[at-l] Memorial Day

[Big Red]

I never met John Jerionowski.  I was a teenager before I ever heard a word
about him.  My Dad told me about him, but my Dad hadn’t met him either.  So
I never did learn much about him.

 

Much later I saw a picture of him.  It was an old newspaper clipping.  It
was in a section of the paper entitled “Our Boys” and there were 20 or 30
pictures of young men in uniform.  John Jerionowski was one of them.  My
Uncle Jack was another.

 

Back then, almost all the young men went off to war.  My Dad did. All my
uncles did.  So did my Dad’s cousins.  But they lived far away and spoke a
different language, so they had to fight for the other side.

 

My Dad and my uncles all came home after the War.  John Jerionowski did not.
His remains lie beneath one of those white markers that look like all the
other white markers in those rows and rows of white markers that you see on
TV once or twice a year when they show pictures of military cemeteries.
John Jerionowski’s white marker sits on Plot D, Row 26, Grave 9 of the
Ardennes American Cemetery in Neupre, Belgium.

 

John Jerionowski was killed in action on Tuesday, January 11, 1944.  At the
time, he was my Mom’s fiancé.  So while we all owe a heavy debt of gratitude
to those who made the ultimate sacrifice, some of us, through the twists and
turns of fate, owe our very existence to them.

 

Big Red

 

 

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