Remembering Those We Never Knew But Wish We Had

 By Charles Eldridge Marshall 

Memorial Day 2025 

I first posted this last year- 2024- but it seems still fitting and maybe I'll repeat it again every year as a tradition.  The Memorial of today is to the young people who lost their lives before they even started.  This is my second cousin - my father's first cousin- lost in WW II - his face is so young and filled with the expectancy of a full life of weddings and children and grandchildren,  birthdays and holidays and achievement. That's what was lost on the battlefield- a life not lived.  RIP Robert Marshall,  I wish I had known you.  

                                                              

                                                      Lt. Robert Marshall  

  I found this picture a few years ago in my grandmother’s old photo album- Lt. Robert Marshall - she remarked "My Nephew Lt. Robert Marshall, lost in action in 1943. Pictures taken while a cadet at LSU - La." He was “lost” in action - so I assume killed - but she doesn’t say anything about where or how, and my father never mentioned this cousin. I often think about him- he’s so young with a lifetime ahead of him. A big smile with the hopes of any young man at that age. Consider those lives lost & the huge price they paid. Defeating the Nazis & Fascist Japan was the high-point of our history in my humble opinion. On this Memorial Day I remember Lt. Robert Marshall. Lost to the world in WWII.

Rest in Peace

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