There is no greater love than that a man should lay down his life for his friends. The Congressional Medal of Honor winners all did this, of course, but they seem to be unanimous in saying that they did not think about it, they just did it because it needed doing. That is love! Love is selfless and unrationed, it surges in waves, causing men to throw themselves on grenades to save their comrades. That unpremeditation and the downright simplicity of the telling of their stories by the Congressional Medal of Honor winners affected me deeply.
About two years ago I had the most moving experience of my life, and that is not hyperbole. I lose composure just bringing it to memory. I shall try to describe it plainly.
Vancouver, WA holds a General George C. Marshall Lecture Series and Public Leadership Award yearly to honor a great American who served in the spirit of General of the Army George C. Marshall (not, BTW, one of my favorite characters, but that is beside the point). General Marshall commanded Vancouver Barracks at one time.
In 2001 Senator Inouye was the Marshall Lecturer and Public Leadership Award recipient. In my capacity as USMA Admissions Coordinator for Washington State I had before the event made the acquaintance of the Mayor of Vancouver through one of his chief assistants who was then an administrator at the Barracks for the City. We held an admissions info meeting on the same day as the award and the Mayor invited me and our then-USMA Admissions Officer to join the group welcoming Senator Inouye at a private reception.
Senator Inouye is a member of the most decorated combat unit in the history of the United States Army, the 442nd Regimental Combat Team (and here)
He won a Silver Star in Italy that was later upgraded to a Congressional Medal of Honor.
So at the reception were Senator Inouye, the Mayor, about five Congressional Medal of Honor winners besides Senator Inouye and perhaps 20 Veterans of the 442nd RCT and their families. Just walking into the room, Grant House at the Barracks, and seeing the Veterans and their spouses and families, all 1930s vintage Japanese Americans — very short — struck me, unexpectedly, with a depth of honor and humanity that cannot be expressed. The power of it cannot even be felt without one being overwhelmed with its grandeur. I felt this immediately. I had never before nor not since had such an overwhelming experience of glory. It is too much for me even to try to talk about. I just felt it on seeing those people and feeling their life. Senator Inouye greeted me and shook my hand as he went around the room slowly and with infinite grace and sweetness greeting his comrades in arms and we who were simply marveling at our fortune in being with these men.
After the reception we all loaded in buses and traveled to the high school where the Marshall Ceremony and Award would be made.
The front area of the audience section was for VIPs and included Senator Inouye’s comrades and their families, city and community officials and yours truly.
The Mayor called the gathering to order and made the customary introductory remarks and introductions. Then he began to introduce Senator Inouye. As he finished the final flourish, Senator Inouye approached the podium slowly — he is a man of great bearing — and as he did so, the audience clapped a warm welcome. Then, as the Mayor was leaving the podium with Senator Inouye now at it, the 442nd soldiers started standing up and clapping, not all together, but all with the same thought so that within probably 10 seconds, all of them present — and many were of such advanced age that they could not stand easily or rapidly — were on their feet, clapping.
There was an electric pulse that rushed through the whole audience. Even without seeing the Veterans standing up, everyone present — a thousand or more — felt something indescribably powerful. I was sitting amongst them and say downrightly that the presence of God Himself could not have brought more power into that room — and still allowed us to live — than these “old soldiers” did with the sheer greatness of their character.
The rest of the audience — as I say, many without even seeing the cause of it all — lept to their feet and started cheering as well as clapping. loudly. The cheering and clapping went on … and it went on … and it went on … and finally, after I am sure no less than 3 minutes — and by this time everyone was aware of the Veterans who had set this spiritual conflagration off and was now cheering them rather than Senator Inouye — it was clear that the cheering would go on because the heart-felt thanks to the Veterans just could not be stopped. We were in tears. Senator Inouye was in tears. There was no rationality in what was happening. It was pure heart, pure gratitude, pure love flowing without restriction to those Veterans and between them and their comrade at the podium. Waves of soaring emotion washed over me, uncontrolled. I began to swoon and had to grab the back of the chair in front of me, so overwhelmed was I with the surging majesty of the moment.
I could see the Veterans began to be embarrassed that this was taking too long and they did not intend to become a focus of attention, no matter how loving. The question was mounting in the room, how to stop this graciously without profanizing the moment? It would have been obscene for Senator Inouye or the Mayor to ask for quiet and both knew that. The moment had to be let alone and allowed to develop as it would. It was transcendent and everyone present knew that it was and wanted to soak in it.
The Veterans realized — I could hear their thoughts — that they could stop it by simply sitting down. And that is just what they did. Again, not coordinated, just the power of their community of minds and hearts and experiences and lives … and so they sat down. Gradually then, with no profanation, the rest of us stopped clapping or clapping and cheering and sat down.
Senator Inouye did not even try to reference the moment as he started his address. He just started it and the ceremony went on as planned. It was a beautiful ceremony and a great address by Senator Inouye.
I was grateful to be able to participate in this intensely private moment of friends, men, soldiers who wear the most decorations of any unit ever of the United States Army. To be raised above oneself by the glory and honor of those men … Lord what a blessing!
And that is your friend’s story. I will say frankly, also, what you may already have seen, that, like General MacArthur, I am very fond of Japanese and ethnic Japanese. I know they are no better nor less than any other human stock, but they charm me more than most do. They have better manners, by and large, than others do and they are, absolutely, without question, the world’s most elegant dressers. In my bleak days driving the lame, lazy and crazy to places they don’t need to go and often should not go, the Japanese American school girls and mothers with their bell-toned “Hi-eee” keep me sane. 🙂 So, all of that is nothing important, just personal, but it certainly conduced to intensify, almost to the point of blissful unconsciousness, my experience that day with Senator Inouye and his comrades of the 442nd RCT.
AMDG
