by Phil Hudgins
Thursday, Nov. 11, is Veterans Day.
November 11th was chosen to honor all military veterans, past and present, because “the war to end all wars” – World War I – unofficially ended on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month in 1918.
Unfortunately, “the war to end all wars” was just a catchy phrase. Other wars came, other veterans served, many of them were injured and maimed, many of them died.
My wife’s uncle, Maudie A. Miller, died in World War I.
Over the years, I have developed a greater respect for veterans who fought in World War II, including my Uncle Alton Hudgins. I have friends and acquaintances who fought in the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Gulf War, the War in Afghanistan, the Iraq War. Others who fought did not come home.
What goes through a person’s mind just before entering a battle he might not survive? The late Eugene Phillips wondered that very thing. A friend of mine from Royston, Georgia, Phillips served under Gen. George Patton during World War II and eventually was promoted to brigadier general.
On the way to the invasion of French Morocco on Nov. 8, 1942, Phillips, then a first lieutenant, wrote these words:
“All my life I’ve wondered what thoughts a man might have just before going into battle.
“In the morning, two hours before dawn, I shall know.
“There is something hazy and hurried and indistinct about ‘great moments,’ an unreal quality that renders details somehow indistinguishable later.
“Such a ‘moment’ you experience as you stand here at the rail of the transport with a lump in your throat and watch your native land fade into the mist.
“This is no pleasure cruise! You are on a great offensive. This is the Second Front.
“It might be a one-way trip.”
One can only imagine what thoughts jockeyed for dominance as Phillips sat at his typewriter behind the tightly closed portholes of a darkened ship sailing with the largest combat-loaded convoy ever to sail from any port in any war in the world’s history.
Phillips never mentioned the invasion during our conversations. But, one day, he mailed me a copy of what he wrote on the ship.
I wish I could have spoken to my wife’s uncle, Maudie Miller. I read the letters he sent home to his parents. He was hopeful. “I’ll be all right,” he wrote.
On Nov. 11, 1918, hostilities on the Western Front ceased.
But Maudie Miller never got the news. He was severely wounded and died 22 days before Armistice Day.
About two years and nine months after he died, the remains of Maudie Miller, my late father-in-law’s oldest brother, arrived home for burial. His New Testament was among his belongings.
Maudie had marked one verse in the little book. It was the 13th verse of the 15th chapter of St. John. It was the same verse the Rev. P.M. Webb read at Maudie’s funeral on July 29, 1921:
“Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”
Phil Hudgins is the senior editor of Community Newspapers Inc. Reach him at phudgins@cninewspapers.com.