{"id":3368,"date":"2010-05-31T08:38:04","date_gmt":"2010-05-31T13:38:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stonescryout.org\/?p=3368"},"modified":"2010-05-31T08:38:04","modified_gmt":"2010-05-31T13:38:04","slug":"remembering-a-soldier-of-the-greatest-generation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stonescryout.org\/?p=3368","title":{"rendered":"Remembering a Soldier of the Greatest Generation"},"content":{"rendered":"
Memorial Day 2010<\/strong><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/strong><\/div>\n
When I think of men and women of the armed forces who paid the ultimate price to fight for freedom and justice, I think of their peers and how they honor those who didn\u2019t make it.\u00a0\u00a0 Those who remember soldiers who fought and died on the battlefields of\u00a0 the last century are now bowed men in their seventies and eighties speaking hesitantly about their colleagues and their service a lifetime ago in the killing fields of Europe and Asia. We owe our nation to them, because of their moral strength, their youthful sacrifices, and their country-building ethic.<\/div>\n
\n
\"Harry<\/a>

Harry Jewell, 1945 (5th Army, 34th Division, 135th Infantry)<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

There has been much courage and dreadful sacrifice by veterans in the intervening years, but on Memorial Day and all days when we honor veterans, I think of\u00a0\u00a0my favorite veteran, my father, who left us to be with the Lord he loved\u00a0in January 2004 at the age of 79.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey were better than we are,\u201d said Tom Brokaw about the generation that saved the world from the last century\u2019s Axis of Evil. The stark statement is true, we know. My father, Harry Jewell, was better than I am, I know.<\/p>\n

Dad was a member of what they\u2019ve called The Greatest Generation. He served his country mostly in Italy during World War II, and he was a hero of the American variety\u2014putting his life on the line to save the world, and spending his life to serve his family, assuring their well-being in so many ways.<\/p>\n

Dad told very few stories of the War, like most of his comrades in arms who saw their service as opportunities for duty, not celebrity; and didn\u2019t relish the ugly memories. But from time to time we\u2019d pull out a remarkable tale. Such as the time he was racing his jeep across an open field, with German artillery following him, but missing by just a few paces each time. Or the time he and others stepped inside a building, and their friend was obliterated by a shell on the front step they had just left. Death was always so close.<\/p>\n

A sense of purpose prevailed and soldiers like Dad never asked why. Evil is evil, and men like Dad didn\u2019t have any trouble recognizing it, as many seem to today.<\/p>\n

A man of deep faith, my Dad demonstrated his peace with God in his final days and his homegoing. In life and at death he was an example to all of us.<\/p>\n

Thanks to all\u00a0who have served, then and now. And thanks Dad. I miss you.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Memorial Day 2010 \u00a0 When I think of men and women of the armed forces who paid the ultimate price to fight for freedom and justice, I think of their peers and how they honor those who didn\u2019t make it.\u00a0\u00a0 Those who remember soldiers who fought and died on the battlefields of\u00a0 the last century […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,61],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3368","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-jim","category-military"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stonescryout.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3368","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stonescryout.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stonescryout.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stonescryout.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stonescryout.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3368"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stonescryout.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3368\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stonescryout.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3368"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stonescryout.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3368"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stonescryout.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3368"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}