Remembering Sonny on Memorial Day

Sonny was all I ever heard him called, though officially he was George Gilpin, Jr., son of my Great Uncle George. I never met him as he died two years before I was born, but my mother, aunt,  and cousin Ruth used to talk about him a lot, recalling stories of when my mother went to Atlantic City to babysit for him and his sister Alice and the times they enjoyed at the beach. But mostly what they talked about was how First Lieutenant George Gilpin, Jr. was killed, shot down over Africa in World War II. 

As a child I didn’t fully comprehend the grief that they shared. They talked about a lot of other relatives I had never met. They were just names to me then. It wasn’t until I started working on my family tree that I began to understand who he was and the tragedy of his story. 

First I found the pictures of the boy they had known: the laughing boy lifted high as he played

at the beach, the young fisherman standing at attention presaging what was to come not ten years later. Here was a real flesh and blood person who was loved and lovable. Here was a happy boy who became a serious and patriotic man who enlisted in the Army at 19 a month before Pearl Harbor. 

I imagine Uncle George and Aunt Olga were apprehensive as their only son enlisted, but I can't imagine their unbearable grief when they received the awful news about his death--painful news that spread throughout the family.

I had never asked where Sonny was buried, just imagining he was buried in Atlantic City. Then one day as I was perusing military records, I found not only a record of his burial but a picture of his grave. 

There was  his memorial, just one white cross in row upon row of crosses in Africa American Cemetery in Carthage, Tunisia. He had never made it home. Not only had Sonny and his tragedy become real to me, but then I thought of all the other families who had received the same unbearable news. All those young souls, full of life, silenced too soon. 

So on this weekend when we lift up all those who have given their lives, I remember Sonny and all the others, like college friends who were killed in  Vietnam, and so many others gone too soon.