You Are Not Forgotten Read online

  The last time Ryan had visited his father and his new family in North Carolina was in the spring of 1941, when he was working on a crew surveying the runways for the U.S. Engineering Department in Florence, South Carolina. Ryan wired his father on a Friday night and after knocking off from work at noon the next day took a Greyhound bus north—though not before phoning Ma and sending her a corsage of yellow roses. Ryan senior and Sarah met him at the bus station in Spartanburg and accompanied him the rest of the way to Tryon, a small country town just across the border in North Carolina. Sarah fixed her stepson some beans and eggs before he “slept like a log through a deliciously cool night,” as Ryan recorded after that rare visit. Early the next morning Dad took him upstairs to see Vance, who was in bed with the mumps but “was doing some pretty nice work in airplanes and stuff in modeling clay.” On that last visit to Tryon, Ryan had also had a chance to see his grandfather and Maybelle, Ryan senior’s parents, and to meet some of Sarah’s family. But as always, he had little time just with Dad. He noted wryly after that visit that his stepmother “refuses with a bulldog tenacity to leave me alone with Dad.”

  But now, with Dad’s surprise visit to Quantico—he was checking on some business interests in Washington—it was just the two of them. Ryan showed him the base, and then they drove to Washington for an oyster roast at the home of Ryan’s uncle Moultrie McCown, where to Ryan’s surprise Dad gave him two hundred dollars—in case, he was told, he was thinking of buying a ring for that girl he was dating.

  A few days later, as Ryan waited impatiently at Quantico for word of his next assignment, he received a telegram from Georgia that lifted his spirits even further. His sister Claudia had given birth to a daughter, and they named her after Ma—Grace Emilie Almeida. The whole gang, he was told, was planning to spend Christmas in Charleston, and he vowed he would make it, too.

  Ryan had hardly seen his dear Claudie, as he affectionately called his youngest sister. The last time she had burst into tears at the sight of him walking through Ma’s front door. It still bothered him that he had missed her wedding when his leave was abruptly canceled after Pearl Harbor.

  Ryan and Claudie enjoyed a sibling kinship that Ryan and Uranie, who was only two years younger than he, didn’t quite share. Partly it was because Ryan was the big brother and Claudia was the baby. But they were also the most outgoing personalities in the family. Both had a gift for humorous banter and were equally quick-witted and adept at making a sarcastic crack at just the right moment in a conversation. They were compatriots in other ways. When they were younger, Claudia liked to wrestle her brother in the yard, proving to be a tenacious and determined foe, despite her physical disadvantage. When Ryan earned his pilot’s license, Claudia was one of his first passengers as he carried her above their house and out over the marshes of Lagare Island. Claudia had also been a smash hit with Ryan’s friends at Georgia Tech when she came for the big football weekend against Auburn in the fall of 1940—especially the evening she went out on campus wearing tight-fitting riding trousers cuffed snugly at the ankle, “looking adorable in her jodhpurs,” as Ryan recorded at the time. They also had similar tastes. Both craved the tangy and sour limeade at Walgreens and on a whim were known to go in search of a midnight steak. They naturally confided in each other about their romances, their dreams, and often stayed up late talking after Ma and Uranie went to sleep. Claudia had introduced Ryan to some of her friends, including Helen, but he was the protective older brother when it came to Claudia’s boyfriends. Before Claudia met her husband, Leonard, an Army officer, Ryan had been wary of most of them; once, upon hearing that one of her relationships was on the rocks, he remarked that it was the “best news I ever heard.” Ryan wrote his youngest sister long letters and relished her replies, including the lengthy one he recently received at Quantico that he deemed “a masterpiece of good literature.”

  In late December 1942 he arrived at the squadron to learn that his name was on the promotion list for first lieutenant. He was also informed by the commander of the air station that he was “being detached.” He was being transferred, finally. After New Year’s he would be leaving Quantico for Cherry Point, North Carolina, to be the communications officer of the Third Marine Aircraft Wing, a combat unit.

  In preparation, the base commander, Colonel I. W. Miller, reviewed his performance during the eight months he had been at Quantico. Ryan was rated in a series of categories, including physical fitness, military bearing, attention to duty, initiative, intelligence, judgment, resolve, leadership, and loyalty. On all counts he was found to be “excellent.” As for whether he would want Ryan under his command in battle, Colonel Miller wrote that he would “particularly desire to have him”—the highest rating. Ryan, Colonel Miller concluded, was an “excellent officer who is very much interested in his work.”

  Just before Christmas, Ryan finally got word from headquarters that he could leave for Charleston. Because Christmas was a Friday, he was told he had to be back on base for duty first thing Sunday morning. He was also granted permission to take one of the SNJ-2s, the two-seater training planes. But throughout the day the weather looked nastier and nastier. Winter storms stretched nearly all the way down the Eastern Seaboard to Atlanta. While waiting for the all clear, he bided his time sitting around the squadron watching the gloomy sky or back in his quarters, where he lay on his bed with a copy of A Shropshire Lad, the collection of rhythmic poems by A. E. Housman, the nineteenth-century British poet. It was a recent gift from one of the Quantico nurses who had been a steady competitor on the tennis courts down in the Hollow.

  The poems were almost all obsessed with death:

  Say, lad, have you things to do?

  Quick then, while your day’s at prime.

  Quick, and if ‘tis work for two,

  Here am I, man: now’s your time.

  Send me now, and I shall go;

  Call me, I shall hear you call;

  Use me ere they lay me low

  Where a man’s no use at all;

  Ere the wholesome flesh decay,

  And the willing nerve be numb,

  And the lips lack breath to say,

  “No, my lad, I cannot come.”

  Finally, at 3:30 p.m. on Christmas Eve, Ryan shoved off for Charleston. He set down a few hours later at the Charleston Army Airfield and scrambled into town.

  Everyone was eagerly awaiting his arrival at Ma’s, where he got to meet his niece, Grace Emilie, and sat for hours on the front porch catching up with her parents, Claudia and Leonard. When they left for midnight Mass, Ryan stayed behind and visited with Ma and Uranie. It was a splendid evening all around, and by the time Ryan crawled into his bed in the back bedroom, it was just a few hours before sunup.

  “Having mother close by” felt especially meaningful, he thought, as she was recuperating from what the doctors called her “cerebral accident” during the summer, a mini stroke that had prevented her from working. Ryan didn’t know when he might be able to get back to Charleston.

  Christmas Day dawned like spring. After only a few hours of sleep Ryan was up early. There were a lot of people he wanted to see, and he only had one full day before he was due to head back to Quantico. First he was off to call on Helen, who was spending the holiday at home with her family. Ryan promised to keep in touch with her and let her know where he was. Helen couldn’t help but feel as if he were just saying that to make her feel better. They had talked on one of his last visits about getting married, but she said she wanted to wait until he got back. The future was just too uncertain. A lot of boys flying over Japan weren’t coming back, Helen knew. Besides, she also thought, it wouldn’t be fair to Grace, who should get his military allowance while he was gone. She would still be here when he returned, she assured him.

  PART TWO

  The fates lead him who will; him who won’t they drag.

  Lucius Annaeus Seneca

  CHAPTER THREE

  HEEDING THE CALL

  At 2:00 on the aftern
oon of April 26, 1997, under the shade of sturdy southern magnolias and red maple trees, George straightened the creases in his uniform, squared his shoulders, and faced forward, chin up. He was now a “distinguished military graduate” of the Seminole Battalion of the U.S. Army Reserve Officers’ Training Corps. Like his father a generation before, he stood at attention on the Natural Bridge Battlefield near Woodville, Florida, where he was about to be commissioned an officer in the U.S. Army.

  George was lined up in formation with his fellow cadets before a monument topped with a bald eagle taking flight. On the granite were engraved just three words, “Lest We Forget.” He glowed with a sense of achievement and had a look of determination in his slate-blue eyes as he raised his right hand and repeated the age-old oath uttered by so many of his ancestors. In a steady voice, with a hint of a southern twang that could only be called career Army, he recited the words slowly and clearly, his words carrying over the stillness of the park, where a bloody battle had been fought in the waning days of the Civil War.

  “I, George Senseny Eyster V, do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: So help me God.”

  Standing by his side were his proud parents, his father dressed in one of his old Army uniforms and a maroon beret, his mother in red. Along with his girlfriend, Vivian, also there to help pin on his epaulets was a beaming Grandma Harriet, looking as regal as ever in a black patterned skirt and matching coat.

  His father had decided many years earlier that he would not pressure his only son to become an Army officer and would let him choose his own path. He understood that the pressure to become a soldier was strong enough without an overbearing father insisting on it. But when George belatedly decided to apply for an ROTC scholarship after transferring from Towson to Florida State, Big George could barely hide his excitement. In a Christmas message to his old Army brethren in 1995, he burst with pride recounting George’s accomplishments since joining the ROTC.

  “George was recognized as the outstanding cadet in his platoon,” he bragged. “No sooner did he get home than he was offered the chance to go to Airborne School. It was a great experience for him and brought back fond memories for me as I was able to watch his final jump and present him with his ‘blood’ wings.”

  He took pleasure in relating George’s apparent determination to stand out. “I thought I had him convinced that flying was better than walking,” Big George wrote, “but he seems determined to become a grunt and eventually wants to go into the Special Forces.”

  Upon his commission as a second lieutenant, George soon found himself braving the stifling Georgia summer at the Infantry Basic Officer Leadership Course at Fort Benning, where he was learning the nuts and bolts of leading a platoon of soldiers. After a week of exercises defending against a larger opposing force of soldiers and armored vehicles, he took a few minutes to write an e-mail to his father.

  “It was the toughest field problem we’ve had so far,” he wrote. “It was about 100 degrees the first couple of days.… We dug fighting positions for two days. We also patrolled all night” looking for enemy troops in tanks and other heavy combat vehicles. “We set anti-armor ambushes along the roads and patrolled the forested areas of our sector. I really learned a lot about communications and the info flow between the platoon and the company. I also got a lot of practice calling for fire.

  His unit’s two Bradley Fighting Vehicles weren’t much competition for the opposing force, which had sixteen armored vehicles and tanks. “In the end,” he continued, “we got plowed.… They rolled our flank and pushed through us like butter.”

  George was learning some of the downsides of being an infantry officer humping it in the field, he told his father. “I came out of the field problem with a bad case of poison ivy,” he related. “I’ve got it on my ears and my left eye … it swelled my eye shut on Wednesday morning, but there ain’t much you can do for it except scratch so I wouldn’t let them take me to the rear.”

  He was also getting a crash course in how dangerous his chosen line of work could be. One of the other new officers in the course was trying to clear an antitank weapon when the explosive charge went off while he was holding it over his groin. “It fried his testicles and other parts off,” George wrote, sparing no details. “He has third degree burns from his balls to his knees.… He’s probably done.

  “I’m just starting to see how dangerous everyday ops can be,” he told Big George. “You can get killed just as fast in training as you can in battle.”

  He closed by saying he was looking forward to visiting in a few weeks and attending the Florida State–Maryland football game with his father.

  “Three things keep me going in the field. You and Mom, Vivi, and the upcoming football season!”

  He signed the e-mail “George #5.”

  Big George received a letter from George’s commander at Fort Benning in late September that made him even prouder. He was informed that George’s performance in infantry officer training made him eligible for the commandant’s list, recognizing the top 20 percent of each graduating class.

  “Your son has been both physically and mentally challenged during the past 16 weeks and has met every challenge with a high degree of professionalism and confidence,” the letter stated. “He has proven that he is a true leader among his contemporaries, and that he is ready to accept the highest trust that this country can bestow upon him, that of leading American soldiers.”

  But even with their new bond, George still found it difficult to connect with his father. Dad had always been reluctant to talk about what it was like to be the son of a dead war hero, and he rarely spoke of his emotions. He had a tough exterior difficult to pierce. The only time George could remember seeing his father cry was when he returned from the Persian Gulf War to learn that their dog Schotzy had died. Conversations between father and son were a bit too professional, especially now since they often reverted to soldier talk and how George’s experiences were similar to Dad’s when he was coming up the ranks.

  Still, little gestures from Big George let him know how pleased he was, like making the long drive to watch him complete Airborne School at Fort Bragg. George desperately wanted to find a way to reach him, to thank him for the example he provided and for helping steer him off the wrong path he had been heading down in high school and college.

  For his father’s birthday, George penned a poem. He titled it “The Once and Future Soldier.”

  Old soldiers never die,

  They just fade away up into the sky;

  An old soldier will remember the day

  When his old soldier passed away

  And too he’ll recall the day

  When his future soldier began to play.

  There in his mind’s eye he vividly replays,

  The first of all his past days.

  The times, the places,

  The names, the faces.

  Rucker, Carson, Aberdeen and Bragg,

  Grenada, Panama, Iraq and D.C.,

  Always duty, to defend the free.

  And in his time,

  He was the best of the best,

  Never afraid to take on the test.

  But perhaps his trial greatest in life,

  Ladened with endless more strife,

  Wasn’t fought to the tune of the fife.

  He raised a son, and called him the same,

  He gave him his love,

  His guidance and name.

  And as the next chapter is penned and weighed,

  He has wrought a man,

  Who is proud to say,

  “In the old soldier, I have seen what is best,

  Give me the guidon,

  I will stand the test.”

&n
bsp; And in all the days that come to me,

  I will remember the soldier, in all I see.

  In the country I protect,

  And the place I defend,

  The once and future has come again.

  The next stop in the Army would prove to be George’s biggest test yet. He returned to Fort Benning, Georgia, in the fall of 1997, where he had been selected to attend the Army’s elite Ranger School. Like his father and grandfather before him, he was committed to earning the coveted “Black and Gold” tab of an Army Ranger. Big George dropped him off at the Ranger Training Brigade like everyone else selected for the program—with his military and medical records in hand and no rank or insignia on his uniform.

  Politely called a “handshake with reality,” Ranger School is designed to mold the Army’s best soldiers into resolute and highly skilled combat leaders by exposing them to unrelenting physical and psychological pressures like those experienced in close combat. The Rangers traced their roots to before the American Revolution and the New Hampshire Regimental Rangers, a militia unit whose men, armed with their own muskets, wore deerskin frocks that came down around their knees to help them blend into the forest. Now, to join the exclusive fraternity, those good enough to be selected had to brave nine weeks of intensive field training in the backwoods of Georgia and the swamps of the Florida Panhandle.