By Mark Scheer
Niagara Gazette
NIAGARA FALLS —
It’s not something any of us set out to do. It just kind of happens sometimes.
In the course of our daily lives, we get complacent.
At times, we forget to remember.
After a few weeks of hard work, Memorial Day is viewed as a chance for some time off.
Dec. 7 — the date the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor — comes and goes without notice.
Service men and women fight and die in places like Afghanistan nearly every day.
The stories appear on the nightly news, but unless we have a loved one in harm’s way, the full gravity of the situation is not always appreciated.
We may love America, but we don’t always show it.
And then, a guy like John Ranum comes along to remind us why we should always try harder to remember.
Ranum spent two years in the 1960s standing guard at the Tomb of the Unknowns at Arlington National Cemetery in Washington, D.C.
The job is one of the most prestigious in all of the branches of the U.S. military and requires extreme diligence on the part of the chosen few who survive the rigorous training.
Ranum described his experience as two of the proudest years of his life.
Service rules prevented him from interacting with visitors most of the time.
The expressions on their faces told him all he ever needed to know about why what he was doing was so important.
Ranum, who was a guest at last week’s meeting of the Niagara Patriots in Wheatfield, recalled watching one visibly shaken woman kneeling to pray at the gates of the tomb while a young man stood beside her placed his hand on her shoulder.
He said he imagined her as the mother or perhaps the wife of a fallen serviceman, a loved one whose remains were never found, never identified, never returned home.
He saw a lot of people just like her.
He said he still bumps into some of them to this day, like the gentleman in North Dakota who thanked him a couple of years ago for guarding the tomb which he considered the final resting place for his father who went missing in Germany during World War II.
The tomb contains the remains of unknown American soldiers from World Wars I and II and the Korean conflict.
For Ranum, it symbolized much more — the roughly 10,600 unknowns who were lost during those three wars combined.
“That means there are that many people back here saying what happened to our son, what happened to my husband?” Ranum said.
As Ranum described his experiences guarding the tomb, one veteran sitting near me wiped tears from his eyes.
I fought back a couple myself.
You had to be made of stone not to recognize the tomb’s significance or this country’s history of defending its integrity.
Sitting there, I got to thinking that, despite all of its faults, America still does some things very right.
Here was Ranum, now 74, speaking with great reverence and respect for his country, his fellow service men and women and the sacrifices they’ve made over the years. Everyone in the room watched footage of the Tomb guards, standing out in the rain and the snow and the wind, walking 21 paces across the black mat in front of the monument, never losing step, never falling out of rhythm and always standing ready to defend the honor of the unknowns.
We were all reminded that some of our traditions have not died. There are still Americans out there who pursue and attain excellence everyday. For some, failure is not an option, following the rules is important and perfection is the goal.
The “Old Guard’s” sentinels like Ranum have been standing watch for decades.
They have not faltered.
Barring a catastrophe, they never will.
There’s something great about that.
As an American, it helps you to remember and makes you awfully proud.
