SAUCIER -- Not to mention

I will never forget where I first met my uncle, my mother’s brother Lester.

It was Plot D, Row 9, Grave 110 at the Manilla American Cemetery in the Philippines.

It was only a few years ago, in a far-away field of death, that this man who died before I was born came to life for me.

Growing up, I knew my mother had another brother, a couple of years older than she, who died in the war. But she never talked about him.

My grandfather, a stoic German, who had already lost his wife, was notified of his son’s death two years after the fact by telegram. I don’t ever recall him saying Lester’s name.

I didn’t know that my uncle had enlisted in the Army Air Forces before the war began, had become a sergeant, and had been awarded a Purple Heart.

All I knew was that my mother had a brother Lester, that he was in the Bataan Death March, and then he was no more.

I’ve found a few more facts. Lester was in the Battle of Bataan which raged for three months at the beginning of 1942. 

When the U.S. and Filipino forces surrendered to the Japanese on April 9, my uncle was one of 60,000 hungry and exhausted prisoners of war. The next day they began the forced march to Camp O’Donnell.

Lester survived the starvation, the thirst, wanton abuse, and indiscriminate executions of the trek. He endured a train ride, packed into a metal car in 110-degree heat.

Weeks after arriving at the camp, he died. We don’t know if it was from dysentery, dengue fever, or torture. We just know that he died on May 22, 1942, the day before my mother’s birthday.

Praying at his grave that day, I grieved for the Lester I did not know. How was he as a child? Did he laugh like my mother? What did he do with his friends? Was he a good brother?

Those were questions about the Lester that was, but what about the Lester that would never be because he died at 26?

What dreams did he have for the future? Was he in love or still looking for it? Would he have visited us, bringing cousins who would brag on their father? What did our world lack because of his death?

We call it Memorial Day, remembering the sacrifice they gave. But to truly honor them, we also need to recall what we have lost.