Remembering my brothers

Today is Memorial Day, a federal observance that traces its origins back to 1868, when Gen. John Logan, head of the Grand Army of the Republic — an association of Union Civil War veterans — issued a proclamation calling for a day to be set aside to decorate the graves of soldiers killed in that war.

It was called Decoration Day. Over time, that day became known as Memorial Day. It is a day to honor Americans killed in our nation’s wars.

However, every day is a memorial day for me as I honor the soldiers I knew who were killed in the Vietnam War. I honor eleven West Point friends, Class of 1956, who were killed in Vietnam. One of them was a very close friend, Godfather to one of my daughters.

And I honor 48 soldiers with whom I served in the 2nd Battalion, 28th U.S. Infantry Regiment. I have a close relationship with those soldiers; we fought together, again and again. Two of them were killed fighting beside me, and their blood is on me to this day. Brave soldiers all in that battalion; none ever ran from a fight, and the battalion never lost a fight.

When I was physically able, not wounded myself — I was five times — I would grab stretcher handles and help carry severely wounded and dead soldiers to the evacuation choppers. I spoke to them along the way, in hopes that they might hear my words, perhaps the last words some would hear: “Sgt. Ellis, you served your country honorably and well. You did your duty, and I am proud to have served with you. I will write your family and tell them of your bravery.”

I always wrote; I considered it a moral obligation; paying my debt to these fine soldiers. My last debt is not to forget them. I won’t.

Each Memorial Day, my young daughters would accompany me to the Memorial Day Service at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu. It’s called Punchbowl. We weren’t interested in the orations, just in being there, seeing the military units, listening to the bands, the rifle salutes, hearing the haunting sounds of taps, and walking among the graves — there are 38,000, each decorated with a flag and a flower lei on that day. Last year, Moira, my youngest, flew over from Kentucky to relive her Memorial Day experiences with me at Punchbowl.

So this Memorial Day, in my 85th year and 31 years of Army service behind me, I salute those I knew — brothers, all I knew, my brothers — who were killed while in the service of our country.

Press On!

Thomas McAniff

Kamuela