Wyatt Eisenhauer |
Strawberries are ready for picking in mid-May in Southern Illinois. So when a U.S. Army car pulled up to the small gray house in downstate Pinckneyville almost exactly nine years ago, Gay and Fred Eisenhauer had dozens of people in their strawberry patch: workers filling orders and drivers who stopped to pick their own at 45 cents a pound.
The two soldiers walked to the front door, where they were met by great-niece Raygan, 6, who told them that Aunt Gay had said that anybody trying to come in the front door should be told to go around to the side. The worry: muddy boots.
So the pair went to the side door and knocked again.
“When I seen who they were,” Gay Eisenhauer remembers, “I said, ‘Raygan, go get Uncle Fred at the strawberry shed.’ ”
Together, they heard the worst news that a parent can hear.
“Are you father of Cavalry Scout Wyatt D. Eisenhauer?” Fred was asked when he arrived. He said he was. “We are sorry to inform you that on May 19...”
Their 26-year-old son, a private first class who hadn’t been in the Army a year, had been driving a Humvee in Iraq when the vehicle hit an improvised explosive device. The two soldiers with Wyatt would remember only a flash and then waking up in a hospital in Germany. Wyatt didn’t make it.
How does a mother react to such news?
“In all honesty, it felt like an out-of-body experience,” Gay Eisenhauer says. “I was just floating up over everyone looking down. It wasn’t real.”
Gay’s next thought was of Wyatt’s older sister.
Rebecca Anderson lives a mile from her parents, across corn fields and a dirt road. She had just been picking at the strawberry patch but had gone home.
Her husband walked in, looking sick, pale.
“What are you doing home in the middle of the day?” she asked him. “Did you get fired? What happened?”
“Wyatt’s dead,” he said.
Rebecca Anderson started screaming at her husband “It’s nothing to joke about!” she cried, hitting him. “It’s nothing to joke about!”
Wyatt D. Eisenhauer was one of 3,527 American servicemen and women killed in the Iraq war, one of the approximately 840,000 Americans who have died fighting for this country since the Revolutionary War.
On Memorial Day, we are supposed to remember their enormous sacrifice and the loss felt by their loved ones, although it’s impossible to give those numbers any kind of meaning, since it’s hard to do justice to even one....
"He was very inquisitive," says his mother. "He wanted to know how things worked and why they worked. He would take it apart, try to put it back together . . ."
"He was kind of like a genius when it came to mechanical things," agrees Anderson. "He would build dune buggies, go-karts."
Wyatt studied at Southern Illinois University. After school he started work. But his life didn't feel complete. His father, grandfathers, great-uncles had all served.
"He talked about it for several years," Anderson says. "He just felt that he could give back. It would be an opportunity for him to do more, to do something really worthwhile."
His sister was reluctant to see him enlist.
"I was in support of him, but the selfish part of me, no, I didn't want him to go. I was going to miss him," she says. "My brother and I were really, really close growing up, being in a rural area, most afternoons and evenings and summers we were always together. He was my friend and playmate, growing up.
"Family was really important to him," she continues. "He wanted to be married, always laughed and said, 'The reason I haven't got married yet is I want to find a woman (who will) give me 12 kids. I'll have a whole crew of them.'"
There was a girlfriend.
"He really cared for the girl," says Anderson. "Probably would have proposed marriage with her. I often wonder about that, think about what my nieces and nephews would be like."
Wyatt Eisenhauer was buried on Memorial Day 2005.
"Memorial Day carries a little extra punch for us," his mother says. A friend from high school played taps.
Over the years, the family has thrown itself into work with organizations helping families cope with the loss of soldiers and helping vets when they return.
"I think that we can become desensitized," Anderson says. "When you think of the troops, it's almost like they're not real, these people. For me, it was so important he didn't become a statistic, he didn't become a number. It's become a passion of mine to help all of our fallen to be remembered. To talk about loved ones. They each had goals, each had lives to live, loved ones who thought about them, personalities that were unique."
Not everyone gets this.
"Even some of your close friends misunderstand," his mother says. "Everyone tells you you've got to get over it, you've got to move on. The thing is . . . you don't get over it. That hole, you have lost a piece of your heart and nothing is going to fill that. Only Wyatt had that part of your heart . . . I don't understand when people say, 'You need to move on.' My question is: 'Tell me where to move to and I'll go there.' "
When you talk to his family, it's easy to focus on that hole—the nieces and nephews who'll never be born, the engines that will go unrepaired. His family wants to talk about his life, and does. But the loss has a way of creeping back. The strawberry patch, for instance. You can't pick strawberries there anymore.
"We haven't done it since he was killed," Gay Eisenhauer says. "We just didn't have it in us."
"He was very inquisitive," says his mother. "He wanted to know how things worked and why they worked. He would take it apart, try to put it back together . . ."
"He was kind of like a genius when it came to mechanical things," agrees Anderson. "He would build dune buggies, go-karts."
Wyatt studied at Southern Illinois University. After school he started work. But his life didn't feel complete. His father, grandfathers, great-uncles had all served.
"He talked about it for several years," Anderson says. "He just felt that he could give back. It would be an opportunity for him to do more, to do something really worthwhile."
His sister was reluctant to see him enlist.
"I was in support of him, but the selfish part of me, no, I didn't want him to go. I was going to miss him," she says. "My brother and I were really, really close growing up, being in a rural area, most afternoons and evenings and summers we were always together. He was my friend and playmate, growing up.
"Family was really important to him," she continues. "He wanted to be married, always laughed and said, 'The reason I haven't got married yet is I want to find a woman (who will) give me 12 kids. I'll have a whole crew of them.'"
There was a girlfriend.
"He really cared for the girl," says Anderson. "Probably would have proposed marriage with her. I often wonder about that, think about what my nieces and nephews would be like."
Wyatt Eisenhauer was buried on Memorial Day 2005.
"Memorial Day carries a little extra punch for us," his mother says. A friend from high school played taps.
Over the years, the family has thrown itself into work with organizations helping families cope with the loss of soldiers and helping vets when they return.
"I think that we can become desensitized," Anderson says. "When you think of the troops, it's almost like they're not real, these people. For me, it was so important he didn't become a statistic, he didn't become a number. It's become a passion of mine to help all of our fallen to be remembered. To talk about loved ones. They each had goals, each had lives to live, loved ones who thought about them, personalities that were unique."
Not everyone gets this.
"Even some of your close friends misunderstand," his mother says. "Everyone tells you you've got to get over it, you've got to move on. The thing is . . . you don't get over it. That hole, you have lost a piece of your heart and nothing is going to fill that. Only Wyatt had that part of your heart . . . I don't understand when people say, 'You need to move on.' My question is: 'Tell me where to move to and I'll go there.' "
When you talk to his family, it's easy to focus on that hole—the nieces and nephews who'll never be born, the engines that will go unrepaired. His family wants to talk about his life, and does. But the loss has a way of creeping back. The strawberry patch, for instance. You can't pick strawberries there anymore.
"We haven't done it since he was killed," Gay Eisenhauer says. "We just didn't have it in us."
How about the3 deaths of all the hundreds of thousands of Iraquis at the hands of the U.S. military?
ReplyDeleteIncluding the 500,000 Iraqui children who died as a result of the cruel economic sanctions during the Clinton years. Or the 2 million Vietnamese who died... or those murdered by far right wing Obama's drones?
What about them? Perhaps you could foment for a holiday to honor them--we could call it Run Down America Day...but that would hard to bring about anonymously, wouldn't it? The US has done many bad things, but that doesn't make it exceptional in this world, does it? Well, to those so predisposed I guess...
ReplyDelete3,527 Americans died for the glory of George W. Bush.
ReplyDeleteAnother 2,175 have died in Afghanistan, Asia's shithole, which we will soon leave & will go back to Taliban control with lots of terrorist training camps.
So they died for nothing & this country is trillions in debt because of this.
Remind me why he hasn't had war crimes trial?
No, they died because we asked them to. It's convenient to blame George Bush, but the American people elected him, twice (well, the second election he stole, but again, we let him). I never voted for Bush, but it's too easy to off-load responsibility onto him. And that doesn't diminish from what the soldiers died trying to protect -- us. If a fireman died racing to a false alarm he's just as dead, the duty just as important, whether there was really a fire or not. You don't pooh-pooh the fireman on the day set aside to honor him. Well, Becca, I guess some people do, but it's the sort of gripe that blows back more on the griper than on the object being griped about.
DeleteNo, Neil, we didn't ask them to go there.
DeleteBush, Cheney & Rumsfeld made up faked intelligence reports that Iraq was building WMDs & they got Congress to believe that crap, because they set up & sent up Colin Powell with those lies.
Not one American that died in Iraq died to protect us as there wasn't anything to protect us from over there.
While there was a terrorist problem in Afghanistan, our special forces were doing an excellent job of removing them, until Bush wrecked that operation by invading Iraq.
I know the historical facts, Becca, but you're missing the point. Their sacrifice isn't lessened because it was a bogus war. A person with a heart, who isn't just disgorging political cant, recognizes that. If you choose not to be that person, well, the loss is yours. But don't pretend that it's persuasive, or that people who respect the troops and their families are doing so out of ignorance. Because it isn't, and they aren't.
DeleteI'm not saying that I don't respect the troops or their sacrifices.
DeleteI'm saying their sacrifices were for nothing but the insanity of George W. Bush!
It was on Bush and his ilk. I volunteered to serve my country. Not the fascists who run it.
DeleteJust a friendly reminder, federal law says on Memorial Day, the flag is to displayed at half-staff from sunrise until noon and at full staff from noon to sunset -- for anyone reading this in American Samoa.
ReplyDeleteAnon at 8:33 is an ass. Forgets the bad govts locally that put the people in harms way.
ReplyDeleteAll wars are debatable. That the family, friends, loved ones, neighbors, communities have lost an intrgal part of their heart and future is not. Nearly a million times over. In just this country. And soldiers swear to uphold their country and their government. Regardless of their political thoughts of the objective. They. Do. Their. Duty. They are you. At war.
ReplyDelete"They each had goals, each had lives to live, loved ones who thought about them, personalities that were unique."
ReplyDeleteWe are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.
--John McCrae, soldier, doctor, poet
[May, 1915]
Yes, the Flanders Field poem of WWI is sad indeed.
ReplyDeleteLyrics
ReplyDeleteOh how do you do, young Willie McBride
Do you mind if I sit here down by your graveside?
And rest for a while in the warm summer sun
I've been walking all day, and I'm nearly done
And I see by your gravestone you were only nineteen
When you joined the great fallen in 1916
Well, I hope you died quick, and I hope you died clean
Oh Willie McBride, was is it slow and obscene?
Did they beat the drums slowly?
Did they play the fife lowly?
Did they sound the death march as they lowered you down?
Did the band play the last post and chorus?
Did the pipes play the flowers of the forest?
And did you leave a wife or a sweetheart behind
In some loyal heart is your memory enshrined?
And though you died back in 1916
To that loyal heart you're forever nineteen
Or are you a stranger without even a name?
Forever enshrined behind some old glass pane
In an old photograph torn, tattered, and stained
And faded to yellow in a brown leather frame
Did they beat the drums slowly?
Did they play the fife lowly?
Did they sound the death march as they lowered you down?
Did the band play the last post and chorus?
Did the pipes play the flowers of the forest?
The sun shining down on these green fields of France
The warm wind blows gently and the red poppies dance
The trenches have vanished long under the plow
No gas, no barbed wire, no guns firing now
But here in this graveyard that's still no man's land
The countless white crosses in mute witness stand
To man's blind indifference to his fellow man
And a whole generation were butchered and damned
Did they beat the drums slowly?
Did they play the fife lowly?
Did they sound the death march as they lowered you down?
Did the band play the last post and chorus?
Did the pipes play the flowers of the forest?
And I can't help but wonder, oh Willie McBride
Do all those who lie here know why they died?
Did you really believe them when they told you the cause?
Did you really believe that this war would end wars?
Well, the suffering, the sorrow, the glory, the shame
The killing and dying it was all done in vain
Oh Willie McBride, it all happened again
And again, and again, and again, and again
Did they beat the drums slowly?
Did they play the fife lowly?
Did they sound the death march as they lowered you down?
Did the band play the last post and chorus?
Did the pipes play the flowers of the forest?
Source: Musixmatch
Songwriters: Bogle Eric
The Green Fields of France (No Man's Land) lyrics © Eleven East Corporation, Happy As Larry Music Publ. Pty. Ltd., Larrikin Music Publishing Pty Ltd