In the New Year, I will be starting yet another column in VeniVidiScripto.com. It is time to recognize the Congressional Medal of Honor recipients this nation has honored, and time to learn more about them. Starting with the 70 from New Jersey. In every war from the Civil War to Iraq.
I don’t know why this is so important to me to get underway in 2023.
Maybe the idea came to me when I was so destroyed when Atlantic Highlands failed to follow the Presidential and Congressional regulation to lower the flag on municipal buildings to half staff from sunrise to sunset on Dec. 7, Pearl Harbor Day.
Maybe it was when the Atlantic Highlands councilman first told me Atlantic Highlands “did it right,” by having the flag flowered only from around noon on, to mark the time the Japanese launched that horrific attack.
Or maybe it was when the same Councilman, my councilman in the town where I live, urged me to ask him how many towns he was in in Pennsylvania that day that had their flags lowered. He wanted me to ask because he wanted to tell me he did not see one with lowered flags, in spite of his being both in Bethlehem, Pa. and western Pennsylvania during the day.
I did not ask, because I did not care, I tried to tell him. I can’t take on the entire nation at one time, or even towns in the neighboring state, if I cannot get a councilman in my own town to care enough to explain to me why my town did not follow the national regulation.
Maybe I thought I had to do something when the rest of the Council sat mum while this exchange was going on. Not one of them questioned whether this was true that plans were specifically made to ignore the Presidential directive and instead only lower the flag for half the day.
Not one of them asked whether it was just an honest oversight, a mistake that was rectified when alerted. Nor did they ask who made the decision, if the councilman was correct, to disregard the national directive. They did not even offer whether they had taken a vote to specifically keep the flag raised in spite of the regulation. Nor did they say why they did not think the attack on Pearl Harbor was important enough to lower the flag for the entire day.
They simply listened to the Councilman ask me about Pennsylvania towns.They did not say a word.
It could have been any of these things. Or it could have been because the Atlantic Highlands school never bothered to lower its flag at all. That’s the school where our children are being introduced to American history. Yet their flag, in spite of a Presidential proclamation, remained at full staff the entire day.
That also apparently did not bother the borough fathers. They still did not say or do anything about it, even though the school is supported by the borough’s tax paying residents. Some of them even military, active, disabled or retired.
Or it could have been something else.
It could have been the fact not one Middletown official, other than the Chief of Police, bothered to stop at Thorne School to join the National President of Gold Star Mothers… a Gold Star Mother……as she participated in Wreaths of American ceremonies honoring Middletown’s own Medal of Honor recipient.
Not one member of the County Commissions was there either. I can only hope they at least attended a similar wreath laying ceremony in Shrewsbury where Wreaths Across America also stopped with their caravan carrying 70,000 American flags to Arlington National Cemetery where so many more heroes are interred.
It could have been all these things.
But rather, I think it was the inspiration I got, the pride I felt, the gratitude I have, for the principal and social studies teacher at Thorne School who scheduled, planned and participated in that very moving ceremony at the school named for a nationally recognized hero.
They are the ones that made me realize, even with my pride and love for my country, I can still learn more about the heroes who are cited for keeping it that way, they, along with the tens of thousands of others who may have died on the battlefield, came home injured and changed for life, or simply served because they had to, but did their jobs admirably and safely.
So my new column will start, my very small contribution towards bringing some patriotism back to the United States. Hopefully, some of my fellow citizens will learn something about the Medal of Honor, and who is selected to receive it. And why. Hopefully some of my readers in the more than 150 countries who read by blog will see the pride of American people for those who have protected our country and in many cases, given their lives to do so. My column will tell more of the story about the Medal of Honor itself, when it started and how. It will tell the stories of the 70 fighting men, from every war since the Civil War as well as in peacetime, who signed on for the job of protecting the nation from New Jersey, and were awarded its highest honor.
Hopefully it will let people know more about the soldier buried at Bayview cemetery, though where is unknown, the one who was a lighthouse keeper at the Twin Lights who along with 51 other men, received the award because of their role at Cienfuegos in Cuba during the Spanish American War.
The column will talk about Bud Thorne from Middletown, Pvt. Fallon from Freehold, two more MOH recipients from Hillside in Union County, another from Elizabeth or Patterson or Jersey City or Newark…the list goes on.
We do not seem to be teaching American history in our schools. We do not seem to be proud of our military members. We do not seem to appreciate it is the politicians who sit behind their desks and plan the strategies and reasons for war.
But it’s our American men and women who join those forces our nations commands who carry the burden on their backs.
The least we can do is know a little bit more about them. Maybe that will give us some reasons to show more pride in a nation that still stands head and shoulders above any other for freedom, personal rights and even more than life and liberty, the pursuit of happiness.
