Thanks to those with courage – from someone without it

Veterans Day is a holiday honoring people of courage – and I’m sorry to say I’m not one of them. Courage is just not the word anyone would use to describe someone who’s had a lifelong terror of the world’s most harmless spider – granddaddy longlegs. (I do have a relative who’s afraid of butterflies, which seems even more ridiculous, but she’s fearless about nearly everything else in life, so that pretty much overrides the butterfly thing.)

My failure at being physically fearless is why, on Veterans Day and every day, I’m in awe of those men and women throughout America’s history who have stepped into harm’s way to stand strong between me and those who would do wienies like me harm. I’m grateful to each of you who has worn that uniform with Old Glory on the sleeve. Whatever you did in service to our country, whether it was combat or office work, it’s more than I did. Your courage inspires me.

It’s unusual in my family for someone to lack courage. I descend from several lines of ancestors who served in the American Revolution. At least one of them even fought for America before it was America. His account of being captured during the French and Indian War was published in the London Chronicle on July 28, 1757. 

That ancestor’s son fought in the Revolutionary War, and his son fought in the War of 1812.

In the next generation, my great-great-grandfather, Elisha Luna, volunteered in May 1846 to fight in America’s war with Mexico, leaving behind his wife, Eliza, and their six children so he could serve in Gen. Zachary Taylor’s army. (And may I also say a big thank you to Eliza at this point and all the other “left-behind” military spouses and families throughout history for the incredible sacrifices they’ve faced.)

Elisha’s military pension file says his eyesight was damaged when he became “overheated” while unloading a ship in Camargo, Mexico, in June 1846. He continued to serve until being discharged in April 1847, but the condition would lead to his eventual blindness. 

Nevertheless, 15 years later, Elisha, my illustrious and intrepid ancestor, apparently walked toward Springfield from the family’s home in Ozark County and tried to volunteer for the Union Army in 1862. Two of his and Eliza’s 16 children, sons John and James, had enlisted in Springfield two weeks earlier. 

It’s unclear why Elisha wasn’t with his sons when they enlisted, if it was his intention to enlist also. Maybe, when the boys left home, they had refused to take him along, insisting, “Pa, are you crazy? You’re nearly blind. You can’t enlist!” 

All we know is what is recorded in the Provost Marshal’s journal on Sept. 6, 1862, after Elisha was stopped by Union soldiers at the town of Ozark: “He is confident that he can establish a good record at Springfield where he [has] relatives,” wrote Lt. Isaac Dodge. “He is somewhat advanced in years [he was 44] and nearly blind yet he walked 69 miles in two days. He is from Rockbridge, Ozark County, Mo.!”

The file notes, “Case dismissed and loyalty proven.”

A nearly blind man had the courage and determination to walk 69 miles in two days to fight in a war for the country he loved. Loyalty indeed!

Meanwhile, another Ozark County ancestor, my great-grandfather Perry Henson Martin – known as “Grandpap” in our family – served with the Union cavalry during the Civil War. He served during the last year and a half of the war, and he was so proud of his service that, before he died 76 years later in 1941 at age 95, he directed that his military record be engraved on his headstone at Pontiac Cemetery: “Co. B, 16 Reg., U.S. Cavalry, Jan. 13, 1864, until July 1, 1865.”

Grandpap would have just turned 18 when he rode off with the cavalry. Maybe he was hoping to avenge the death of one of his brothers, who had been murdered by bushwhackers.  

Another grave in another cemetery marks the final resting spot of another beloved relative, my dad’s brother, Audie Luna, who died in the Philippines on March 20, 1945, after being wounded three days earlier. He was 27.

Isabella native Virgil Garrison, Uncle Audie’s friend, had left Ozark County with him in June 1941 after they were drafted; they served together throughout World War II in the Army’s 6th Infantry Division. After Audie’s death, Virgil described his friend in a letter written “Somewhere in the Philippines” that was published in the Ozark County Times on April 19, 1945: “Audie was a fine type of Ozark youth who have been called to service for our beloved country. He was brave, intelligent, friendly and patriotic. In his veins flowed the blood of many soldiers who have offered their lives as a living sacrifice for the cause of liberty since the days of the Revolutionary war. . . . He was a splendid specimen of the many Ozarkians whose deeds of heroism crown the battlefields in foreign lands.”

Many other relatives have served in uniform in the years since then. I look back at the generations of heroes in my family – and so many other Ozark County families – and feel humbled by the loyalty they felt, the courage they showed and the sacrifices they made. I can’t imagine myself facing the challenges they faced, the hardships they endured. Yet I am inspired, simply knowing that, in my veins flows “the blood of many soldiers who have offered their lives . . . since the days of the Revolutionary war.”

Happy Veterans Day to all who served. And thank you.