Americans, maybe more than most humans, forget quickly. The recent Honor Flight, a remarkable recognition of the service of World War II veterans, doesn’t belie that tendency. It was just a temporary and unusual deviation, a gracious expression of appreciation for what had been little noticed, outside immediate families, for more than half a century. And even so, the gesture occurred only when sparked by the energy and imagination of the few who awakened the rest of us.
The National Infantry Museum and Soldier Center is a giant step in the right direction. But unless we care enough to pay attention, and to reach individually beyond what it offers us, it can’t fully achieve its vast potential. Because even here, next door to the Home of the Infantry, we’re often oblivious to the sacrifices that have been made for us.
Lawson Army Airfield is the departure airfield for thousands upon thousands of airborne trainees. Sweating, cinched painfully into parachutes and related paraphernalia, they board aircraft, minds intent upon the first, or the succeeding, parachute jump. I wonder if any of them, or many of us, are aware of the reason this airfield along the river bottom is named Lawson? I know I wasn’t, many years ago when I struggled across the tarmac there to board ancient C119 transports for the flight to a drop zone in Alabama.
Robert Simpson
At first, Lawson Army Airfield was named for Ted Lawson, Sr., to memorialize his service and involvement with the infant U.S. Army air service in World War I. What makes it especially noteworthy, though, is that the honor was later amended to include his son, Ted Lawson, Jr. If you ever read the book “Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo,” or saw the very excellent movie by the same name, you know the son. One of the Doolittle Raiders who bombed the Japanese capital, he crash-landed his B-25 bomber off the China coast afterward. Rescued by the Chinese, he later lost a leg as a result of the crash, but lived to write the book and to see himself portrayed on the screen by Van Johnson, movie idol of that era. Afterward, he lived an ordinary life in California, little noticed by his fellow citizens.
In 1922, 15-year-old Robert E. Brown Jr. left his home in Dublin, Ga., to join the Army. He lied to recruiters about his age, wrote his name as “Bobbie” Brown, and soldiered under that name for the next 30 years. A first sergeant in North Africa during the early days of World War II, he received a battlefield commission as a second lieutenant. He led a platoon through murderous fire at Omaha Beach and later, through attrition, took command of the entire company. At a place called Crucifix Hill in Germany, Bobbie Brown showed incredible bravery and determination when he personally wiped out a series of German pillboxes, ignoring multiple wounds gained in the process.
This action earned Bobbie Brown the Medal of Honor. Other actions earned him two Silver Stars and a Bronze Star medal. At Crucifix Hill and later, he was wounded a total of 13 times. He spent more than two years in hospitals after the war but continued to serve in the Army until 1952, suffering physical pain and the mental torment of what today would be called post traumatic stress disorder.
Following retirement, Bobbie Brown, a man with a seventh-grade education but the heart of a lion, had difficulty finding reasonable employment. He became a janitor at the United States Military Academy at West Point. In 1971, Captain Robert E. Brown, native Georgian from Dublin, committed suicide and was laid to rest in Arlington National Cemetery.
I have to wonder how many remember Bobbie Brown or the two Ted Lawsons. Aside from the special occasions a dedicated handful organize and conduct to honor the service of remaining veterans of a very special major war, I have to wonder how many will remember any of the faceless, nameless ones who have served and who serve and bleed today. When the fighting is over, when the yellow ribbons, lapel flags and bumper stickers have faded and been junked, who will remember?
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