The Last Full Measure Of Devotion
“… from these honored dead we take increased devotion
to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion.”
Abraham Lincoln
Before the end of the year, more Americans will die of COVID-19 than died in combat in World War II; more than all forces in the Civil War and World War I combined; almost ten times the total of the Korean War; and, six times the total of American deaths during the War in Vietnam.
Three months after nearly 500,000 motorcycle enthusiasts gathered in Sturgis, South Dakota for a ten-day rally in August-September; the Centers for Disease Control reported, “Eighty-six Minnesota COVID-19 cases were associated with the South Dakota motorcycle rally.”
A wedding reception for 55 people in rural Maine led to 177 COVID-19 cases, including seven deaths and outbreaks in the local community, a long-term care facility and a correctional facility, according to a November 13 CDC report.
Ninety-two people attended services at a rural Arkansas church between March 6 and March 11; thirty-five developed laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 and three died; an additional 26 cases - including one death - linked to the church occurred in the community.
A church in Keysville, Virginia – population 832 – held a three-day revival in mid-September; local health officials “unequivocally” deemed it a “super spreader” of the Coronavirus. “…[E]veryone should do what makes them feel safe,” the church advertised regarding face masks and social distancing. On September 26, the pastor learned that he had contracted COVID-19 and wo more tested positive the following day, then six and eight. Ultimately 42 participants tested positive and there were eleven subsequent cases – second and third generation outbreaks. By mid-October, Keysville’s Charlotte County had almost two-hundred cumulative cases.
Entering the holiday season and anticipating Hanukah, Christmas and New Year’s, the nation has seemingly overwhelming numbers of heroes to honor.
Second Lieutenant Audie L. Murphy was the most decorated American soldier of World War II. Desmond Doss, who enlisted as a conscientious objector and a medic, received the Medal of Honor for saving lives despite his wounds during fighting on Okinawa.
Already an “ace” for his service in the Pacific during World War II, the intrepid Army Air Force Major George A. Davis was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor for his service during the Korean War. In his final combat mission, he surprised twelve Chinese MiG-15s about to attack friendly aircraft in “MiG Alley” – downing two before he was shot down and killed.
Patrick Byrne was first missioned in Korea in 1923, before serving in Japan and returning to Seoul in 1947. When the North Korean Army crossed the 38th Parallel on June 25, 1950, he refused the opportunity to evacuate with other Americans and was ultimately warehoused with other foreigners in a location where South Korean prisoners were being tortured and executed.
At his trial, the judged declare, “Either Bishop Byrne will broadcast by radio a denunciation of the United States, the United Nations and the Vatican, or he must die.” “There remans only one course: that I die,” responded the Bishop. On September 5, 1950, he and other prisoners were joined on a train to Manpo, a village on the Yalu River, by American POWs.
Six weeks later, a North Korean major – “the Tiger” - announced they were to begin a march north. When some protested that they would die, the Tiger answered, “Then you shall march till you die.” The march, which began on October 31, 1950 included 750 American solders and 59 civilians, including children.
As soldiers fell by the wayside, Bishop Byrne stopped and prayed for and with them and imparted his blessing. The Tiger’s response to fallen soldiers was to shoot them and their commanding officers. Another civilian marcher, Father Philip Crosbie wrote, “Bishop Byrne never claimed his fair share of anything, except of work; and of that he always claimed more than was his due.”
Two civilians and 98 soldiers died during the 110-mile trek to Hanjang-ni, where prisoners were forced to do calisthenics in subzero temperatures. When he began to demonstrated signs of pneumonia, Bishop Byrne was moved to the heatless, medicine-less “People’s hospital” - “the Morgue.” Before his death on November 25, 1950, Bishop Byrne told his companions “After the privilege of my priesthood, the greatest privilege of my life is to suffer for Christ with all of you.”
Pilsen, Kansas, birthplace of Emil Kapaun (1916) is a long way from Usan, North Korea, where he was trapped with the American troops to whom he ministered as an Army chaplain. Despite opportunities to escape, he “decided to allow himself to be captured so that he could remain with the wounded Americans,” according to an American survivor of the War. During the subsequent march toward Pyoktong, American troops were deprived of their boots, heavy clothing and water purification tablets, put on a starvation diet, and shot or abandoned when they could not keep up.
Despite suffering from frostbite and starvation, Father Kapaun constantly assisted in bearing the litters of American soldiers. “After a rest he’d just call, ‘Lets pick ‘em up,’ and all down the line the guys would bend down and lift, and follow him,” reported survivor Mike Dowe, Jr.
In defiance of his captors, Father Kapaun constantly led prayers, undertook the repulsive act of picking lice from those too weak to help themselves, cleaned toilets while others argued about who should do it, traded his watch for a blanket and made it into bandages, cleaned the old and stinking bandages, and dug graves when others refused. “He held [the sick men] in is arms like children as delirium came upon them.”
One prisoner remembered “When others were getting meaner Father Kapaun was only kinder…. The rougher it got, the gentler Father Kapaun became. It was his actual deeds that gave the prisoners such tremendous impact as they watched hm living by God’s law… Chaplain Kapaun practiced what he preached.”
Kapaun patched up huts, formed pans of scrap metal and regularly lit an outdoor fireplace at which, having awakened before the others, he would heat water for everyone else. Then “he’d bring in this pan full of hot water, calling cheerfully, ‘Coffee, everybody,’ and pouring a little into every man’s bowl. And though there was no coffee in it, somehow this sip of hot water in the morning gave each man heart to rise and pick off his lice and choke down his bowl of soupy millet, and face […] another day of captivity and abuse.”
Despite blood clots and agonizing bone-aches brought on by starvation, Father Kapaun never complained
After he got up one freezing-cold day to administer the Sacrament of the Sick (Last Rites/Extreme Unction), he caught pneumonia and was transferred to the “hospital” – called “the dying place” by the prisoners of Camp 5. Before being carried off, Father Kapaun smiled at the group of weeping men who had gathered around him. “Tell them back home that I died a happy death,” he said.
Father Kapaun was awarded the Medal of Honor by President Obama on April 11, 2013 for his actions in the battle of Usan. The presidential Citation noted that, when the 8th Cavalry was being overrun by Chinese forces, he aided the wounded with no regard for his own safety, often leaving the safe perimeter U.S. forces had established to go out and rescue injured soldiers and chose to remain behind and be captured in order to care for wounded American soldiers.
Popularly known as “the Grunt Padre,” Vincent Capadanno joined the United States Navy as a Marine Corps chaplain and was assigned to an infantry unit during the Vietnam War. He had previously served as a missioner with the Hakka people in the mountains of Taiwan and then at a school in Hong Kong. In July 1967, after a one-month leave, he returned to Vietnam for a voluntary six-month extension and was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 5th Marines.
In the early morning hours of September 4, 1967 – Labor Day – a large contingent of Marines was overrun by approximately 2,500 members of the North Vietnamese Army (NVA).
The presidential Medal of Honor Citation reads in part: “Lieutenant Capodanno left the relative safety of the company command post and ran through an open area raked with fire, directly to the beleaguered platoon. Disregarding the intense enemy small-arms, automatic-weapons, and mortar fire, he moved about the battlefield administering last rites to the dying and giving medical aid to the wounded. When an exploding mortar round inflicted painful multiple wounds to his arms and legs, and severed a portion of his right hand, he steadfastly refused all medical aid. Instead, he directed the corpsmen to help their wounded comrades and, with calm vigor, continued to move about the battlefield as he provided encouragement by voice and example to the valiant marines. Upon encountering a wounded corpsman in the direct line of fire of an enemy machine gunner positioned approximately 15 yards away, Lieutenant Capodanno rushed in a daring attempt to aid and assist the mortally wounded corpsman. At that instant, only inches from his goal, he was struck down by a burst of machine gun fire.”
In the days before Hanukah, Christmas and New Year’s, responsible leaders of the Center for Disease Control, frontline doctors and nurses who struggle to save the lives of complete strangers struggling to breathe, and friends and loved ones of those who have died of the Coronavirus will urge, beg and plead with Americans to protect themselves and those whom they love by staying home, wearing masks and practicing common sense prevention.
Unhappily, dolts and some religious and political “leaders” will encourage their sycophants and victims to discard these same precautionary notices. Wrapped in bandoliers and American flags, they’ll bloviate about First and Second Amendment rights and free speech and the need and freedom to worship, as well as the importance of “getting together as a family” – even if it means risking killing grandmothers and grandfathers by contaminating the air they breathe.
Perhaps, in the Providence of God, some of our nation’s political and religious leaders will recall the spirit of heroes: Serving with “calm vigor,” protecting the lives of others, zealously inspiring leadership, exemplifying the highest measure of devotion – to family, companions and nation, and assuming more than a “fare share” of the work of Kindness and Justice and Peace.
Perhaps, in the Providence of God, every American will commit to doing all that is necessary to maintain quarantines, wear masks, observe social distancing, protect the weak and bring an end to a pandemic that soon will have claimed almost 400,000 lives.
It is time, as individuals and as a nation, to provide “encouragement by voice and example,” to be “kinder…gentler,” to bear the sick in our arms “like children” and shout “Let’s pick ‘em up,” and commit - through this pandemic and in the year to come - to the work of Justice.