On this Memorial Day ...

On this Memorial Day weekend, as I have in past years, I will remember Robert M. Bloom.
When my father served in the U.S. Army, people called him “Doc.” He was an Army paymaster, flying along the famed Burma Hump during World War II in order to execute his responsibility. He rode in planes that were nothing more than cheap flying cigar tubes, stripped of all their protective armor in order to gain enough altitude to clear the Himalayan Mountains.
Robert “Doc” Bloom never killed another man. He fired his sidearm once at a group of Japanese soldiers who were attempting to shoot his plane one day when taking off. When I was growing up, he never really shared his feelings about how it felt, or what it was like to be shot at. It was just another chapter of his life.
The only ramifications from his war experience were two things he swore never to do — wear khaki or eat anything that contained curry powder. They were promises he kept until the end of his life.
At Dad’s commercial printing business, there was a salesman named Carl Taylor, a quiet, unassuming man who raised three sons to be fine young men and was an elder in his church. He loved baseball, and he and I would chat about America’s Pastime whenever I visited the office.
Sixty-two years ago, Carl was one of thousands of young American men waiting in cramped transport boats for the orders to invade mainland Japan. Had President Harry Truman not used the atomic bomb against Japan, he and 1 million other soldiers would have deployed to end the war.
Chances are Carl Taylor, and millions of other human beings, would not have survived to raise their sons, talk baseball and be elders in their churches. President Truman’s choice, even if it produced a level of destruction previously unseen in the history of mankind, saved lives — millions of them.
This winter, the 66th anniversary of America’s forced entry into World War II will be remembered, as it is always, at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. I visited one of this nation’s most sacred spots during the 60th year and it was a time to reflect upon all that war can wrought.
That point in human history is not remembered as it should be in a world that has thoroughly changed economically, socially and strategically. Japan and Germany are no longer military enemies — just economic rivals and ideological allies. But there are still some men, and a few women, who wore the uniform, who remember Pearl Harbor, Normandy, Iwo Jima, Guadalcanal, Midway, Bastogne, Anzio and Bataan. They aren’t just singular footnotes in history or movies to compete with other holiday entrants. They were real battles, involving real people, for the survival and freedoms we enjoy today.
Sixty-six years should be enough time to let the bitterness against former enemies subside. Six generations have since seen communist walls erected around nations and people, and also seen them crumble — brick by brick. We have tried to embrace former governments we thought would be mortal enemies. We still have men and women who wear the uniform dying in armed conflict, trying to defend our freedoms and attempting to deliver that magical concept to others.
Almost no one on Earth is left alive that fought in WWI, and too many people have a total lack of appreciation for what America went through back then or in World War II. To them, “ancient” history is Vietnam, or JFK, LBJ or Richard Nixon. Or even George W.H. Bush.
But that should change on Memorial Day, which is still an opportunity to educate all Americans about how we got to where we are today. The dropping of the atomic bomb should be a somber remembrance of what can happen when nations go ballistic. But neither should we acquiesce our history to placate another nation’s unwillingness to accept history and its verdict.
We need to honor those who gave their lives and put their bodies on the line to win that conflict; an event that changed our world forever. It was an unwritten promise made the moment the surrender papers were signed on the USS Missouri — that we never forget Carl or Doc. Because they were promises we need to keep until the end.