An estimated 750,000 Americans on both sides died during the Civil War. A fratricidal war that ended the “original sin” of slavery and gave the North mastery of the nation. For the next 150 years the United States pursued the goals of a more perfect union and racial equality. The results are being questioned.
More than any other holiday, Memorial Day which originated from the Civil War, is a message from the dead that we’ve come a long way. We just need some living people to remind us of that.
Every year, actors Gary Sinise and Joe Mantegna become the media faces of Memorial Day with a PBS concert in Washington, DC. (Sinise, whose paternal side hails from Basilicata (I prefer its classical Italic name Lucania), has made honoring American vets and our war dead his life’s work. But these paesani must both tip their hats to Carmella LaSpada, a remarkable woman of faith who has devoted herself to America’s fallen since working in the Kennedy White House.
Now in her 80s, Carmella dates her passion for those who paid the ultimate price to a bedside chat with a dying Army medic. It was the height of the Vietnam War and Carmella, with the USO in Vietnam, listened as the medic related how 35 of his comrades died in his arms during combat. He begged her to do something so these men would not be forgotten and their families assisted. He then handed her his unit’s symbolic black scarf which Carmella accepted as a message from God. In 1973, she founded No Greater Love, a humanitarian non-profit dedicated to the families of the fallen and honoring their dead.
Early on, when asked by a Kennedy White House staffer what value she would bring to the new president she answered, “I get things done.” Whether it was honoring the fallen on the anniversary of Normandy with 30-tons of sand sculpture on those very beaches or annual ceremonies at military cemeteries across the nation, Carmella will not allow anyone to forget. A former Marine Corps commandant characterized her as “a combination of Mother Teresa and a Marine Drill Sergeant.” Catch her on YouTube and you see a vibrant lady who credits her drive to the Holy Spirit and her Catholic faith. But I’m sure there’s a fine Italian hand in there too – her surname derives from a Roman cavalry sword.
Among this year’s Memorial Day activities, there’s been a name change at Ft. Benning, Georgia. The famous Infantry school was named for a Confederate general but didn’t survive the Woke offensive. (It is now called Ft. Moore, for a hero of Vietnam and his wife.) I spent five months at Ft. Benning but don’t recall seeing a picture of Gen. Benning or knowing who he was. But in researching this blog, I found a Gen. Benning connection to Gone with the Wind.
The author of that book, Margaret Mitchell, had previously written a magazine article on the Benning family. While the general was away fighting the Yanks, according to Ms. Mitchell, Mrs. Benning was “left in complete charge of a large plantation, this little woman, who was the mother of ten children, was as brave a soldier at home as ever her husband was on the Virginia battlefields. She saw to it that the crops were gathered, the children fed and clothed, and the Negroes cared for.…While her husband was away she buried her aged father, whose end was hastened by the war.” Just change the family name from Benning to O’Hara and you’ve found Mitchell’s inspiration.
Closer to home, our Design Editor Andrew Ricci, has been on a quest to research his maternal great uncle Pasquale Aceto who was killed in action in the Philippines in 1944. The newly minted Second Lieutenant perished during the invasion of Leyte at age 22. No family records have been found, and the Army archives in St. Louis were destroyed in a 1973 fire – some 12 million service records were lost. Andrew is pursuing other avenues, but this experience is indicative of how fragile human memory can be. To wit: a young, second generation American, who had no chance to marry or produce a family, ended his life on a foreign shore and has almost been forgotten.
The very reason for Memorial Day. -JLM
Recent Comments