Mr. Appleton, founded The American Legion.
When I was young Mrs. Totten, General Patton���s daughter,
would lead us through his house with a divining stick to find
his spirit and his strength. My father fought in the South Pacific as a Seabee in the Second World War, committed to the
cause even with thick spectacles. His lifelong silence on the
subject is telling. For the rest of his life, he assisted his fellow
veterans.
I read ���The Soldier��� by Rupert Brooke, first in 1961 and again
during the difficult days of Viet Nam. Even though the poet
speaks as an Englishman, it is easy to transpose the word ���England��� with ���New England��� or ���America��� or ���home��� or, indeed, any nation or country. Brooke���s poem, in tandem with
his tragic death in his twenties off the coast of Skyros Island in
the Sporades, steaming to the Dardanelles, came to represent
for me the profound tragedy and sadness of war. He would
never again embrace the love of his life, a Tahitian beauty. I often wonder if she ever came to know that he died. Nor would
he see Cathleen Nesbitt, the great thespian whom he had also
loved.
We placed wildflowers on his remote grave at the desolate,
barren end of Skyros. Other than a sole building far below on
the bay and a dirt road that passes nearby, nothing appears to
have changed since his friends erected his elegant sarcophagus
there.
HYLAND
45
