MAY 31, 2021 – I’ve long forgotten the context of the conversation, but one day when I was a firstgrader palling around with Johnny Ridge a couple of doors down, he told me nonchalantly that his uncle “sat on a grenade and got a reward.” Years later, the uncle, Rick Sorenson, came back to Anoka for the dedication of a new city park named in his honor. Only then did I learn that 18 days after shipping out for the Marshall Islands, the former Marine had “hurled himself” on a Japanese grenade in WW II, for which selfless bravery he’d been awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor.
I’ve since learned that of the 27 American WW II soldiers who threw themselves on enemy grenades, three of the men were from Anoka County. The other two were Pfc. Richard Kraus, who saved three fellow Marines by jumping onto a grenade in fighting on the Palau Islands, and Pfc. James LaBelle, who saved lives by diving onto a grenade outside his foxhole. Both soldiers died. Johnny’s uncle survived, fought again in the Korean War and lived to be 80.
I cannot imagine being in combat, and I have even less ability to imagine myself jumping, diving, hurling—or sitting–on a live grenade so that others might live.
Two years after Johnny informed me that his uncle had sat on a grenade, everyone in our school learned about Johnny’s original war-hero-ancestor—Aaron Greenwald. A small triangular park within sight of our school’s front entrance was our town’s “cannon park”—with an artillery piece dedicated to the town’s war heroes. When I was a fourth-grader, the town fathers installed next to the weapon, a plaque dedicated to Greenwald. It reads:
Dedicated to Aaron Greenwald and his comrades, who near this spot shortly after 10 a.m. on April 15, 1861, were the first Union Civil War Volunteers in the Nation. Aaron Greenwald was killed at Gettysburg July 2, 1863, in the famous “Charge That Saved The Union.’” The First Volunteers were: Aaron Greenwald, James W. Groat and five others.
(Note: a bit of research reveals that in fact, Greenwald died on July 5 after taking a musket ball in the head while holding the line against Pickett’s Charge on July 3.)
On Memorial Day, Johnny’s family and the whole town back then, remembered Aaron Greenwald and his contribution to saving the Union.
My family’s Aaron Greenwald was 2nd Lt. Robert Holman, a Dartmouth scholar-athlete, the family’s shining light, and my mother’s favorite cousin. He volunteered for the army air corps and went down on a B-17. His loss was part of the awful price of defeat over unspeakable evil.
By fate, some die for country and others live on. On this day when we remember the fallen, may we make our lives—and our country—worthy of their sacrifice. But may we not use the occasion to glorify war—nor to put the national colors ahead of national character.
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© 2021 by Eric Nilsson
