The Heart of a Soldier

by Eddie Roth

June, 2015

President Barack Obama conferred the Medal of Honor, posthumously, on my grandfather, William Shemin, earlier this week.

Before the official ceremony in the East Room of the White House, Tuesday, the president met with my mother and my Aunt Ina in the Oval Office. Seated at his desk, he read to them and then signed in their presence the following citation:

Sergeant Shemin distinguished himself by acts of gallantry and intrepidity above and beyond the call of duty while serving as a Rifleman with G Company, 2d Battalion, 47th Infantry Regiment, 4th Division, American Expeditionary Forces, in connection with combat operations against an armed enemy on the Vesle River, near Bazoches, France from August 7 to August 9, 1918. Sergeant Shemin left cover and crossed

open space, repeatedly exposing himself to heavy machine-gun and rifle fire, to rescue wounded. After Officers and Senior Noncommissioned Officers had become casualties, Sergeant Shemin took command of the platoon and displayed great initiative under fire until wounded on August 9. Sergeant Shemin’s extraordinary heroism and selflessness, above and beyond the call of duty, are in keeping with the highest traditions of the military service and reflect great credit upon himself, his unit, and the United States Army.

The delayed recognition was part a larger movement in which the U.S. Armed Forces have been examining how religious and racial prejudice may have affected service records of war veterans.

My grandfather was Jewish.

He shared the day with fellow World War I veteran, United States Army Private Henry Johnson, whose gallantry and intrepidity in rescuing a comrade, via hand-to-hand combat, in some ways was even more astonishing than my grandfather’s.

Private Johnson was black. Battle buddies had given him the nickname, “Black death.”

***

The official proceedings in Washington, D.C., began Monday evening with a United States Army reception for family and friends of the recipients. More than 60 cousins from my mother’s family — men and women who, themselves, or whose parents and grandparents and great grandparents had known my grandfather — were present. (President Obama later referred to us as a "platoon" of Shemins).

Private Johnson, sadly, still a young man, died destitute, without a family and in a hospital having never fully recovered from his wartime injuries. He primarily was represented by a proud contingent drawn from succeeding generations of soldiers who served in the 369th U.S. Infantry Regiment, successor to the vaunted, all black “Harlem Hellfighters” with whom he had fought.

The White House ceremony was held Tuesday morning; it was followed by a reception with elegant refreshments in the State Dining Room. Family and guests from across official Washington were invited to wander the adjacent Red, Blue and Green Rooms, all of which look out across the South Portico.

The following morning, my grandfather and Private Johnson were inducted into the ‘Hall of Heroes’ at a formal ceremony held at the Pentagon. A small number of guests then were invited to a luncheon.

The festivities concluded Wednesday evening with a Twilight Tattoo, an outdoor military pageant.

***

I have described to friends what I witnessed as not just “powerful” but “borderline overwhelming.”

I consider myself to be something of a cool customer. I’m not blasé in the face of things that are inspiring. But I am not accustomed to feelings of overwhelm, either.

I had a nagging sense something was at work more complex than the rare visual and atmospheric cues with which I came in contact during the Washington, D.C., whirlwind.

***
Make no mistake, those cues were keen.

Family and special guests embarked on busses and were delivered to the White House in a police led motorcade — lights, sirens, motorcycle officers from various agencies, stopping traffic at intersections along the way to ensure our passage was unimpeded.

The White House, inside and out, is impossibly beautiful, proof positive of American good taste.

The president arrived in the East Room to the strains of Hail to the Chief. Mr. Obama is fit, lively and graceful in step. His handsome face is ruddier than I had expected. He has begun to look like a man in his early 50’s, which, to me, is a reassuring quality in a president.

His incisive eloquence was on full display — with Gilbert Stuart’s 1796 Landsdowne portrait of George Washington, hand extended, looking on.

Copious arrangements of perfect roses, canapes, small cakes and confections, punctuated the reception in the State Dining Room. The festive gathering was overseen by Healy’s portrait of a solitary, pensive, seated Lincoln, leaning forward in his chair, head in hand, elbow on his knee.

The Pentagon also was not without its mammoth brand of monumental charm — to my wife's reckoning, reminiscent of Vatican back offices — bureaucracy enlisted in a cause of nobility.

Lunch, there, was served in The Patriot Room, a small, dark-wood-paneled dining room outside the offices of the Army's senior command.

It began with a salad of watercress, baby spinach, roasted fava beans, tangerine segments, pickled radishes, pecorino cheese crumbles and a whole grained mustard vinaigrette.

The main course was seared airline chicken breast, topped with boursin cream sauce, served with roasted garlic parson potato croquette and a roasted vegetable-bacon hash.

For dessert: Key lime bar with chiffon cream, candied lime, pomegranate coulis and a summer fresh watermelon sorbet.

***

Present through out, of course, were many men and women of the United States Army who over many years had painstakingly researched, organized and now staffed the proceedings.

Perfection, once more, is the word that comes to mind — in comportment, carriage, courtliness, apparent competence and attentiveness, grooming, details of dress, manner of conversation, and disciplined cordiality.

All seemed tall. A disproportionate number were tall. Those who were not, somehow, carried themselves in a way that conveyed the impression that they were tall.

***
Then there’s my grandfather, himself.

He has been gone for more than 40 years. The last time the family gathered with him as the central focus of sustained attention was at his funeral. I recall a brief ceremony at a dusty place of assembly at the old Jewish Cemetery on Staten Island where he and my grandmother are laid to rest. I remember a representative of the Jewish War Veterans, wearing a garrison cap, hastily recruited to say a few words. He repeatedly called my grandfather William “Sherman,” rather than “Shemin.”

Yeesh. This was much more like it!

I am William Shemin's oldest grandson, and was 15 years old at the time of his death. I don't think he was so sure about me. But I felt as though I knew him pretty well.

I have described him as follows:

He was a broad-chested, broken-nosed, thick-armed man's man with a loud voice. He boxed, and played football, baseball and lacrosse at Syracuse. He could be gruff in his dealings, even with small grandchildren. He tolerated no crying.

He was outspoken with strong opinions and non-negotiable advice to his grandchildren. Discipline and "dependability" were the values he most frequently reinforced.

Yet, for a living, he cultivated and tended beautiful flowers. He went to the forestry school at Syracuse. He had a hearty laugh. He had a meticulous, elegant handwriting. He would lament, with a chuckle, how, growing up, he was perennial runner-up in penmanship contests -- always edged out by one girl in the class.

He treated all of his grandchildren equally; his expectations for leadership and accomplishment were no different for his ten granddaughters than for his four grandsons. To assist our grandfather in his garden, boy or girl, was to be his "right hand man."

I never heard him speak of his experience in battle. He could become moody, unpredictably stern, combustible. In hindsight, and especially in light of records my mother kept regarding his military disability, this was a lasting effect of war.

He extolled the camaraderie of military service.
He loved family, country, hard work, history, his Jewish heritage and the Army.

He was proud of his war service. He was proud of, and fully satisfied with having received, the Distinguished Service Cross.

He would be surprised at this turn of events.

The remembrance of my grandfather this week, in other words, was entirely celebratory. It generated nothing but warm feelings. There was no sense of vindicated grievance.

My grandfather loved the Army. He had not a drop of regret over how his wartime service had been recognized.

***

In sorting out the images and impressions over the several days, I came closer to the source of overwhelm in a brief conversation I had with United States Army General Daniel B. Allyn.

General Allyn is a native of Berwick, Maine. He is a graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point. He and I are nearly the same age.

As a younger soldier, General Allyn served in a succession of overseas assignments as a combat infantryman and master parachutist that have taken him into multiple hot spots and places of battle, including two tours of duty with the 82nd Airborne Division,

two years with the 2nd Infantry Division, and three tours of duty with the 75th Ranger Regiment.

He was commander of the United States Army Forces Command at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, the largest command in the United States Army and principal provider of “campaign capable” land forces.

He currently serves as Vice Chief of Staff of the United States Army. He is the Army’s second highest ranking officer.

Descriptions of the comparative duties of the chief of staff and the vice chief of staff of the United States Army are reminiscent of the old saw about how cruise ships have two captains — one who dances with the lady guests in the ballroom and one who runs the ship.

General Allyn’s current assignment, in other words, may require him to spend considerably more time directing operations than dancing with members of Congress or the joint chiefs.

General Allyn was not the official host at any of the Medal of Honor events. At the White House, of course, it was the president. At the induction to the Hall of Heroes, principal greetings were ably presented by Deputy Secretary of Defense Robert Work. Under Secretary of the Army Brad Carson graciously presided over the Pentagon luncheon.

Still, General Allyn made it his business to be at every event. He arrived punctually and stayed. He was a friendly but low-key presence. Except at the Pentagon luncheon, he was accompanied by his wife — the daughter of a courageous Vietnam War veteran.

People don’t ascend to the highest echelon of military leadership without exhibiting extraordinary poise. General Allyn is no exception.

But there was a moment when I was chatting with General Allyn at the first-night's reception. As I was about to step away. He subtly stopped me for just a moment. With narrowed eyes and a deeply serious face and in a voice that was little more than a whisper, designed not to draw attention to himself, he expressed to me his and the United States Army’s gratitude for my grandfather’s service.

It was the kind of gesture that leaves one near overwhelmed. ***
Gratitude is the guiding principle of the Medal of Honor.

Presidents refer to the “gratitude of the nation” when conferring the award. President Obama expressed just such a sentiment when conferring the award on Private Johnson and my grandfather.

From the front row seat I was assigned by accident of birth it occurred to me that this concept of gratitude is much broader than recognition of individual acts of gallantry and intrepidity, however extraordinary, would imply.

Prior to the president’s speaking, Chaplain (Maj. Gen.) Paul K. Hurley, a Catholic priest and the Army’s newly-appointed chief of chaplains, offered an invocation.

He asked, in prayer, that we be “mindful always of these men, of their acts of valor, their witness to the indomitable human capacity for good, even in the face of the most inhuman conditions of the battlefield.”

“May the lives of Henry Johnson and William Shemin remind us 'the soldier's heart, the soldier's spirit, and the soldier's soul are everything,'” he asked in prayer.

He began the invocation with a recitation of a phrase from the New Jerusalem Bible’s transcription of David’s 23rd Psalm.

“We read in the sacred psalms, ‘even were I to walk in a ravine as dark as death I should fear no danger, for you are at my side; your staff and your crook are there to sooth me.’

So, if gratitude is the guiding principle of the Medal of Honor, perhaps these concepts draw us closer to central truths:

They suggest that acts of valor and human capacity for good in the face of the most inhuman conditions of the battlefield are not rare events. It does no disservice to Private Johnson or my grandfather to suggest that the acts of gallantry and intrepidity for which they received the Medal of Honor differ only in degree, and not in kind, from extraordinary valor by ordinary men that occurs everyday on battlefields of war.

My grandfather acknowledged as much.

“My father often said it was pure luck that several people just happened to see his action,” my mother said in her remarks at the Pentagon ceremony. “So many brave men and women performed heroic acts that were never witnessed or acknowledged ... who did not have the proper paperwork, or representation depicting their valor.”

Chaplain Hurley’s reference to the “soldier's heart, the soldier's spirit, and the soldier's soul” being “everything” is taken from a speech United States Army General George C. Marshall gave at Trinity College in Harford, Connecticut, just months before Pearl Harbor.

General Marshall went on to explain:

Today war, total war, is not a succession of mere episodes in a day or a week. It is a long drawn out and intricately planned business and the longer it continues the heavier are the demands on the character of the men engaged in it.

With each succeeding month, with each succeeding year, it makes always heavier and more terrible demands on the mental and spiritual qualities, capacities and powers of the men engaged in it.

War is a burden to be carried on a steep and bloody road and only strong nerves and determined spirits can endure to the end.

It is true that war is fought with physical weapons of flame and steel but it is not the mere possession of these weapons, or the use of them, that wins the struggle. They are indispensable but in the final analysis it is the human spirit that achieves the ultimate decision.

It is not enough to fight. It is the spirit which we bring to the fight that decides the issue. It is morale that wins the victory.

But there’s another aspect of the soldier’s heart cited by General Marshall that bears on this question of the Medal of Honor.

The soldier who survives the horror of war is certain to suffer heartbreak. One cannot read the accounts of writers Phil Klay or Tim O’Brien and doubt that this is true.

And, so, for all those whom we ask to “walk in a ravine as dark as death” — so many of whom have engaged, unnoticed, in extraordinary acts of valor — we periodically display the solemn perfection of awarding the Medal of Honor.

It does a soldier’s heart good.