"I cannot weep, for answers have I none." (Othello)

.....I keep looking at pictures on the internet for a gold star that I could attach to the DFC (Distinguished Flying Cross) pictured on my blog. The gold star indicates that I received two DFCs--and that's incredible. I don't know anyone that was awarded even one--except my crewmate, Hal Mack. That star, however, is not the highest priority in my life; it's quite a way down on my list, but looking for it when I have nothing else to do on the internet plays like a treasure hunt without a map. Coincidentally, I received a comment on Facebook from Ray Gallon, a former student of mine: He writes,

....."The gold star goes for instilling a love of literature in all us former feckless adolescents in your classes..."

.....I wrote back that I was impressed that he still had that love with him after all these years. But this is not the feature topic I planned to write about today--a topic most sensitive to me regardless ("irregardless" is plain wrong!) of whom or how many read this. It happens to be the meaning of the gold star hanging in the window of those who grieve for the loss of a loved one in our wars. In WWII a mother lost all four of her sons in one day, and she had five gold stars in her window. The Sullivan brothers were five siblings who lost their lives when their ship, the USS Juneau was sunk on November 13, 1942, five days before I enlisted in the Navy. Their sacrifice was one of the reasons I did so. As I considered the unwavering and eternal grief that their mother must have suffered, it tore at my heart and curdled my stomach. I was just 18 years old, and I had experienced grief before, but nothing like this. Not at 13, as they say, but just then I became a man.

.....Another e-mail I just received today, came from a young man, John Broderick, a Viet Nam vet, (70 now?), a former student way back then and he wrote:

Hi Norman, You will not remember me but I attended Sea Cliff HS and graduated there in 1957. I read your biography on line and am sending you my heartfelt "thank you" for all you did...I was fortunate to have lost only one buddy in the Viet Nam war and I am grateful every day for all the things I enjoy and experience thanks to the sacrifices of so many brave souls both living and deceased.
I hope you are doing well. Thanks again, Norman...Take care...-JB

.....I have done my own share of grieving from personal losses in WWII, but think of those families who have lost sons, fathers, husbands, sisters in Iraq, a useless war--and Afghanistan, a winless war. My daughter sent me an article today from the NY Times written by Fran Schumer and in it she says, "For some people, — an estimated 15 percent of the bereaved population, or more than a million people a year — grieving becomes what Dr. M. Katherine Shear, a professor of psychiatry at Columbia, calls “a loop of suffering.” And these people, Dr. Shear added, can barely function. “It takes a person away from humanity,” she said of their suffering, “and has no redemptive value.”

Redemptive value? What redemptive value can there be? Who or what provides redemption? At the funeral of a lad KIA, his wife or mother or another member of the family receives a folded flag with a gold star upon it, and who knows what happens to it when it gets home? What redemption is that? After a death there is a pain that doesn't go away. This is what is in store for those in bereavement. People suffering grief do not want to talk about it, except, perhaps, to a psychiatrist. It's been over 60 years since WWII, and the grief I feel for the things I experienced and saw in combat still hangs heavy around my heart. It doesn't go away.

.....