Memorial Day in my Front Bedroom Office

by Tom Barnes, Staff Writer

It is 0730 in the morning on Memorial Day, 2009. It is cloudy, humid and already in the mid 70s in Alexandria, Virginia where I live. I sit here as a retired Coast Guard warrant officer and IU disabled veteran listening to the motorcycles roll down I-395 toward D.C. which is only minutes away. They are the rolling thunder guys with their MIA-POW flags flying from their bikes. On the wall to my left are 14 pictures of relatives who had served. Most were born and/or raised in the Philadelphia area. They are either dead or very old men now.

There is my father in his WWII Marine blues from right after boot camp. He eventually saw vicious fighting on Guadalcanal. There is Uncle Frank Viola who served as a radioman and navigator on a B-24 on antisubmarine duty out of Argentia, Newfoundland during that war. There is Uncle Jimmy Dougherty in his combat uniform after he landed at Anzio in the Italian Campaign.

There is my mother’s cousin, Charles Costello who was a paratrooper on D-Day. He is standing with his mother, my great Aunt Fran during the one time he was on leave in the war. There is Uncle Bud Barnes who got into the Army at the end of the war and was a medic with American troops in Germany at war’s end and during the occupation. These guys are all so young. I did not know them like that. 

There is a picture of Uncle Lynne from Tennessee. He married into the family. He was career Navy as early as 1929. He retired as a Master Chief Petty Officer sometime in the late 1950s. He served in World War II and Korea. I always liked him. There is Uncle Bill Barnes posing in his Army uniform near a fighting hole he had dug in the Korean War period.

There is even one valued picture of my grandmother’s brother, Jim Shea, in his Army uniform posing in front of a farmer’s carriage in Word War One France with his Army uniform on as the Corporal of the Guard that day. He is wearing his side arm. I never met him. He died before I was born. My pictures are also there hanging on the wall. I am pictured as a young Coastguardsman in my cracker jacks. I look like something out of the 19th Century somehow with that peculiar Coast Guard cap that looks like it was made for Donald Duck.

My cousin Rick Hebert served in the Army during Viet Nam but I have no picture of that. I am not sure that anyone does. My son in law served with the Army Rangers in Afghanistan. In the back bedroom where I sleep are three certificates that my grandfather’s great uncle, Tom Barnes, recieved as a Union Army veteran during the Civil War.

There on the wall hang his certificates of advancement to Corporal and Sergeant and his discharge from the Grand Army of the Republic. He was severely wounded twice during that war. His wounds never properly healed and he was in pain until he died in 1925. I am told that he constantly complained that the government was cheating him out of disability pension money that he had earned. I believe it. Go figure.

Today will be a day of speeches all over the country about war time veterans, especially those wounded and killed in combat. These pictures show a few of my relatives who have served in combat for this country. A lot of these men are dead now and the ones who are not never talk about their wartime experiences. I get that andI respect it.

I knew them as slightly older men after their wartime duties and as old and dying men many years later. They all had grit although they were all different from one another. And they were tied together in one American family.

I just want to say one thing to these men, and all men and women, who served in uniform and were killed or wounded whether physically or mentally.

Thank you.

CWO3 Tom Barnes, USCG (Ret.)

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