Grave is no place for a hero's voice
Editorial
The Jacksonville Daily News
2008-03-07 00:31:24

When longtime Onslow County resident Thomas Craigg Jr. passed away on Sunday, he took with him a lifetime of courage, patriotism and what writer Tom Wolfe called "the right stuff." At 90, Craigg had led a life that was colorful and, at the same time, meaningful. A part of living history, Craigg served in the Marine Corps for 23 years, surviving three years of captivity and forced labor under the Japanese during World War II.

Craigg talked to Marines and others on his experiences, relating the terrible details of his capture and imprisonment as casually as others mention going to the store. Those stories have inspired countless Marines, both young and old.

It was rare to meet someone with Craigg's background, and as his generation of great Americans falls to time, it will become rarer still. Gone forever will be the first-person accounts of the war in Italy, France, Okinawa and the Pacific atolls.

They will be gone but not forgotten, because family members, historians and others with an enduring interest in preserving the past have recorded many of these accounts before those who lived them moved on. To lose stories such as Craigg's to the passing of time would be a tragedy for future generations to whom World War II will be as distant a memory as the Civil War is today.

It is not simply stories of World War II that need to be told and carefully pressed forever into the scrapbooks of time. Tales of other, more recent battles also need to be preserved.

Thomas Craigg saw action in both World War II and the Korean War. Korea was unlike any war that American troops had experienced before. Korea was an inhospitable place of terrible weather - hot, humid summers followed by winters of numbing cold.

The men who served in combat there faced conditions for which they were ill-equipped. With troops lacking proper cold-weather gear, the harsh, unforgiving terrain, wind and cold claimed many lives.

As time passes, the ranks of our Korean War veterans are thinning as well. It is every bit as important to remember their lives, their battles and their contributions as it is to recall those of World War II.

The light inevitably dims for each generation, and with it goes the opportunity to collect and preserve the truth as only known to eyewitnesses. Inevitably history will tell its own story, but to accurately reflect the heroism, the challenges and the times with emotion as well as accuracy, the stories need to come from those who were there.

Now more than ever is a time to listen to our veterans - World War II, Korea, Vietnam and more recent conflicts. Now is the time to commit those stories to the written word, to record them in their own voices, to make sure their experiences do not disappear when they do.

People such as Thomas Craigg and the many thousands who have served their country have shaped the way we live today.

We must redouble our efforts to capture their stories or run the very real risk of forgetting where we have been as a country and who we are as a people.

Rest In Peace, Thomas. May GOD bless you and yours always.

Semper Fidelis,
Thia