Written by State Senator Roy Herron
Dad got to England in July of 1944. Soon after he landed, he was on a landing craft headed for Normandy. As they crossed the English Channel, over the loudspeaker came the familiar voice of Roy Acuff singing, “The Great Speckled Bird.”
Years later, Dad would remember that no son of the South, and few from anywhere else, had dry eyes as Acuff sang that Grand Ole Opry favorite and their thoughts returned to home.
They hit Omaha Beach and before long were fighting in the hedgerows. A few days into combat, Dad was wounded, but it could have been much worse. For thousands, it was. So on he fought with his buddies, all part of the Ninth Infantry that famed war correspondent Ernie Pyle once called “a beautiful machine.”
Did the soldiers always know what they fought for? For some, the words “freedom” and “home” were enough. Historian Stephen Ambrose in his Citizen Soldiers reports a soldier who, upon discovering the horrors behind the gates of a concentration camp, said, “Now I know why I am here.”
By September, almost none of the original men of Dad’s company, the men he started across France with, were still with him. Then his turn came. The Nazi mortar nearly took his life. The wounds and soon the infections that raged in his shrapnel-riddled legs then almost killed him. Finally, after nearly a year in hospitals in England the United States, he came home to Tennessee.
That was more six decades ago, yet for many families, the story is familiar. With wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, Americans continue to hear stories of loved ones and neighbors serving as citizen soldiers with unthinkable courage and suffering tragedy unimaginable.
I think of my Weakley County neighbor, Billy Laird, whose soldier son Dustin died in Iraq. I think of another Weakley Countian, my friend Mike Morel, whose son, Marine Captain Brent Morel, also died in Iraq. I think of my friend Steve McConnell, an Army vet, who last year helped saved my mother’s life in a hospital intensive care unit. His son, Daniel, a helicopter pilot, was terribly injured and even lost an arm on a mission in Afghanistan.
We remember those who are gone and those who have suffered so, not only for their sake but also for our own.
President Abraham Lincoln said, “Any nation that does not honor its heroes will not long endure.” This Memorial Day, may we remember our American heroes. May we honor their sacrifice. And as we remember them, may we be inspired to follow their leadership and continue their legacy of patriotic service.
Your friend,
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| Roy |
About Roy Herron
Small-town attorney and Christian author Roy Herron is the Tennessee State Senator for District 24 (Benton, Decatur, Henry, Henderson, Lake, Obion, Perry, Stewart, and Weakley Counties).
As a part-time citizen legislator, Herron has fought predatory lenders, passed laws that are tough on criminals, and wrote and passed the Crime Victims’ Bill of Rights. In addition to God and Politics, Herron is the author of Things Held Dear: Soul Stories for My Sons and Tennessee Political Humor: Some of These Jokes You Voted For (with L.H. “Cotton” Ivy).
He and his wife of 23 years, Nancy, live in Dresden Tennessee and have three sons.
