Larry Floersch
I had fully intended this column to be about a phenomenon called ‘Hobby Horsing.’ If you are not familiar with that “sport,” which started in Finland, adults who have a strong desire to be equestrians but are either terrified of large animals or do not have the funds necessary to buy and stable a horse, team up and perform elements of equestrian showmanship such as dressage and show jumping. They do this on hobby horses, similar to the ones from childhood consisting of a broomstick with a horse’s head, which they straddle and pretend to ride. So hobby horsing is mostly about choreography, although creatively building one’s own mount is part of the allure.
But then came Nov. 5, and my humor was upstaged by American voters handing the office of president to a person who at one of his rallies pretended to perform an act of oral sex with his microphone, for all the world to see. It is hard to beat slapstick humor like that, which is all about actions and not words.
November also contains another important day, Nov. 11, Veterans’ Day. In the past six months there have been two stories about veterans in the news that should be of interest to us all.
One story was about the village of Montebuono in Italy. Montebuono is a hill town about 30 miles north of Rome.
In January of 1944, as Allied forces were liberating Italy, American bombers hit a German train as it was crossing a bridge near the town of Orvieto. Unknown to the American airmen, the train contained American prisoners of war being shipped back to prison camps in Germany.
There were many casualties, but eight American soldiers escaped the train together and remained in hiding for about two months. They made their way to an abandoned hermitage near Montebuono. Although it was dangerous to do so, the people of Montebuono provided the men with food and water.
The Germans sent out units to round up prisoners who had escaped the bombing of the train, and on April 13, 1944, a Nazi police unit discovered the eight Americans, who by then had acquired civilian clothing, hiding in the hermitage. They murdered them on the spot. The bullet holes are still visible in the wall.
But that’s not the end of the story. Every year since then, for 80 years now, the people of Montebuono honor the memories of those eight soldiers. They have established a small park and erected plaques to commemorate the event. Each year at the hermitage the town band plays the Italian and American national anthems and “Taps,” and school children sing, learning from their elders the importance of those men to the village.
The second story appeared just a few days ago. It was a segment of the series “On the Road” by Steve Hartman of the CBS Evening News.
It was about a woman from Nebraska, Gerri Eisenhauer, whose father, William Walters, was a casualty in World War II. She was born after he had been deployed to Europe, so she never met him. Although his body was returned to the family in 1944, the official letter only said he had died somewhere in France. It did not say where or how. For 80 years she had wondered about the details.
Enter a French historian named Christophe Ligere from the village of Grez-sur-Loing in central France. After discovering the name of Pvt. William Walters in a diary of a man who witnessed Walters’ death, Ligere went to lengths to contact the Walters family, eventually sending a message to Eisenhauer that the village intended to honor Pvt. Walters as part of the 80th anniversary of the liberation of France.
Eisenhauer and her son and daughter traveled to Grez-sur-Loing in September. It was there she learned that as the American forces were liberating the town, a boat capsized as it was crossing the Loing River and Pvt. Walters went into the water. Although he was pulled out and resuscitation was attempted, it was not successful.
Resident Marc Perrot, who witnessed the event when he was 13, showed Eisenhauer and her family where the body of her father was laid by the villagers before it was collected by the U.S. Army and returned to the family in Nebraska.
In Hartman’s video, Eisenhauer said of the French villagers, “They covered him with flowers … It’s just amazing, the care that they gave him.”
Controversy remains about whether the person who will soon become commander in chief of our armed forces once said veterans were “suckers” and “losers.” The fact-check apps point to conflicting testimony of witnesses and cannot conclusively determine whether the story is true or false. But we do know for certain that person once said of Sen. John McCain he was a hero [only] because he was captured, and “I like people who weren’t captured.” That tends to make me doubt the sincerity of any statements he makes honoring veterans.
For the people of Montebuono, it does not matter that Robert C. Carnathan, Charles Dyda, Ben Espinosa, George W. Kerr, Robert J. Rankl, Woodrow W. Thomas, Clarence E. Moody, and Paul H. Valdez were prisoners of war. They were and remain heroes.
And to the villagers of Grez-sur-Loing, it did not matter that Pvt. Walters was the victim of accidental drowning and did not die heroically in combat. His death was symbolic of the sacrifice made by the young Americans of that generation to fight fascism and restore democracy. And ask nothing in return.
As Hartman wrote, these commemorations are held because people in Europe, even 80 years on, “still see the U.S. through the prism of our better angels.” Let us hope all Americans continue to use that same prism.
