NEVER FORGOTTEN

DIANA PERRY, E. ROCHESTER

God and the soldier, all men adore In time of danger and not before When the danger is passed and all things righted, God is forgotten and the soldier slighted grandparents’ grave, and I placed it with the dirt on Uncle Al’s grave. Upon return to Bu alo, I took a teaspoon of dirt from his site and placed it on my grandparents’ grave. I felt I reunited the son with his parents. Little did I know my mission was not complete!

Etched on a sentry box wall in Gibraltar, this passage o en resounded in me as I thought of my brother’s unheralded return from Vietnam in the 60s. His surprise arrival late one night brought joy a er a very long eighteen months away. It also reminded me that my mother’s family still awaited closure on their son who was listed missing in action (MIA) in WWII, then o cially declared dead. e lack of a burial, a ceremony, a closure, lingered years later. My mom o en said that her brother’s death allowed her non-English speaking immigrant parents to a ord to buy a farm outside the Bu alo area. Little did she know that their escape from memories of their neighborhood home would keep the mystery of his death.

My rst generation American-born Uncle Aloysius was a dra ed member of the Armored Infantry Battalion, 7th Armored Division. He was ‘lost’ in a battle in Overloon, Holland in October 1944, ten months before his namesake, my brother, would be born. For a year, Uncle Al was listed MIA, and I as a sister and mother of returned vets, can only imagine the heartache my grieving grandmother felt for her lost son.

One year ago in January 2022, I answered a ‘spam risk’ call. A woman asked if I was the daughter of Eugenia, sister of Aloysius. In the moment of my brain freeze, she explained herself as a researcher for the Human Resource Commission, Post Con ict Repatriations. Her job was to research to “account for all who did not return” and “to include or exclude information.”

A er spending a generous time on the call with me, she explained the armed forces wanted to identify my uncle’s remains. “Many human pieces” are o en found, and if they can identify some pieces they can identify all the various remains by narrowing down the options. Would I give them my spit for a DNA test?! My initial reaction was again that this was a spam call or that someone wanted my DNA for a cold case le. She suggested I talk to my family, gave me several phone numbers to verify the Army program, and le me in a state of What?!

My brother called it a scam. My immediate family said, “Go with your heart; it’s your decision.” When the young lady called back, I was still unsure, but she o ered to send me my uncle’s complete le to consider. Within days, an envelope arrived containing almost 200 pages detailing the circumstances of my uncle’s death, the search the military did to nd relatives in 1946, again in 1978, and nally his internment with a full military funeral. I learned from the le everything from his shoe size to his dental cavities to the fact that his rosary beads were by his side when he died!

When ancestry research came to the computer y years later, I entered information with the hope of nding information about my grandparents, my only certainty being that they were from an area that spoke Polish. My youth was at a time when you did not express nationality other than being ‘American.’ You didn’t want anyone to think you were foreign!

We lived about twenty miles from my mom’s family, and since my parents didn’t drive, visiting my grandparents was like visiting a foreign country. ey didn’t speak English, children didn’t ask questions, and at that time, we just tried to be as American as we could. e arrival of displaced persons from European refugee camps was not something to associate with. Not surprisingly, I found nothing related to my maternal grandparents in my research.

But out of the ancestry search came an unexpected nd: a historian for the Armored Division saw my post and reached out to ask if I was related to Aloysius Gonsowski of Bu alo, NY, and from him I found where my uncle was buried – in Belgium. I promised my mom I would one day visit his gravesite.

My daughter works in Europe, and during visits to see her and vacation capitals, I nally got to Belgium to see the grave. I knew that he was interred at the Ardennes American Military Cemetery, and on a picturesque June day in 2017, my family stood in awe at the site’s magni cence. Like the US’ Arlington National Cemetery in DC, the grounds at Ardennes are an immaculate, serene tribute to those who gave everything. I had brought with me a teaspoon of dirt from my

Evidently, in 1978, a townsman looking in a well-known battle area for war relics came across a shallow grave with two skeletons and a set of dog tags, one engraved with my uncle’s name. Again, the military tried to nd relatives and when they were unsuccessful, Uncle Al was given a full military burial in Ardennes. e le included the pictures and write-up from the Stars and Stripes paper! An amazing, beautiful closure for a soldier never forgotten by the military. How could I not give my DNA? It will be kept in a database so that if body parts are found in the battle area, they can include/exclude possible servicemen. Uncle Al gave so much; how could I not?

I wish the technology had been available sooner so my grandparents, my mom, and her siblings, could have had the closure I received knowing all the circumstances of the death of this WWII tank hero, a young man adored by his family and never forgotten or slighted by his country.