Commemorating the Ultimate Sacrifice

Option 2:  

   “For those who have made the ultimate sacrifice, we are grateful that such men and women were among us” (Buyer 2022). In a previous assignment, I discussed the legacy and history of my great Uncle Carmen. Carmen was a seventeen-year-old boy who wanted to fight in the war and contribute to the World War II war effort. To get approval to fight in the war, his mother had to sign paperwork and give her approval for him to fight in the war effort. After his training, Carmen was stationed in the Pacific and fought in multiple smaller conflicts, however, his first major battle was the battle of Iwo Jima, which today is known as “one of the bloodiest fights in the entire war effort.” Until the battle at Iwo Jima, Carmen wrote to his family twice a week about the war effort, what he was hearing, and just wanting to check in with them and how he was proud to be serving the best country on earth. In his final letter, Carmen informed his family he was being deployed to Iwo Jima and that he wanted to make his country and family proud. When the family stopped receiving his letters for multiple weeks in a row, his mother and his family began to worry. It was a Friday morning, and there was a knock on the door, and two military members came to break the news. The family was in disarray from that moment forward, specifically my grandpa’s mother. After a couple of days, she forbade her husband and the rest of her kids to ever talk about this grave mistake she made to anyone.

 

    This shocked the family and upset my grandfather because nobody in the family ever blamed her for the death of Carmen. However, as a mother, she kept blaming herself and saying that he would still be alive if she had not signed that paper. My grandpa told me that she blamed herself for her death every day until she passed away. After her death, my grandpa decided to begin telling the story of his brother Carmen because he was proud of him for making the ultimate sacrifice. For a Veterans Day essay, I was doing in middle school, my mom had told me about Uncle Carmen and told me to ask my grandpa about it. One Saturday I was up at my grandma and grandpa’s house, and I interviewed my grandpa about his brother. To this day, I wish that I had recorded the interview, but like we learned this semester, I had a list of questions that I asked my grandpa about, and I listened to him talk about his brother for two hours. I learned about Carmen’s favorite foods, how much he loved his country and how much he loved to volunteer and help his community. My grandpa admitted to me that every time he tells this story it is hard for him because of how much he loved his brother. He then compared it to how he was stationed in Germany during the Cold War, and how he sometimes feared for his own life each day. I asked him why he joined the Army, and he said it was because his brother inspired him too and wanted to make him proud, and he thought joining the military was the best way to honor him. He wanted to honor him even though his mother did not want him to talk about him because she said it was her fault, but my grandfather wanted him to be remembered as a hero and someone that loved his country not forgotten. One of the key points in public history is to not forget about different events from the past, all while providing different perspectives from different people.

 

    Before telling me or anyone else about this information my grandpa wanted to inform us that the death of Carmen was not his mother's fault and that she was doing what was best for the country. He also said that he did not want us to judge her or any of her actions. The topic was challenging for her to talk about because she did not want her reputation to be ruined, or for people to see her as a bad, careless mother. Many people are afraid to talk about their role in some events such as my grandpa’s mother because of their reputation being impacted. In a sit-down interview format with someone, she was afraid of being challenged and judged. She was asked to give an interview for the local newspaper in their town, but she refused to.

 

    I formatted the information I gathered from my grandpa into an essay and submitted my assignment to my teacher. My history teacher held me after class one day and told me that I would be reading my essay at the Veteran’s Day assembly where the school honored military Veterans in a two-hour assembly. When I informed my grandpa about this, he was proud of me, however, he did ask me to review exactly what I was going to say. The reason he did this was that he wanted to make sure that I was giving proper information and did not come off as judging his mother in his eyes because she did not like any of this to be talked about. I told my grandpa that if he was not okay with me reading it to the school and the veterans at the assembly, I would just tell my teacher that I could not. After reviewing it, he looked at me and told me he was proud of me and that he and his brother would both be proud if I read the essay and parts of our interview at the assembly.

 

     Looking back at this essay, I realized that I was doing the work of a public historian, and I was nervous I would misrepresent it. I sat down and had a one-on-one interview with him, took notes, and took an oral history of a person directly affected and impacted by a major historical event. I truly do believe that public historians sometimes get nervous about misrepresentation, and the people they interview are also afraid of this. To this day, even after my grandfather passed away a couple of years ago, I do not want Carmen’s story to be forgotten. The topic used to not be discussed at all because it was forbidden. My grandpa told me that he wants to make sure that Carmen’s story does live on and that I make sure that the whole family knows about how he made the ultimate sacrifice

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Buyer, S. (n.d.). Ultimate sacrifice quotes. BrainyQuote. Retrieved December 7, 2022, from https://www.brainyquote.com/topics/ultimate-sacrifice-quotes

Rosenthal, J. (n.d.). Art-Net. Artnet.com. Retrieved December 7, 2022, from https://www.artnet.com/artists/joe-rosenthal/