Embryos of Peace by Linda Lee Greene

The following is a share of an essay I wrote for the Grove City (Ohio) Arts Council's Newsletter and Blog, a most appropriate article for this Memorial Day holiday week:

In my homespun family, the term ‘Memorial Day’ never quite caught on. The name assigned to it originally was ‘Decoration Day’, and is, to us and many others, the title most appropriate. Since its inception on the heels of the Civil War, this remembrance of our military personnel who lost their lives serving our country has been recognized and practiced broadly, although informally. This is because it wasn’t until 1971 that it was finally designated as an official national holiday to be observed on the last Sunday in May under the moniker of ‘Memorial Day’. World War II Medal of Honor recipient and U.S. Senator of Hawaii Daniel Inouye worked for many of his 49 years career in the senate to restore the original May 30^th date of the holiday. It was his contention that the official date obscures the sacred meaning of the holiday, competing as it does with the unofficial first weekend of summer when pent-up children and adults alike storm the unlocked gates of closed-for-the-season swimming pools and other open-air recreations in lieu of spending the day at cemeteries.

            By virtue of its nature, probably the major repository of a country’s heroes is its military, heroes in one way or another in its largest sense. A hero is defined as a person who can solve a problem or problems other people cannot solve. This left-brain, bare-bones, and pragmatic one-liner seems patently rationalistic to me, barren the full-bodied status a hero has earned and deserves. It has been suggested that an emotional and/or spiritual need for heroes is inborn in human beings. These necessary beings to whom we look up not only solve the seemingly unsolvable for us, but also provide us with inspiration to keep on keeping on during trying times, to demolish barriers in our journey to greater heights, and to overcome our antipathy toward others. In these ways, heroes satisfy a basic requirement found in the nature of human beings.

   

            When I look upon the gravestone of a military veteran, rather than perceiving it as a marker of something lifeless, I see within it a hero embodied as an embryo of peace. How can anyone walk among the more than 400,000 headstones of our military veterans at Arlington National Cemetery and fail to hear Heaven’s call for Peace on Earth and Goodwill Toward all of Humankind? Oh yes, to me each one of those pristine rectangles of white stone enshrines an embryo of peace.

https://grovecityartscouncil.wordpress.com/2018/05/26/embryos-of-peace/ 

Award-winning artist and author, blogger, editor, and interior designer Linda Lee Greene is on social media at the following:

Amazon Author Page: https://www.amazon.com/author/lindaleegreene

Email: lindaleegreene.author.artist@gmail.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/#!/LindaLeeGreeneAuthor

Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/LindaLeeGreeneAuthor

Twitter: @LLGreeneAuthor

Blog:  http://Ingoodcompanyohio.blogspot.com

Also look for her on LinkedIn and Google+

Her books are available on Amazon and other booksellers.

A Tale of Two Tales: Your Deeds Reflect in Your Children

The following are based on actual facts, but my friend Yatendra Singh has just added his own language and morale to them to make them more personal and interesting.

 

STORY NUMBER ONE

Many years ago, Al Capone virtually owned Chicago. Capone wasn’t famous for anything heroic. He was notorious for enmeshing the windy city in everything from bootlegged booze and prostitution to murder.

Capone had a lawyer nicknamed “Easy Eddie.” He was Capone’s lawyer for a good reason. Eddie was very good at his craft! In fact, Eddie’s skill at legal maneuvering kept Big Al out of jail for a long time. To show his appreciation, Capone paid Eddie very well. Not only was the money big, but Eddie got special dividends, as well. For instance, he and his family occupied a fenced-in mansion with live-in help and all the conveniences of the day. The estate was so large it filled an entire Chicago city block. Eddie lived the high-life of the Chicago mob and gave little consideration to the atrocities that went on around him.

Eddie did have one soft-spot, however. He had a son whom he loved dearly. Eddie saw to it that his young son had clothes, cars, and a good education. Nothing was withheld. Price was no object. And despite his own involvement with organized crime, Eddie even tried to teach his son right from wrong. Eddie wanted the boy to be a better man than he was. Yet, with all of his wealth and influence, there were two things he couldn’t give his son; he couldn’t pass on a good name or a good example.

One day, Easy Eddie reached a difficult decision. He wanted to rectify wrongs he had done. He decided to go to the authorities and tell the truth about Al “Scarface” Capone, clean up his tarnished name, and thereby offer his son some semblance of integrity. To do this, he would have to testify against The Mob, and he knew the cost would be great. But he testified anyway.

Within the year, Easy Eddie’s life ended in a blaze of gunfire on a lonely Chicago street…But in his eyes, he had given his son the greatest gift he could offer, at the greatest price he could ever pay. Police removed from his pockets a rosary, a crucifix, a religious medallion, and a poem clipped from a magazine. The poem read:

“The clock of life is wound but once, and no man has the power to tell just when the hands will stop, at late or early hour. Now is the only time you own. Live, love, toil with a will. Place no faith in time. For the clock may soon be still.”

STORY NUMBER TWO

World War II produced many heroes. One such man was Lieutenant Commander Butch O’Hare.

He was a fighter pilot assigned to the aircraft carrier Lexington in the South Pacific. One day his entire squadron was sent on a mission. After he was airborne, he looked at his fuel gauge and realized that someone had forgotten to top off his fuel tank. We would not have enough fuel to complete his mission and get back to his ship. His flight leader told him to return to the carrier. Reluctantly, he dropped out of formation and headed back to the fleet.

As he was returning to the mother ship, he saw something that turned his blood cold; a squadron of Japanese aircraft was speeding its way toward the American fleet. The American fighters were gone on a sortie, and the fleet was all but defenseless. He couldn’t reach his squadron and bring them back in time to save the fleet; nor could he warn the fleet of the approaching danger. There was only one thing to do. He must somehow divert them from the fleet.

Laying aside all thoughts of personal safety, he dove into the formation of Japanese planes. Wing-mounted 50 calibers blazed as he charged in, attacking one surprised enemy plan and then another. Butch wove in and out of the now broken formation and fired at as many planes as possible until all his ammunition was finally spent.

Undaunted, he continued the assault. He dove at the planes, trying to clip a wing or tail in hopes of damaging as many enemy planes as possible, rendering them unfit to fly. Finally, the exasperated Japanese squadron took off in another direction. Deeply relieved, Butch O’Hare and his tattered fighter plane limped back to the carrier.

Upon arrival, Butch reported in and related the event surrounding his return. The film from the gun-camera mounted on his plane told the tale. It showed the extent of his daring attempt to protect his fleet. He had, in fact, destroyed five enemy aircraft.

This took place on February 20, 1942, and for that action Butch became the Navy’s first Ace of World War II, and the first Naval Aviator to win the Medal of Honor. A year later, Butch was killed in aerial combat at the age of 29. His hometown would not allow the memory of this WWII hero to fade, and today, O’Hare Airport in Chicago is named in tribute to the courage of this great man.

So, the next time you find yourself at O’Hare International, give some thought to visiting Butch’s memorial displaying a statue of him and his Medal of Honor. It’s located between Terminals 1 and 2.

SO WHAT DO THESE TWO STORIES HAVE TO DO WITH EACH OTHER?

Butch O’Hare was “Easy Eddie’s” son.

Morale: You reap what you sow, and your deeds, whether good or bad, reflect in your children. It’s for you to decide…food for thought!

*****

 

Linda Lee Greene’s novel “Guardians and Other Angels” is at http://goo.gl/imUwKO

Linda’ Lee Greene's novel “Jesus Gandhi Oma Mae Adams,” co-authored with Debra Shiveley Welch is at http://amzn.to/VazHFG