Virgil's Memorial Day Poem

by Jane H.
(Bemidji, MN USA)

One year on Memorial Day, the mayor of our northern Minnesota town declared Virgil Tangborn Day. Virgil was my uncle. I never saw him, except as a black and white image in a photo. He was part of the 90th Infantry Division that liberated the town of Perier in France. He was killed rescuing one of his fellow soldiers from a burning truck during an artillery barrage.

The town commissioned the statues of four soldiers whose stories are to represent all of those buried at the Colville Sur Mer cemetery on Omaha Beach. Virgil was chosen because he was a medic and perhaps because he kept a journal that enabled the keeper of the archives, Henri Levaufre, to know him better.

I had attended Memorial Day services at the local cemetery before, but that year the ceremony was different. Though there were hundreds of people, when Virgil's story was told you could have heard a pin drop.

On that same Memorial Day, in France my uncle Wendell was attending a ceremony for the dedication of the statues. The local American Legion sent a huge wreath, so large that Wendell had to enlist the help of two firemen to help put it in place.

Every year on Memorial Day, I visit three cemeteries to place flowers on the graves of relatives. Some of them I knew, and others I never met. It is always an occasion for reflection, to remember the old stories, and to honor my family's patriots.

Uncle Wendell has held ceremonies every year at his home in Vashon, Washington. He files the flag presented to Virgil's family in 1944, and shares memorabilia with friends and neighbors.

Uncle Virgils Memorial Day Poem

Somewhere in France
lies one whose single voice has called me
to the dream he had no time to chase or capture.

He wrote, "I will be some sort of artist.
A filmmaker, perhaps, or a novelist".
Uncle, your spirit lies trapped with you
beneath that white cross.

I am not as brave or smart as you were,
but I whose existence you never imagined
will grasp the string of your aspiration
and float it above those fields of green.