A Day To Remember

Marines are, more often than not, known for their martial prowess as opposed to their eloquence, but I have yet to hear as excellent and pithy a summation of a man as I did on the day of my grandfather’s funeral. Several of his children, grandchildren, and the parish priest had already spoken, offering sincere yet unremarkable praise of his conduct in this world and his fate in the next. The final speaker was a friend of my grandfather’s who had also served in the pacific theater during the Second World War.

The marine made his way up to the platform slowly. Everything about him suggested that it would not be very long until he too would be the subject of a eulogy: his slow gait, his strained voice, and his palpable age all gave the impression that this was a friend who knew he would be saying goodbye for only a short time.

His began by noting that “Everything we have heard here today is true. John was a good man, a good lawyer, and a good father.” He paused, and then continued “but there is another thing that we here today should know about John Sutton.” I was waiting for another platitude, more generalities, or at best a short story from the war that revealed something slightly more illuminating about my grandfather whom I, unfortunately, had never truly gotten to know. Instead, though, that aged marine belted out, in an unexpectedly vigorous tone: “HE WAS A GREAT AMERICAN WARRIOR!”

I was dumbstruck. These words were uttered so boldly, so entirely without irony or cynicism, and with such emotion that, without any time to truly process what I had heard, tears welled into my eyes. My mind took off, and was soon tearing through every word I had ever had with my grandfather. I had known he fought on Okinawa, I had even interviewed him about it at some length for a high school history paper, but, polluted by the cynicism that so corrupts our culture, I had never really imagined him capable of anything truly great. Although, in talking to him, bits and pieces of his story suggested that maybe his was not altogether typical, I had shrugged these off as the inevitable urge to make the actions of one’s own family seem more important and meaningful than they actually were.

But like so many today, I had lost sight of what his experience really signified. He had been wounded twice—was near death—and returned to the front lines to serve in a unit where the casualty rate was above 100 percent. In an age where the pedestrian is deemed “excellent” and the excellent “unprecedented,” he acquitted himself in a way that no one in my generation can even contemplate.

As the marine continued to speak, my mind continued to turn. My initial surge of pride at hearing a family member spoken of so glowingly soon transformed into a wrenching, gnawing, and painful doubt. Would I ever be spoken of in such terms? Would I ever do anything truly “great?” Upon my death would my friends return, in the twilight of their own lives, to offer me praise for deeds I had accomplished over a half century ago? What is more, would I ever again see such sincerity, such manifest sincerity and simplicity, as I did from that elderly marine? The answers to these questions were as quick to arrive as they were unpleasant, and I felt a profound sense of insufficiency, one that would only double later that morning as I helped lower the moral remains of my grandfather into the ground.

Although my attention had wandered, I was alert enough to gauge from the speaker’s rhythm and timing that his brief eulogy was coming to an end. The marine looked at the casket, and, his voice quivering, said one more thing that will remain with me until the day I too pass away: “Rest in peace, marine—we’ll never forget you!” And so tomorrow, less than two years after his passing, on a day devoted to all those who have served our country, I remember John R. Sutton, Second Lieutenant United States Marine Corps—my grandfather, and a great American warrior.



Mark A. Adomanis ’07, a Crimson editorial editor, is a government concentrator in Eliot House.