As a retired teacher, I know that you learn things better if you experience them yourself. Often, we think we understand something, only to find out later that we just skimmed the surface, missing the depths to be explored. The observance of Memorial Day was one of those things for me.
Growing up in Bethlehem, my family always went to the Memorial Day parade. When I was in my high school marching band, I marched in it. We understood the day was about honoring “the war dead,” but I didn’t personally know anyone who died in a war.
That changed while I was in college. The first time I met Joe Crescenz, the man who became my husband, he told me about his brother who was killed in Vietnam. Michael Crescenz was 19 when he died on Nov. 20, 1968. He was charging machine gun bunkers during a battle on a mountain called Nui Chom. He sacrificed himself to save the lives of his fellow soldiers and, as a result, was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor.
Joe was 12 years old when he answered the door of his family’s home in Philadelphia one Saturday morning to find a soldier standing there. He had come to tell the Crescenz family – mom, dad and their five sons still at home – that their beloved Mike had been killed in action. I remember thinking how traumatic that must have been for a 12-year-old. For all of them.
MEMORIAL DAY SHOULD BE EVERY DAY IN AMERICA
Any death of a loved one is terrible, but the loss of a young man, with a life full of promise ahead of him, cut short in a far away war, is even more tragic. In 1968, when Michael died, there were no support groups, and going to counseling wasn’t something that most people did.
Joe and his family tried to move on with life, but the grief and the anger were always right below the surface, unaddressed.
Joe’s cousins Kathleen Zippilli and Mary Lou Allen were very close to his mother. Both remember a few occasions when Aunt Mary Ann would talk with them about Michael and they would all have a good cry. That had to be the closest thing to therapy for her. And for them.
On Memorial Day, Joe’s mom and dad would visit Mike’s grave, and sometimes it was like reopening a wound. Joe never remembers any of the brothers going with them – they were very private in their grief and almost never talked about it. The brothers visited on their own.
MEMORIAL DAY IS A REMINDER FREEDOM ‘MUST BE FOUGHT FOR AND DEFENDED CONSTANTLY’
By the time Joe and I got married, 12 years after Mike’s death, Joe’s mother still could not talk about Mike without crying. No one wanted to make her cry, so no one else talked about it either. When I would visit the cemetery with Joe, we could see if someone else had already been there. It was as if everyone just needed their own private moment with this son or brother who meant so much to all of them.
The family was extremely proud of Michael being awarded the Medal of Honor, but they were private about that as well. When we had our children, Joe explained to them what his brother did, and what an incredible honor it was to be awarded the Medal of Honor, but that he would rather have had his brother.
Joe was finally able to make peace with his brother’s death by earning a master’s degree in pastoral counseling and becoming active in veterans’ groups and volunteering at our local VA hospital. The veterans he has come to know, respect and love are also his brothers now. He is proud to be part of a Gold Star family, although it is a designation he would not wish for anyone else.
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Because of Joe’s family, I finally understood Memorial Day. It isn’t about big sales and barbecues. It is about loss and memories. It is about remembering that every person our country sends to war is someone’s son or daughter; that every time one of them doesn’t return home, it will rip a hole in someone’s heart. Not only does our nation owe them a debt of gratitude we can never repay, but we need to see them as individuals with faces and names who were willing to put themselves in harm’s way so the rest of us wouldn’t have to.
When someone passes, Orthodox Christians say, “May his memory be eternal.” This Memorial Day, and every one, remember eternally those who gave all for their country.
