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Volume CXXXII, Number 2 |
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WWII, part II
KID WONGSRICHANALAI
COLUMNIST
Why must so much revolve around that one ship and one island?
Where does it link up with Bowdoin College's proud history? The answers
to these questions lie upon another memorial, enshrined in another form,
forever housed against the west wing of Hubbard Hall - The Bowdoin Memorial.
On that marble monument, the names of Bowdoin men who fell in the Second
World War as well as the Korean and Vietnam conflicts are etched against
a white background. For the family members and the friends of those men
who found their names remembered in such a fashion there is much power
in the simple shrine to their memory. Yet, for the every day occupant
of the College, walking to and from Gibson Hall or Hawthorne-Longfellow
Library, there is little recognition of the Memorial. It is there, many
will vaguely remember but the names for most who see it are lifeless -
distant men from a distant era long past and not long remembered. The
same effect is observed when many pass the memorial plaques to Bowdoin
men in the Civil War and the flagpole memorial to those who served in
the first Great War.
As long as there has been America there has been a tradition of war. And while historians may debate the meanings or the causes of these conflicts it is often important to remember not only the politics and the hatreds that unleashed the beast of war, but also the simple men and women who had no choice but to be dragged into one. For almost as long as there has been America, there has also been Bowdoin College. What the United States has endured since 1794, so too has this small college in Maine. From the threatening days of the Civil War - where Bowdoin sent more of her sons (percentage wise) than any other college or university towards the Union cause - to the dark new age of mechanical war, Bowdoin men have been on the forefront of the battle-lines. From the fields of Antietam to the Marne and the island of Iwo Jima, Bowdoin men have served their country and served it proudly.
Indeed, one of her greatest crises came when the veil of despot darkness descended upon a war-weary and depressed globe. It was a time for valor and simple faith in the ideals of righteousness and freedom. From Bowdoin's halls, many sons answered the call; many did not return. Those "honored dead" as Abraham Lincoln called another generation of American sons on the bloodied fields of Gettysburg, are remembered by the Bowdoin Memorial, and it is hoped that this series of articles will remember them to you. Perhaps the names will mean something and a generation that is slowly backing away towards the dimming of their time will come alive again to you, the reader and you may be reminded of what great things they had endured and done.
The Bowdoin Memorial is flanked by two markers, which bear quotes from two other Bowdoin men from long ago, in the period of the Napoleonic charge and the dashing cavalier. Both rose to great fame and glory in their professions and one of them, a member of the class of 1852, fondly recalling the marching men of the Grand Army of the Republic wrote as his generation's light was setting:
They will come together again under higher bidding, and will know their place and name. This army will live, and live on, so long as soul shall answer soul, so long as that flag watches with its stars over fields of mighty memory…
To Be Continued.
Next Time: Part I: Midpoint of History