Memorial Day weekend is often spent in celebration. We gather with family and friends to cook out, eat and drink and enjoy an extra day off.
Have you ever stopped to think about what we are celebrating?
A few years ago, I was with some of my husband’s family on Memorial Day. As we sat down to enjoy hamburgers and hot dogs, my sister-in-law turned to her oldest brother and thanked him for his service. As the rest of us at the table echoed her words, he politely corrected us.
“Veterans’ Day is when we honor those who served and came home,” he said. “Memorial Day is to remember those who didn’t.”
I was stunned. I knew Memorial Day was the day to remember those who had died in the line of duty, but it had somehow come to be a day to honor all who served.
For Memorial Day, I want to remember one who did not come home.
My dad was the middle of three boys. He and his younger brother fought in WW2. They both came home. They married and had children and lived long lives.
The oldest brother, Peter, Jr. did not join the military during World War 2, poor eyesight keeping him from qualifying for combat.
Yet, he served. A Chemical Engineer, he was hired by the Navy Research Lab and in June 1944. Working in the Philadelphia Naval Yard, he was part of the team researching the feasibility of nuclear energy for submarine propulsion. Results of their experiments were also used to help create the atomic bomb.
The plant’s only accident occurred on September 2, 1944. Three men were in the lab when a clogged tube exploded. Liquid uranium hexafluoride combined with steam to create hydrofluoric acid that showered down on them. The men inside suffered third-degree burns and inhaled large quantities of it. Two of them died in the lab. One was my dad’s older brother.
Their research work was classified, so details about what happened were locked away for years. I’m not sure my grandparents ever knew how their oldest child died. I recall my dad saying they had trouble getting his body returned so they could bury it.
Until 1993, there were no awards or acknowledgments of the sacrifice those two men made. Thanks to the efforts of the 3rd man in the room, the one who survived, the two men who died received the Navy Meritorious Civilian Service Award. It came 49 years after the accident.
Born 19 years later, I never met my Uncle Peter. I knew he died during World War 2, but my dad spoke little about his passing and I never knew what happened until the early 1990s.
I wonder what he was like. How was he similar to my dad and their youngest brother? How was he different? Did he have a love interest? What were his hopes once the war was over? What would his life have been like? What would mine have been with another uncle and more cousins?
Since Memorial Day is about honoring and remembering those who did not come back, I take this time to remember the uncle I never knew. His name won’t be on a wall listing or memorial and no one will study him in a history class. The event that caused his death is a mere footnote in the records. I write this essay in the hope that he, and others like him, is not forgotten.
