Wilmer A. Wagner, R.I.P.

This past Thursday evening an uncommon man passed from this world.

He was born in Mid-June 1919, four score and fourteen years ago.  The world’s eyes were on Versailles, France where the world’s leaders were gathered to craft and sign a treaty bringing an end to The Great War, also known as the War to End All Wars. The decisions these idealistic and supposedly wise leaders made resulted in harsh terms that led directly to a conflict even more global and destructive, known as the Second World War.

Wilmer A. "Bud" Wagner, like many Minnesota boys born that year, would enlist or be drafted to serve in this subsequent war.

It's interesting that the first airplane flight across the Atlantic Ocean took place that June 1919 as well. Years later, Bud would be aboard the first convoy to cross the Atlantic, heading for the war's European Theater. He kept a diary throughout the war, which would later form the basis of a book published with editorial assistance from his son in the year 2000 titled And There Shall Be Wars.

To pass the time he did a lot of reading and occasionally wrote poetry. This is the beginning of a much longer poem he wrote aboard that convoy.

Anticipation
Tonight I'm going to try my ability at rhyme,
Because right now I have a lot of time.
We've been floating all day,
But where we are going no one will say.

In June 1919 Carl Sandburg was awarded the Pullitzer Prize for his volume of poems titled Corn Huskers. Though Wagner never received the national acclaim a Pullitzer brings, the book he wrote did gain the attention of important people who acknowledged his memoir And There Shall Be Wars as being a significant contribution to the study of military history.

Retired General John W. Vessey, former head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, wrote, "Dear Bud, ... Thanks not only for the copy of the book, but also for putting those wartime notes into a permanent record. It is an important addition to all the "stuff" historians record. I couldn't put the book down once I got into it. It brought back a lot of memories reading about times, places, and people from 55+ years ago." General Vessey appears several times in the book, receiving his first promotion, to Captain, in Bud's jeep.

Toward the end of his life he had the privilege of participating in Honor Flight, a program designed to fly veterans to Washington D.C. to see the World War Two Memorial there. He had to be at the airport by 5:30 a.m. so I went to pick my father-in-law up at 5:00. He had been sitting in his car since midnight. As in the war, at all hours he was ready for the call.

His obituary in this weekend's Duluth News Tribune paints a picture of his life, a man worthy of honor.

Scenes from Today's Honor Flight

A Few Things You Might Not Have Known About The Flag

Today is Flag Day, June 14, commemorating the adoption of the flag of the United States in 1777. Evidently you can't be a country without a flag, because every nation seems to have one.

The official proclamation that this would be called Flag Day was made by President Woodrow Wilson in 1916. Our doughboys were heading off to war on foreign soil and our flag would fly with them. It wasn't until after WWII that the U.S. Congress voted to establish it as a National Flag Day. Ironically, Pennsylvania is the only state to officially celebrate it as a holiday. Perhaps because that Second Continental Congress in 1777 met in Philadelphia?

Here are a few details about our U.S. flag that some might not know.

~ The first time our flag flew over foreign soil was in what country? Libya, over Fort Deme on the shores of Tripoli. (And now you know where that line from the U.S. Marines hymn came from.) But when was this and why? It was 1803. The Barbary Coast pirates had been perpetually interfering with shipping routes and the U.S. decided to do something about it. In fact, it was because of these pirates that George Washington created the U.S. Navy in 1794. North Africa was under the control of Ottoman Turks, but with the aid of Croatian fighters (probably from Venice), 8 U.S. marines took the fort and flew the flag to ensure afe commerce on the high seas.

~ Francis Scott Key wrote the lyrics to the Star Spangled Banner on the back of an envelope. Where did the tune come from? Actually, the music came from an English drinking song called "To Anacreon in Heaven."

~A vexillologist is an expert in the history of flags. Something I am not, though with the help of Google you can probably become an expert in anything.

~ The first 50-star American flag was raised over Fort McHenry near Baltimore in 1960, where Francis Scott Key wrote the Star Spangled Banner.

~ The reason the first flag had all the stars in a circle was so that no one "state" would be above another.

~ In 2004 Cornell University researchers etched the world's smallest full color American flag onto a silicon chip. The Bush administration was seeking to implant these chips into all natural born U.S. citizens. (That last sentence was a joke to see if you're still reading. ;-)

Today is my father-in-law's 90th birthday, a somewhat momentous milestone. It's true that many people are living longer these days, but I know few at his age who are still so active. As a veteran soldier from what many are calling "The Greatest Generation" he saw many of his friends killed during the war. He still mows our lawn, keeps a large garden, digs ditches, and loves to drive, a habit which he picked up during the war as a company agent, carrying messages to and from the front, and site seeing in that beautiful Italian countryside.

The images on the page today are from the National World War Two Memorial in Washington, D.C. It is a very special memorial, a good place to reflect on the price of freedom. The soldiers from each state our acknowledged here as well as the theaters in which they served. Be sure to click on each image to enlarge. Thank you, Bud, and to all who sacrificed so much.

This bottom photo depicts the major campaigns which were fought in Southern Europe, all of which are depicted in day-to-day first hand detail in Bud Wagner's diaries and memoir And There Shall Be Wars.