On Veterans Day we take a special moment to honor the service of our military veterans. Thank you for the sacrifice and service those who have served in our military have made for our nation.
One of my strongest impressions of military veterans is the particular human nature of military service. The responsibility to others, professional demands, personal budgets, and relationships with family and other loved ones all balanced, sometimes precariously, on a notion of service to others. It strikes me as an intensely human thing.
Falls Church City Mayor Robin Gardner is the grand-niece of Franklin E. Sigler. Her Uncle Frank was awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions at the battle of Iwo Jima in World War II (see his citation here).
My family consists of its share of military veterans, US Marines, and general Irish-Prussian story tellers who seem to take particular pleasure in family stories and ancestral memes. Nearly two hundred years have passed, but our family dinners still often degenerate into tipsy recounting of the heroics of Sgt. John Gardiner, my fourth great-grandfather, who served nineteen years in the famed Irish Inniskilling 27th Foot Regiment of the British Army - including playing a pivitol role in the Battle of Waterloo.
The low key response of the Sigler family to the enormous honor bestowed on Frank Sigler has always impressed me. The family is proud, and some members attend annual commorations of the battle and keep up with Medal of Honor organizations, but they always relate personal stories of Frank rather than recount battle heroics or military achievements.
I met Frank's mother Elsie Sigler in 1990 (she lived to be 104 and was an older doppleganger for Mayor Gardner). She was proud of all her children, and casually told a story about how she had sold the rights to Frank's story for $1.00 when Paramount Studios was making the Sands of Iwo Jima. Or Frank's brother who told a quick story about when, after the war while Frank was recuperating from his wounds and helping to build golf courses in Arizona, he was resting on a shovel and another worker remarked that if Frank had ever served in the military he would know better than to be a shovel leaner ... and how Frank laughed off the remark without correction.
When Frank died in 1995 I attended his funeral at Arlington Cemetery. A cold clear January day on a hill with caissons and full military honors. Frank's grandson was a Marine recruit and attended the funeral with other young Marines. The older Marines quietly instructing the younger ones on funeral protocol. Arlington buried Frank close to the grave of another brother who died in Europe during World War II. I remember the reaction of the surviving brothers and sister who last saw their brother when he was deployed at the beginning of the war, and them suddenly realizing during the funeral, some fifty years later, that Arlington had laid the brothers nearly side-by-side.
For me, the most startling moment of that day was when a group of six or so grim faced old men standing next to me suddenly opened their overcoats to reveal their Medal of Honor. A group of Medal of Honor awardees standing together is a damn powerful thing.
Getting a haircut in a barber shop in Sparta New Jersey earlier this year I was immediately pegged as an outsider. The friendly (in that loving in your face New Jersey sort of way) barber finally got me to say I was in town visiting my in-laws the Sigler family. It turns out the barber shop was Frank's old barber shop. Tons of stories of how Frank used to race through the town and "borrow" everyone's lawn mower to "test it out." Only to return them a bit grungier and low on gas. What a great guy he was. How lucky I am to be married into a terrific family. Hey, come meet my dad who was Frank's best friend and barber for years. Dad, tell him about all the crazy things you and Frank used to do. Did you know he won a medal in the war? The Siglers are a great family. Be sure to come back when you're back in town.
A few weeks ago we had a chance to have a family dinner with Sigler relatives. Frank's sister and daughters were in town for a Marine Corp event honoring the Battle of Iwo Jima. It was funny to hear them recount how some poor historian was put on a stage at Quantico to relate the history of the battle of Iwo Jima ... to an audience which included many actual (now elderly) veterans of the battle. Tough crowd. They apparently took much pleasure in correcting the vaunted historian on details of the battle. Repeatedly.
At the dinner there was no in-depth discussion of Frank's service; although his daughter did correct me when I mistakenly remarked about Frank "winning" the Medal of Honor. She quietly, earnestly, pointed out no one "wins" the Medal of Honor ... it is awarded or bestowed, and almost always posthumously.
In preparing to write this post, I spoke with Robin about remembrances of her Uncle Frank. What she related was all personal ... how her Uncle Frank drove a big blue station wagon through town, never discussed the war with her, came off "a little gruff" in his demeanor, walked with a slight limp, going to visit his house in New Jersey with its dark wood interior, and the difficulties of keeping ties with relatives across generations and the normal family miasma which effects us all.
Service is, indeed, an intensely human thing.
