Having Been Led by Love of Country

I grew up visiting cemeteries every year on Memorial Day with my family, and I hated it. Wasting an entire day driving from place to place to poke a few flowers in the ground was not how I wanted to spend my Saturday as a child. 

How wrong I was, and what I wouldn't give to go back and pay attention to the stories that were told of those family members long gone. 

The true meaning of Memorial Day is not simply to remember and decorate the graves of loved ones, but specifically to honor those who died during their time of service in the military. Year after year do I recall placing flowers on the grave of my great-uncle who served and died during World War II.  His story been a source of fascination to me for years, but those who knew the details have been dead for decades. With the help of some history-savvy friends and the trusty internet, I have been able to put together a few of the puzzle pieces.  

Lyman Eugene Jenkins was the ninth of 10 children born to my great-grandparents, James Walter Jenkins and Jessie Belle (nee Jaqua), in Stone County, Missouri on March 4, 1924. Walter and Jessie had been having children for quite a while by this time with their eldest child, my grandfather Eldon, born in 1908. In fact, my grandfather was about to get married and begin his own family at the time Lyman was born. I can only imagine what it was like for Jessie to be 38 years old, with her oldest chicks leaving the nest only to be starting all over again with diapers and midnight feedings. 

When Lyman was born, my great-grandparents were farmers in Hurley, Missouri. Some members of the family were true moonshiners with homemade stills up in the hills near their homes. By the time Lyman registered for the Army, the family had left the farm (presumably also leaving behind the moonshine stills) and Walter was now working at the Carnation company in Mt. Vernon. Lyman had also fallen in love with Emma Joe Pettit. Their marriage license on October 28, 1942 required Walter's consent as Lyman was only 18 years old. Emma, by contrast, was age 22 at the time they were wed and did not need her parent's permission to marry. 

Perhaps the newlyweds set up housekeeping in a place of their own, but it is more likely that they lived with Walter and Jessie as was commonplace at the time. They had only been together for 75 days when Lyman enlisted in the Army on January 10, 1943. Sadly, he never came back to his young bride.  

Lyman was assigned to Company B, 1st Battalion, 12th Infantry, 4th Division. This small-town country boy from a family of moonshiners and farmers arrived in England on January 29, 1944. He had just turned 20 years old. Surely he never could have imagined the sights, sounds and smells of such a place so different from the pastures and
verdant hills of Missouri. 

A short six months later, he landed at Utah Beach shortly after noon on June 6, 1944 for the invasion of Normandy. Lyman and the 12th Infantry "...waded through water that was generally only waist-deep, but the area was full of ditches and holes, and men frequently dropped into water over their heads." The 4th Division lost comparatively low numbers in the D-Day invasion, with only 197 casualties that day.

Many battles lie ahead for Lyman and his brothers-in-arms in locations throughout France, Belgium, Luxembourg and Germany. By November, he was set to begin what would be his last battle in Hurtgenwald, Germany. 

That winter was one of the coldest on record with temperatures below zero for days at a time and reports of 10-12 inches of snowfall within a 24-hour period. According to one survivor, "...this attack began the hardest fighting [our] regiment had ever been through. Added to the natural obstacles of tall, closely knit woods, steep hillsides and lack of roads were deliberate mine fields, wire entanglements and booby traps planted by the enemy during the weeks of inactivity in this sector. Continuous rain, show and freezing weather severely hampered our operations and during the next month the regiment suffered as many casualties from trench foot and exposure as it did from battle." 

By November 20, 1944, thousands of Americans and Germans had died, yet the battle for the Hurtgen Forest raged on. "The entire regiment once more jumped off in an attempt to secure the two all-important roads leading into Hurtgen. The 3rd and 1st Battalions, already badly decimated, moved forward but again were forced back into their holes because of the heavy mortar, artillery, machine guns and small arms fire that continually harassed them." 

Young Lyman, with a wife on the other side of the world and all the dreams of youth between them, would be dead in 14 days. 

The Americans had gained steady ground and inflicted heavy casualties in the frozen forest, but the Germans had not given up. "A [German] counterattack of battalion strength hit the 12th Infantry on December 3rd but we were ready and the enemy was repulsed with heavy losses," said a survivor. By December 5th, the Germans had been routed and the weary troops moved out only a few days later.  

Sadly, Lyman was not among them. He died on December 4, 1944, four days short of the American victory. After surviving battle after bloody battle, he became one of the 1,578 U.S. soldiers lost in the Hurtgen Forest. 

I have often wondered...who was notified first, Emma or Jessie? Did Walter meet the train in Aurora to bring his son's 

body home? Who kept the flag that draped Lyman's casket? Did those in attendance at his funeral shake at the sounds of the 21-gun salute? 

The answers to my questions are lost to history, and I am left only with imaginings. I certainly wish I had asked my grandfather more questions when we were decorating graves all those many times for Memorial Day. Emma was still listed as a widow on 1956 records. Even though their marriage was brief and their ages barely into adulthood, she must have loved him deeply and did not marry again until 1968, more than two decades after his death. 

Lyman's grave stone has always brought me pause, and now that I know some of the details of his brief life, I look at his military service and my family's certain heartbreak at his death with even more solemnity. His is but one name among over 416,000 lost during World War II, but his name is attached to mine. 

The motto for the 12th Infantry is Ducti Amore Patrie, which means Having Been Led by Love of Country. I am immensely grateful for my great-uncle, Lyman Eugene Jenkins, and sacrificing his life in the defense of freedom. I join him in love for this great country and I honor his service this Memorial Day.