Each One Fights His Own War

Like most, I am guilty of going to all ends to avoid attending funerals. For a plethora of reasons, most of us avoid such sullen gatherings, feigning illness, work obligations or mentally arranging a “suitable” reason not to attend those usually somber occasions. However, I must confess, there have also been some that stand out, because they were actually uplifting and, yes, joyous. Those were like long-expected homecomings with smiles, happy recollections and, honestly, a few tears.
The last funeral we attended was that of my wife’s uncle, James V. Petrella Sr. “Uncle Jim,” lived a good life and finally went home two days shy of his 96th birthday. Although we lived in the same county, he might as well have lived on the Aleutian Islands in Alaska, it had been several years since last we chatted, and that was at a family wedding. Is that so different from some who live in one part of town and don’t visit relatives in another part?
Uncle Jim was an icon of what Cape May County used to be in a more bucolic time. He was a humble man, a devout Catholic, who loved his family and his Lord. He worked harder than I can imagine anyone working, and enjoyed life’s simplest pleasures. To be sure, there are others just like him, but he’s the only one I really ever met.
There was a relationship with Uncle Jim that united us, and that was that he worked as a foreman for R.B. Mason and Sons Blueberry Farms in Belleplain. In his earlier years, his boss and mine, in a manner of speaking, was the same man, Carl Mason. There was a time when Mason was part owner of the County Gazette, where I spent four of the most memorable years of my career. So, you can see, we had something in common there, but there was more.
Every day, save for a time off for the Christmas holidays, he worked in the blueberry fields, pruning, tending, watching, caring, overseeing and, when harvest time blossomed, superintended the migrant pickers. Many of them spoke only Spanish, so Uncle Jim also spoke Spanish to communicate with those workers.
He retired from that employment after 35 years in 1979.
Living on Tarkiln Farm, and visiting from time to time on family visits, Uncle Jim would wait patiently, and then, if asked about the progress of his airplane, would proudly take me into the basement where, in his precious spare hours (an there were very few of them), he built from wood an experimental aircraft.
It was built with all the skill and love that a person could put into such an aircraft. He gloried in airplanes, and was, I believe, a member of the Experimental Aircraft Association. With more money and free time, I really believe he would have flown that little plane out to Oshkosh, Wis. for the annual fly-in, but that never happened.
In this youth, he worked with the Civilian Conservation Corps. In that term of employment, he worked shoulder to shoulder with others from the area that created, from the Dennis Township wilderness, Belleplain State Forest.
Then came World War II. That was Uncle Jim’s war, one he rehearsed in facets from time to time. His brother was lost in that conflict when his airplane went down in the jungle of Burma. In fact, his remains, long sought by Uncle Jim in his dreams, were finally recovered and properly interred at Arlington National Cemetery.
As with many veterans, the whole story of war was never revealed, at least to me. It was not until I read his obituary that I discovered Uncle Jim was overseas for three years and one month. He was a member of the 1st Division, 26th Infantry Regiment “Big Red One” and was an 81mm mortar gunner.
His obituary stated that he landed in North Africa in 1942 and fought in the Tunisian Campaign, invaded Sicily, the Normandy Invasion, and fought in Belgium and finished in Czechoslovakia. He received the Purple Heart and three Bronze Star Medals, one for Valor. All those years of being with him, and I cannot recall him ever telling about those medals. He was also awarded a New Jersey veteran’s medal for that illustrious service.
He was a quiet man whose calloused hands rested at his lap. At last Uncle Jim was at peace. I gazed at his mortal remains, thinking of the horrors he had seen, the hell he had been through, and also the joy he experienced in his life on the land.
As we moved up the line to chat with his sons Jim and John and foster son Joe, it occurred to me each of us has his or her own war, and no one, not even our closest loved one will ever truly know what it was like to head off into the unknown, never knowing if, just around that next turn, a bullet or mine would take you to your Maker.
War is a horrible thing, but like those blueberries that still grow in the fields Uncle Jim tended, it seems to continue forever. There is always a reason politicians find to fight, and it is usually about money or some other inconsequential matter in the long scheme of things. Perhaps they are the ones who ought to go to the fox holes and man the gun turrets, fly the planes and drop the bombs. If they did, I am certain there would be a very quick end to conflicts worldwide.
Uncle Jim will remain with his beloved wife Anna at this side in the Cape May County Veterans’ Cemetery. She passed before him, and for many years, he sorely missed her.
There are many reasons not to attend a funeral, but there are other times when it is worthwhile. We look down and see a mirror of our own mortality. We understand that the days here are not infinite, and that each of us has a particular job to do while we are here.
In all the years I knew Uncle Jim, I never recall him complaining about not having a lot of money or the latest car or not taking a vacation or cruise. That was not him. Some would say he and his family were “salt of the earth” folks. Of all the things that one may be called in life, I suppose that is one of the highest honors anyone may be accorded on the last day.