by Jim Hyland

With creating meaningful content for the Memorial Day edition of Forest Fridays in mind, I was recently asked if I knew of any Pennsylvania forestry employees who had given their lives in military service, including the PA Department of Forestry (1901-1923), the PA Department of Forests and Waters (1923-1970), or the two modern forestry agencies, DER, and DCNR.  Well, I thought hard about it for a few minutes, and could not come up with any names.But that’s not to say that our agency lacks patriotism or valor, as I could easily name many employees who were combat veterans in WW2 and subsequent conflicts overseas.  Some years ago, I worked in Tiadaghton State Forest with a technician named Walt Steinbacher.  He was a quiet and humble man but had endured horrific experiences as a young Marine in the jungles of Loas and Cambodia. The sad truth of the matter is that our youth who died overseas typically would never have had the chance to work for our agency prior to military service, as they were just too young.  It is possible though that they were drafted while working for the agency, as the draft window was ages 18 to 45, or, that they were serving in the reserves or National Guard when called to duty.  Please let us know if there is anyone who we are missing!

Normandy American Cemetery

At the Normandy American Cemetery, in Colleville-sur-Mer, France, there is a bronze statue overlooking the nearly 9,400 graves of American soldiers who died during the liberation of France beginning June 6th, 1944.  The graves are in neat rows, side by side, and cover 172 acres.  Anyone who has ever marked a timber sale knows how big that is. Behind the statue are the names of an additional 1500 soldiers who went missing in battle and were never seen again, perhaps captured, perhaps obliterated completely. The statue is called “The Spirit of American Youth Rising from the Waves”, and it is placed on a bluff overlooking Omaha Beach. It is of a young man rising above the water…fit, strong, determined, resolute, and moral, somehow knowing his ultimate sacrifice was existential. When I saw it, I cried.  It reminded me of the pain my great grandmother must have felt when she learned that her grandson had died there. Frankie was 26, and a Notre Dame graduate. He was survived by his young wife and son, who lived in Mahanoy City, in the coal region of PA.

The Spirit of American Youth Rising from the Waves. (photo by by Avi1111 dr. avishai teacher, Wikimedia Commons)

The statue is also reminiscent of the “CCC Boy” statue that stands in some of our parks and forests to commemorate their remarkable work in the1930s. Many CCC boys never came home from the war, in fact 40 won the Congressional Medal of Honor. Many of them are buried overseas in any of the 25 American cemeteries in 10 countries that maintain approximately 130,000 graves.  As an American, a visit to one of them belongs on your bucket list.

CCC Boy