This is not intended as a political topic. The sacrifices that are made are not political or disputable. The facts are not negotiable as well.
I apologize in advance if this is verboten. ( A little sprinkle there for you, mori)
By PHIL REISMAN
THE JOURNAL NEWS
(Original Publication: August 31, 2006)
Pfc. Randell Dobbs was killed in action in the Philippines four days after Thanksgiving in 1944. Dobbs came from my hometown.
He also came from an earlier and different generation.
But he played on the same streets I played on. He swam in the Long Island Sound where I swam. It's possible he sat in some of the same classrooms I later sat in — and maybe he was as bored as I was most of the time.
In a small yet meaningful way, Dobbs represents the continuity of life. His kid sister, Kit Ritz, was the mother of two boys who lived on my block and were a few years behind me in school.
During the post-war years, Edgewood Avenue was a crazy, action-packed neighborhood overrun by unscheduled children and unleashed dogs, a place of familiarity and promise that included prim starter homes, a few old farmhouses and, for value-added excitement, the local police and fire departments. The street embodied the blessing of freedom itself, something worth fighting for.
Randy Dobbs lived across town, on Addison Street in Larchmont. He was a paratrooper, a member of the 11th Airborne Division, which was popularly known as the "Angels."
His name is one of 99 names chiseled in stone at the Richard M. Kemper Park, which was created on land donated to the Mamaroneck school district to honor the town's former public-school students who died during the Second World War.
For six years now, the school board has waged a bureaucratic war of attrition over the park, which consists of little more than half an acre in front of the high school on the Boston Post Road. It wants to do away with it, in effect, by converting the property into some sort of athletic field or parking lot (no one really knows) and moving the monument to some other spot, presumably on school grounds.
The memorial, of course, is not merely the monument by itself but the entire park. This is a concept the school board can't seem to grasp. Despite a great deal of community opposition, it continues to fight the issue in court and in the process has recklessly spent thousands upon thousands of dollars of the taxpayers' money in legal fees.
Let's not mince words about this. The war dead have become an inconvenience, pure and simple. And the power-mad school board appears determined to pay any price to remove the obstruction.
Word of this insanity has reached all the way up to the Catskill Mountain town of Saugerties, N.Y., where Kit Ritz, 78, now lives in retirement. In a long phone conversation, she expressed sorrow and outrage.
"Boy, I'd come down there and talk to them any time you want and tell 'em what it was all about and the feelings we had," she said. "They don't know, I guess. But I'll come down there lickety-split."
Kit, who is a fourth-generation Larchmonter and a Mayflower descendant (Her given name is Priscilla Alden Dobbs), told me that after the attack on Pearl Harbor, her brother tried to enlist at the age of 17, but their father refused to sign the waiver. Their parents were separated at the time.
"Well," Kit continued, "Randy was able to twist my mother's arm and she signed the papers so he could go ahead and enlist."
He badly wanted to be a paratrooper. Kit remembered how he and a buddy would practice landings by jumping onto mattresses from a second floor balcony at their grandmother's house in Saugerties. Randy Dobbs was a fearless kid and loyal to his friends and to his younger sister and brother who looked up to him.
"Randy was very special in my life," Kit said.
Early in 1944, the 11th Airborne was sent to California to await orders. In May, the unit was sent to New Guinea where it trained for five months for a mission to attack the Japanese-occupied Philippines. On Nov. 18, the Angels landed at Leyte Beach.
"I remember he wrote us a letter on Thanksgiving Day and I think that was the last word we heard from him," Kit said. "And then we heard on Dec. 19, 1944, that he was missing in action."
A short while later, a telegram arrived, saying that Randy was dead. Barely 20, he was killed in an ambush Nov. 27.
The following summer, Kit worked as a lifeguard at Larchmont's Manor Beach. Lifeguarding was solely a man's job in those days, but she got the job because of the war and shortage of men.
A man who served with Randy met Kit at the beach one day to give her a firsthand account of how her brother died. According to the man, Randy had been wounded in the legs and couldn't walk.
Under heavy fire, the friend and another soldier tried to drag him to safety. Randy told them to go on without him, that he would be all right.
"Well, of course, he didn't make it," Kit said. "They said he died of a bullet wound in the head. As far as I'm concerned, they (the Japanese) probably went around shooting everybody that was left."
Looking back 61 years, Kit's memory of the soldier's appearance at Manor Beach remains clear like it happened yesterday.
"This was a fellow telling me directly," she said. "He was there. I tell you that was ..." Her voice trailed off for a moment.
"But that was Randy," she said. "That was my big brother. In my eyes he was a very heroic, wonderful young man."
Behind every name on the Kemper monument, there is a story of a young adult whose dreams and aspirations were never realized because his or her life was cut short in the cause of freedom. They were from different backgrounds. Some were wealthy, some were poor. Some came from big, happy families, others from broken homes. Some were the sons of immigrants and some, like Randy Dobbs, could claim lineage to America's first settlers. One was a woman, a Red Cross volunteer.
All were alike in that they paid the ultimate sacrifice.
Their memory is not disposable.
I apologize in advance if this is verboten. ( A little sprinkle there for you, mori)
By PHIL REISMAN
THE JOURNAL NEWS
(Original Publication: August 31, 2006)
Pfc. Randell Dobbs was killed in action in the Philippines four days after Thanksgiving in 1944. Dobbs came from my hometown.
He also came from an earlier and different generation.
But he played on the same streets I played on. He swam in the Long Island Sound where I swam. It's possible he sat in some of the same classrooms I later sat in — and maybe he was as bored as I was most of the time.
In a small yet meaningful way, Dobbs represents the continuity of life. His kid sister, Kit Ritz, was the mother of two boys who lived on my block and were a few years behind me in school.
During the post-war years, Edgewood Avenue was a crazy, action-packed neighborhood overrun by unscheduled children and unleashed dogs, a place of familiarity and promise that included prim starter homes, a few old farmhouses and, for value-added excitement, the local police and fire departments. The street embodied the blessing of freedom itself, something worth fighting for.
Randy Dobbs lived across town, on Addison Street in Larchmont. He was a paratrooper, a member of the 11th Airborne Division, which was popularly known as the "Angels."
His name is one of 99 names chiseled in stone at the Richard M. Kemper Park, which was created on land donated to the Mamaroneck school district to honor the town's former public-school students who died during the Second World War.
For six years now, the school board has waged a bureaucratic war of attrition over the park, which consists of little more than half an acre in front of the high school on the Boston Post Road. It wants to do away with it, in effect, by converting the property into some sort of athletic field or parking lot (no one really knows) and moving the monument to some other spot, presumably on school grounds.
The memorial, of course, is not merely the monument by itself but the entire park. This is a concept the school board can't seem to grasp. Despite a great deal of community opposition, it continues to fight the issue in court and in the process has recklessly spent thousands upon thousands of dollars of the taxpayers' money in legal fees.
Let's not mince words about this. The war dead have become an inconvenience, pure and simple. And the power-mad school board appears determined to pay any price to remove the obstruction.
Word of this insanity has reached all the way up to the Catskill Mountain town of Saugerties, N.Y., where Kit Ritz, 78, now lives in retirement. In a long phone conversation, she expressed sorrow and outrage.
"Boy, I'd come down there and talk to them any time you want and tell 'em what it was all about and the feelings we had," she said. "They don't know, I guess. But I'll come down there lickety-split."
Kit, who is a fourth-generation Larchmonter and a Mayflower descendant (Her given name is Priscilla Alden Dobbs), told me that after the attack on Pearl Harbor, her brother tried to enlist at the age of 17, but their father refused to sign the waiver. Their parents were separated at the time.
"Well," Kit continued, "Randy was able to twist my mother's arm and she signed the papers so he could go ahead and enlist."
He badly wanted to be a paratrooper. Kit remembered how he and a buddy would practice landings by jumping onto mattresses from a second floor balcony at their grandmother's house in Saugerties. Randy Dobbs was a fearless kid and loyal to his friends and to his younger sister and brother who looked up to him.
"Randy was very special in my life," Kit said.
Early in 1944, the 11th Airborne was sent to California to await orders. In May, the unit was sent to New Guinea where it trained for five months for a mission to attack the Japanese-occupied Philippines. On Nov. 18, the Angels landed at Leyte Beach.
"I remember he wrote us a letter on Thanksgiving Day and I think that was the last word we heard from him," Kit said. "And then we heard on Dec. 19, 1944, that he was missing in action."
A short while later, a telegram arrived, saying that Randy was dead. Barely 20, he was killed in an ambush Nov. 27.
The following summer, Kit worked as a lifeguard at Larchmont's Manor Beach. Lifeguarding was solely a man's job in those days, but she got the job because of the war and shortage of men.
A man who served with Randy met Kit at the beach one day to give her a firsthand account of how her brother died. According to the man, Randy had been wounded in the legs and couldn't walk.
Under heavy fire, the friend and another soldier tried to drag him to safety. Randy told them to go on without him, that he would be all right.
"Well, of course, he didn't make it," Kit said. "They said he died of a bullet wound in the head. As far as I'm concerned, they (the Japanese) probably went around shooting everybody that was left."
Looking back 61 years, Kit's memory of the soldier's appearance at Manor Beach remains clear like it happened yesterday.
"This was a fellow telling me directly," she said. "He was there. I tell you that was ..." Her voice trailed off for a moment.
"But that was Randy," she said. "That was my big brother. In my eyes he was a very heroic, wonderful young man."
Behind every name on the Kemper monument, there is a story of a young adult whose dreams and aspirations were never realized because his or her life was cut short in the cause of freedom. They were from different backgrounds. Some were wealthy, some were poor. Some came from big, happy families, others from broken homes. Some were the sons of immigrants and some, like Randy Dobbs, could claim lineage to America's first settlers. One was a woman, a Red Cross volunteer.
All were alike in that they paid the ultimate sacrifice.
Their memory is not disposable.
