Not Lewis and Clark, A Fallen Soldier

Journal 1804 12 20
Not Lewis and Clark, A Fallen Soldier

No Lewis and Clark today. A different story is on my mind. One of great adventure and greater danger.

The world was in peril. Evil was once again attempting to rule the world. Hitler was putting a stranglehold of rule over Europe and pressing to eliminate God’s chosen people in the process. Japan saw the time as ripe to expand its empire and eliminate any threats to its rule. And somehow, the Italians had visions of world dominance. Make no mistake, evil was in the air no matter who it manifested itself in.

A young teenager, barely a man, from Enumclaw, WA enlisted in the Army to fight this evil. He received basic training in waging war. Fighting as an individual and as part of a greater force he boarded a troop carrier bound for the South Pacific.

It was 1944. No email, no cell phones, no satellites. The closest thing to instant communications would be ship-to-shore radio and a telegram. Written mail was sacred and treated as such. When his letters stopped the worry and anxiety at home grew in their absence.

This young soldier fell in battle on April 14th, 1945 on a large island south of Japan, Okinawa. A high cliff split the Island. The Japanese had decided not to defend the beaches of Okinawa but to hold this high ground and extract a great price from the Americans if they were to capture it.

Many soldiers and marines gave their lives conquering this highly fortified ridge as the Japanese fought fiercely to protect their homeland from invasion. It turned out to be much like a last stand for the Japanese. The war was over less than ninety days later.

The young soldier from Enumclaw who died one month before his nineteenth birthday would not return to his heartbroken Yugoslavian immigrant mother until May 1949 when he was finally laid to rest in the Catholic cemetery in his hometown. This event was recorded in the local paper with four short paragraphs on the bottom of page one.

She was so grieved by his sacrifice that she buried all memories of him and his service with him. His medals, records and who knows what else. In addition, any record of his service was burned at a huge Veteran's Administration records fire in St. Louis in the early 1970's.

He has been a mystery to me. A simple grave marker near his mother and father in that small town cemetery. Name, birthdate, WWII service, Army unit, date of death and a simple cross. He preceded the rest of the family in death. Willingly enlisted that we might have freedom. He understood the sacrifice required. I can only pray we do. I’m sure all who knew him remembered every time they stood over that grave marker and tenderly clipped the grass back and cleaned off the dirt and storm tracks leaving flowers in remembrance of the short life lived like a blossoming flower.

His brothers speak sparingly of him. It is as though the memory of his death pains them and I think part of the silence is because it pained their mother even more.

He was “just a regular guy” as my Dad would say when asked to describe him during a Veteran’s Day ceremony in that small town where a street was renamed in his honor. And the gold star indicating the death of a soldier in combat was placed on the sign next to his family name. He rode an Indian motorcycle, he liked to shoot and hunt, and it sounds as though he had a real zeal for living life. I ride motorcycles, I like to shoot and hunt, sometimes my zeal for engaging life needs an electric shock to jump start it. I would have liked my lost uncle. I’d like to think he would have seen the heart of the outdoorsman and adventurer in me and some of my brothers and cousins and been our first hunting buddy.

Every year our extended family gathers for Christmas Eve. This year God gave me a present. My cousin, Tom Henson, brought with him a box filled with an American flag bearing forty-eight stars, the newspaper mentioned earlier and a crucifix. The flag draped the coffin and could not be buried. My Aunt Louise, a brilliant woman by anyone’s standard, had somehow received the flag, packed it carefully with the presence of mind to include the newspaper and the sign of hope for eternal life and wrap it all with a delicate silken cloth in the same manner her mother wrapped those things which were precious and to be preserved.

I couldn’t help but feel great joy and a deep longing to know more as I ran my hand over the rough linen of the flag and carefully read the fifty-five year old newspaper all the while hoping that Mark Cinkovich had placed his eternal fate in the very One whose birth we were celebrating. The hope of salvation offered by the one who hung on that crucifix and rose from death to give us the greatest gift we could ever receive – eternal life.