Today's Memorial Day. You probably already knew that. I originally posted the following on Veterans Day of 2010 but it's just as appropriate for Memorial Day. It's all about my Uncle Henry, the guy in the photo below. I don't have a whole lot of memories of Uncle Henry. Darn near everything I remember about him is in this article…
It's Veterans Day so I thought I'd write about my Uncle Henry. One of his brothers (my Uncle Nathan) served in the Army, hated every second of it and refused to ever discuss those years except to generally condemn the way officers treated privates, at least where he'd been stationed. This created some friction with Uncle Henry, who spent his adult life in the military and according to family legend was at one point the highest-ranked Jew in the Army. I don't necessarily believe this but my Aunt Dot (his sister) did and sometimes said it was only because our bizarre surname didn't make it obvious he was Jewish; that if he'd been a Goldberg or a Schwartz, he never would have attained whatever rank he finally attained…Colonel, I think.
I don't know if any other Evaniers of his generation served. My father was 4-F and I don't know about the others. Because of Uncle Nathan's feelings, we never talked about it much. The only time I recall more than passing mention came in 1962 when Uncle Henry died and we drove down to San Diego for the funeral. Before that, we'd gone there almost every year to visit Uncle Henry and his wife, Aunt Phyllis, who lived in a lovely home in La Mesa, which is just outside San Diego. The only memories I have of those visits are of the utter boredom you have when you're a kid in a roomful of adults and you're largely uninvolved in any conversation. So I sat there reading comic books I'd lugged along and I suffered through the ordeal. The next day, my parents and I would do the San Diego Zoo, which I enjoyed enough to make up for the visits to Uncle Henry's.
We didn't hit the zoo on the funeral trip. We drove down on a Sunday and I remember spending the night with my folks in a real crummy motel room, selected for its proximity to Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery in Point Loma. My father was deeply depressed over the loss of his brother and at first, he wouldn't let me turn on the TV because it seemed inappropriate. As 8:30 neared, he realized he'd miss his favorite comedy show — Car 54, Where Are You? — and he decided that might cheer him up. So we watched that evening's episode. He didn't laugh, my mother didn't laugh and I felt I shouldn't, either.
The next morning, we dressed up and went to a very long service which was held outside by the gravesite. My father, my Uncle Nathan, my Uncle Aaron and I were the only males present not dressed in starched, formal military dress. I got the feeling we were among the few who'd really known Uncle Henry.
Just before speeches commenced, an official of some sort took us aside and told us that the program would conclude with a "salute" that involved a line of soldiers firing rifles in the air. Aunt Phyllis, who had been frail even before her husband of 40+ years had died, had been cautioned about this but the official suggested that "you men" (10-year-old me included) stand by her for the finale because the noise would probably upset her. We agreed to do this though I wondered why the military was saluting Uncle Henry in death by upsetting his beloved partner in life. As a kid, I spent a lot of time wondering why grown-ups did many of the things they did.
Sure enough, after a raft of speeches, a line of armed soldiers marched out in precision drilling manner, following orders barked out by some senior military official. My memory is that these were not all Army; that the whole ceremony was a mix of Army, Navy, Air Force, Coast Guard, etc. Uncle Henry was Army but he'd spent the last ten or so years as some kind of intra-military liaison coordinating activities of the various branches, operating sometimes out of Naval facilities. After much marching about and showing-off, the soldiers hoisted their rifles and waited for the command to fire. I was standing next to Aunt Phyllis's chair and she was trembling, dreading the "salute" like it was some horrible ordeal she was being forced to endure. I wanted to yell for them to call it off but everyone was so serious about this seemingly-mandatory ritual that I was half-afraid they'd turn those rifles on me.
Finally after what felt like hours of waiting, they fired into the sky. We were standing about twenty yards from a little groundskeeper shack and at the sound of the rifle shots, every glass window in the cottage exploded and all these serious, unsmiling military guys leaped about three feet in shock. For a flash second there, it felt like a Three Stooges comedy. I don't know why but that's what I thought of and I laughed out loud until I realized Aunt Phyllis was fainting. My father and I stopped her from falling off the chair and a male nurse ran over and tended to her needs. She recovered, of course…but the fact that someone with medical training had been standing by for this possibility further baffled me. They'd actually anticipated something of the sort might happen and had still pressed ahead, "honoring" my Uncle Henry's service to his country by doing something that caused such discomfort to his widow.
My parents and I drove back to Los Angeles that afternoon in (mostly) silence. Occasionally in the back seat, I could be heard snickering about all those rock-serious soldiers leaping about in fear. After a while, even my folks agreed with me that it was kind of funny…or at least funnier than the previous night's Car 54, Where Are You?
In the seventies, Aunt Phyllis died and I was notified that I was named in the joint will of Henry and Phyllis Evanier. For weeks, I expected some small amount of money…but one day, a box arrived and it turned out I'd been left all of Uncle Henry's medals and decorations. Included were dozens of clippings and certificates and they were the treat because they gave me a new appreciation of all that my Uncle Henry had done. From what I could tell, he'd never seen combat…never laid his life on the line to liberate a village or topple the Nazi/Commie menace. Still, he'd more than earned all those ribbons and promotions in rank by utter competence, getting jobs accomplished with precision and accuracy. There was one partial article that suggested my Uncle Henry had solved so many problems relating to keeping certain military bases operational that President Eisenhower had phoned him from time to time to thank him for preventing disasters. The box also contained the official 1947 photo of (then) Major Evanier which I have scanned and posted above.
Today on Veterans Day, it is right and proper that we salute the courageous men and women who go off to war when our leaders, rightly or wrongly, deem it necessary. Matter of fact, we should probably salute them enough on other days that this one is nothing out of the ordinary. But I wanted to remind you all about guys like my Uncle Henry who also have a lot to do with all that the military does for us. They also serve, those who sit and shuffle papers.