Loved and Were Loved by Herb Dorfman
Lenin the ruthless dictator of Communist Russia said “one death is a tragedy, one million deaths is a statistic.” As horrible as that sounds, unfortunately, it is the way many of us view history today.
58,000 Americans die in Viet Nam 54,000 Americans die in Korea 292,000 Americans die in World War II 3,000 and counting Americans die in Iraq
…and for many these are nothing more than statistics. But statistics. But statistics impersonalize death, it sanitizes it, it demeans it. For statistics do honor courage, commitment, sacrifice and human emotions.
During the Viet Nam war I witnessed on television each night the fighting in the rice paddies, and the flag draped coffins being brought back home. 58,000 Americans lose their lives in a country I had hardly ever heard about, would have trouble finding on a map, and the number lost and wounded became mostly a statistics.
Until one morning my wife and I stood by the Viet Nam Memorial in our nation’s capital. Where we were overcome with emotion as we watched mothers, wives, husbands, sons and fellow combatants, some with eyes closed, most with tears streaming down their cheeks, touch the engraved names of the ones they loved. At that moment 58,000 lives lost was no longer a statistic, it became forever a memory of men and women, who loved, and were loved and now were gone. We would experience that same emotion years later as we stood among the 7,000 white crosses and stars of David in the U.S. Military Cemetery in Normandy, France. It was then that the meaning of 292,000 American deaths in World War II was no longer a statistic, for each of them loved and was loved and now were gone.
Because Memorial Day must be more than just remembering numbers and battlefield names, I want to tell you about an individual from our area. His name is Arthur Hughes and he flew B-29 bombers in the South Pacific in the early days of World War II. He was the first member of the Westside Presbyterian Church in Ridgewood to give his life in this conflict. That church would give seven more of its sons and daughters before the war ended.
Arthur Hughes father was the Pastor of the Westside Church and the Sunday following the death of his son his sermon topic was “The Triumph of Life” and the good that must come from the evil of that horrible war. The entire congregation wept with him and for him.
Arthur Hughes was not a statistic…for he loved and was loved, and now he was gone.
And now each of us must take the memory of Arthur and all the others who have sacrificed for us and hold those memories high until America becomes in reality the dream on which this great nation was founded.
