depression. Maybe it was because the world was becoming more mechanized, or maybe it was because poor kids learn how to make stuff out of nothing, but Daddy and his brothers were all creatively, mechanically inclined. At the time, aviation was still relatively new technology and, as a result, airports were practically non-existent. The Gulf Coast flatland terrain was abundant in the potential for landing strips. Consequently, barnstorming pilots were a comman and exciting occurrence. It was natural that Daddy was drawn to the airfield. He hung around the hangar so much, finagling rides from anyone who would take him up, that they finally taught him to fly. He was eleven years old. When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, Daddy's older brother joined the Navy and was assigned as a mechanic on the Navy version of the B24 Liberator aircraft. Daddy was itching to follow in his footsteps, so when the offer came to volunteer for the military and finish school while serving his country, Daddy accepted. He joined the Navy a few months before graduating high school. He didn't get to fly, though---instead, he was assigned to a Merchant Marine ship as a gunner's mate. Although he was disappointed in his post, he was always proud that he served. The Navy got him off the farm and took him all over the world. He saw firsthand that, even in poverty, life in the United States was infinitely better than life anyplace else on Earth---and that the principles our nation was founded on were worth fighting for, and if necessary, dying for. When the war was over, he came back home, married my mother, moved to North Carolina, and raised six kids. He taught us to honor the flag, be proud of our country, take responsibility for our freedom, and to thank God everyday that we were Americans.
Douglas Michael Silver
I met Mike Silver 40 years ago when he married my sister. Mike is a Western North Carolina mountain boy. He grew up in Burnsville in a time when that little town was pretty much on the backside of nowhere. Nowadays, it takes about 25 minutes to get there on a four-lane highway from Asheville, but in the 1950s and 60s, that was not the case. The road was narrow and winding, through mountains and forests---and if you happen to have gotten on that road by mistake, you would still have to go on into Burnsville because there was no place wide enough to turn around. Mike's father left the family when he was still a little boy. With no steady means of support assured, Mike, his sister, and his mother moved in with his grandmother, where all three of them slept in the same room---his mom and his sister in a double bed and him on a cot. He talks about having a few chores to do, chopping wood and such, but mostly life at grandma's house was pretty good. With his dad out of the picture, his uncles, cousins, and even the men in the town stepped up and took an interest in him, making sure he got to do all those mountain-boy things, like hunting, fishing, hiking, camping---and sports. In these little backwoods communities, high school sports reign supreme. Friday nights are spent in the bleachers either at the gym or at the football field---and, the next day, the conversations in the barbershop, the grocery store, the gas station, and the cornfields, would all confirm that professional atheletes couldn't hold a candle to the prowess of their local boys. Mike was a natural athelete---his yearbooks verify that he excelled in basketball, football, baseball, and track---putting everything he had, physically and mentally, on the line for East Yancey High School. After graduation, he went to Mars Hill College for a little while, but it seemed that Burnsville and the mountains had become just too tight a fit for him, so he joined the Army as a ticket out of town. It was 1968. At Fort Bragg, he completed his training for the Special Forces and was deployed to Vietnam. He spent 12 months in country on search and destroy missions. He served faithfully and valiantly and, at the end of his tour, was offered an appointment to West Point. He turned it down---he just wanted to go back to Burnsville---and he brought home three bronze stars for valor and heroism under fire. The little hillbilly boy from Burnsville, who's family and community had given him the only thing they could they could afford, high standards and expectations instead of commiseration and pity, had been recognized and honored by his country for doing what he thought any self-respecting American ought to do in a situation like that. He has never considered himself brave or courageous for simply doing his job. When talking about bravery and courage in Vietnam, Mike gives all credit to the helicopter pilots , because "They sat there like sitting ducks, taking enemy fire from every direction---and got us out of there every time." I think he is much too modest. Over the years, I have watched documentaries about that war, and movies about that war, and read books about that war---and I am always struck by the tenacity and guts of the young men that fought it. It was a war like no other war we had seen---the jungle, the mud, the heat, the monsoons---and the invisible enemy---nothing in our history had prepared us for these conditions. There's a line in Forrest Gump where Forrest says, "The one thing good about Vietnam is there was always someplace to go---and something to do." Whenever I hear it, I always think of Mike---because I said to him one time, "I don't know how y'all endured---how y'all were able to find the strength to keep on going." He just sloughed it off and said, "Ahhh, Margaret Ann---we just did what they told us to do." Heroes are ordinary men from ordinary places who, when called upon, do extraordinary things. Not only is Mike Silver a hero, he is one of the finest men I have ever known.
Leslie Aaron Burril
Les is the last one of us to be born in Mississippi. He was named after Daddy's older brother whose Navy aircraft went down in the Pacific, midway through World War II, somewhere in the vacinity of the Marshall Islands. The plane was never found, and Uncle Leslie's body was never recovered. Shortly after Les' birth, Mama and Daddy packed up their bits and pieces and moved us all to Fayetteville, N.C. I think the intention was to live as close as possible to Grandma Addie in Sampson County, and Fayetteville was the nearest place that Daddy could get a job. Cumberland County is tobacco country and Mama and Daddy bought an old farmhouse that sat on eleven acres about 10 miles south of town. But since farming was never the plan for our family, those eleven acres of woods and fields became the best playground six kids could ever have grown up on. Part of the downstairs floor of the house had been made into a small apartment that we rented out to young married couples stationed at nearby Fort Bragg. The young men who lived there were our first introduction to what the soldiering life was all about. Growing up, Les always wanted to play Army. Occasionally, we had access to a TV and Combat! was one of the most popular shows on the air. Everyday Les would dress up in an old Army helmet and rubber boots that were really red golashes, grab the piece of fenceboard he had found that was fortuitously shaped like a rifle, and strike out---following the foot paths that zigzagged through our property---on patrol---looking for the enemy---just like Vic Marrow on Combat! The problem with playing Combat! was that there were no girl-parts---so us girls usually wanted to play Wagon Train instead---and that was okay with Les, but he was still going to wear his helment and red golashes and carry his fenceboard rifle. So Khakie, who was the oldest and always the wagon-master, would make him the scout for our wagon train---and we would just have to pretend that the helmet and golashes were really a cowboy hat and cowboy boots and that he was actually looking for Indians instead of Nazis. There was never a doubt that Les was going to be a soldier. It was no surprise that, about a year after graduating high school, he left his Forest Service job cutting trees, and joined up. The very day he got on the bus for Fort Jackson, S. C., my daughter was born. The same day his life was beginning the first day of a new chapter, Joanna's life was beginning her first day in the world. For Les, the connection was made and, for several years, until he had a family of his own, he always sent her a birthday card, remembering their special day together. The Army sent him to Nekoma, North Dakota, which according to Les, was the same thing as being on the moon---miles and miles of flat nothing in every direction, as far as the eye could see. He was a part of the Safeguard Program which housed underground anti-ballistic missles in readiness for deployment in the event of a nuclear attack against our country. Many nights, and sometimes even in the day, he would call me from North Dakota and we would talk on the phone for often an hour or more---on the government's dime---just touching base---catching up---I think his ears were just hungry for that familiar sound of a North Carolina drawl that displaced Tar Heels miss so much when they are far away from home. He had become an MP in the Army and when he was honorably discharged from the service, he came home and toyed with the idea of joining the highway patrol. Instead, he went back to work for the Forest Service and after finishing his college degree, came in on the groundfloor of the newly developing law enforcemnt division of the U.S. Forest Service. He has proudly testified before Congress in defense of our nation's wilderness areas---and has spent the majority of his career promoting and protecting the beauty and the sacredness of the Pisgah, Nantahala, and Chattahoochee-Oconee National Forests of the Blue Ridge Mountains. The last couple of years before retiring, he was stationed in Washington, D.C. in the Forest Service's office of Homeland Security, still ever vigilant, and still in the service of his Uncle Sam. Because of his career with the Forest Service, Les has been all over the United States and he loves every inch of it. He knows what our country was, what it is, and what it can be. This land is ingrained in him---it is a large part of who he is as a man. He has not had to step outside its borders to understand how truly lucky he is to be an American---how blessed he is to have been born in this country---and he counts the few years he spent in the Army as a small price to pay to help it to endure---and to keep it free---for all of us.
Then there are those who, more than self, their country loved..........
James Barnett Patterson
Us kids called him Mr. Pat and his wife was Miss Charlotte. They were the first couple to rent our little apartment. In the beginning, we didn't know anything about where they came from or who their families were, and it didn't matter, because, from the day they moved in, they became one of us. It was as if Miss Charlotte was our beautiful teenage sister and Mr. Pat was our big, tough brother---we adored them. Mama and Daddy loved them, too---they fit right in and became the family Mama and Daddy had left behind in Mississippi. Miss Charlotte would bake us cakes, reminding us to make sure we saved a piece for Daddy, and she let us listen to her Jim Reeves records on her own personal phonograph. Mr. Pat could do anything---and he surprised us with his abilities on several occasions. I remember he once set up a barbershop in the kitchen and cut all the boys' hair---another time, we were going to be late for a recital because Mama was, at the last minute, frantically trying to sew the fringe on Khakie and my majorette uniforms as we were wearing them. Mr. Pat quickly grabbed a needle and thread and helped her finish the job. When Khakie mentioned that she thought that, in his haste, he was sewing her uniform to her underwear, he told her that that was of no consequence at the moment and could be dealt with later. That's the way he was---a man for whatever the situation called for. He was Army-all-the-way. He and Miss Charlotte eventually got post housing and moved onto the base and we didn't see them as much. Mr. Pat advanced in his career, and was deployed on a number of missions that placed him out of reach, but never out of touch. We always kept up with them and always counted them as members of our family. I remember the day we got the letter from Miss Charlotte telling us that Mr. Pat had been killed in action in Vietnam---and at the time, his body had not been recovered. He had been on a secret mission, outside of the established theater of war when he was hit by enemy fire. She didn't know if we'd ever get him back home. We were all crying as Mama read those terrible, unbelievable words aloud---Daddy was completely devastated. Even though the letter said it was true, and we know that it is so, Mr. Pat has never died for any of us kids---we have carried him with us always---and when the subject of service to country comes up, his name is always the first one mentioned. He was with us so briefly, but the impact he has had on our lives is incalculable. If he had lived, he would be 78 years old---instead, in our minds, he remains forever young. He was a good and capable soldier---one of the Army's best. He served his country proudly and steadfastly---he put his life on the line to defend it and keep secure the freedom we so often take for granted. We have never forgotten him.
Bobby Baxley
When I was growing up, high school students drove the school buses and Bobby Baxley was my bus driver. He lived in our neighborhood but I didn't know him very well---mainly because he was in high school and I was just in elementary school---plus, he was a quiet kind of guy, never saying too much. I remember the time when I had run out of the house to catch the bus and was halfway up the steps when I realized I had left my library book on the kitchen table and it was due that day. I suddenly froze in mid-stride and I must have looked really pitiful, because Bobby looked down from his driver's seat at me and said, "What's wrong?" I was a little awed because a high school person was speaking to me directly and I answered in a small voice, "I left my library book on the table." He put the gearshift in neutral, took his foot off the clutch, and said, "Go get it---I'll wait on you." I jumped off the bus, ran back to the house, grabbed the book off the table, dashed out the door again, raced back to the bus and up the steps and into a seat. When I looked up, he was watching me in the mirror---and when he was sure I was settled, he calmly pushed in the clutch, shifted into first gear, reached over and pulled the handle that closed the door, and we went on to school. When I heard that he had been killed in Vietnam, I was so sad because I had never thanked him for being so kind to me that day---and I have always regretted that. Years later, as a teacher, I had gone with a group of 8th graders on a field trip to Washington, D.C. At the Vietnam War Memorial, I checked to see if his name was on the wall---it was there. I made a rubbing of it and it hangs on the wall in my classroom---and Bobby Baxley still goes to school with me everyday.
And the one who left too much of himself in that foreign place.....
Hamp Smith
Hamp Smith was another neigborhood boy who also drove our school bus. Everybody loved Hamp. He was as country as the day is long. He was a big, burly, fun-loving, hayseed of a guy---and although I can't say truthfully that he embraced ignorance, it was clear he harbored a generous amount of disdain for academics. He took Glee Club because it was an easy A. He took French because it was required for graduation, but no Frenchman would have ever understood his version of the language. Frankly, he never expected to encounter a Frenchman and, if he did and they wanted to talk to him, then they should have learned to speak English. Hamp's speciality was farming. He loved his agriculture class and the Future Farmer's of America organization. He was born to drive a tractor and he was most at home plowing the fields of his daddy's farm and jawing with the boys at the hardware store. He was everybody's friend. He loved Cumberland County and fully expected to live out his days farming the land he grew up on. But, he got drafted and got sent to Vietnam. Nobody knows for sure what happened over there---but Hamp came home a changed man. By all accounts, he lost interest in everything he had previously held precious---he no longer laughed and carried on and he rarely drew a sober breath. In the pitch black dark of the early morning hours of June 15, 1974, he was drinking heavily and driving hell-for-leather down Raeford Road into Hoke County---he crashed head-on into a bridge abutment and his car up-ended in a creek. They said he died at the scene, but those of us who had known him his whole life, know he really died somewhere in Southeast Asia---Hamp Smith had never really come home from the war.
These days, I teach at a JROTC academy. We all wear the Army ACU uniform and due to my college degrees, I have been given the rank of Major. The tribute that is poured on me when I'm out in the public in my uniform never ceases to amaze me. Strangers will come up to me to shake my hand. Old men and young men will suddenly come to attention in parking lots and on sidewalks and salute me as I approach. Sales clerks will stretch above their cash registers and yell across the store to thank me for my service. Mothers and fathers of soldiers presently deployed in Afghanistan and elsewhere throughout the world, feel a kinship with me and run me down to tell me of the pride they have in their sons and daughters in service. Each time, I make it a special point to tell them that I've never really served in the military---that I just teach in a military school---because I feel guilty and I don't want to take credit for something so honorable and so revered that I've never done. Just the other day, I was crossing the parking lot of a department store when I heard a deep voice holler out, "Hey, soldier! Where's your cover?" I turned around to see a very handsome, very buff young man in a very hot Camaro, frowning very sternly at me. I smiled and went over to explain to him that I was really just a teacher---that I had never actually served in the military---and rather sheepishly admitted that I didn't like to wear my hat because it messed up my hair. He listened to me politely and when I finished my explanation, he looked me straight in the eye and very precisely replied, "I understand your concern---nevertheless, M'am---respect the uniform." He was so serious, that I promised him right then and there that, from now on when I was outside and in uniform, I would always wear my hat. His face broke into a wide grin, he nodded very smartly and said, "Roger that, Major!" and sped away.
The uniform of the American soldier, even on the frame of a little old lady school teacher like me, automatically commands respect wherever it is seen, not because there is value in the fabric or strength in its construction, but because of the service of these good men that I have known personally ---as well as all of the other good men, throughout history, who answered the call and came to the aid of their country---who wore the uniform proudly---and defended, with their last ounce of energy, honor, and integrity, the country it represents. And it is with deep humility and abiding gratitude that I tell them all today, on this Memorial Day, 2013---that I will be forever in their debt.
Until next time.......
Peace and fried chicken,
Margaret Ann
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