Albert McTeer (September 23, 1920-June 25, 1943)
Yesterday at Church, during Prayers of the People, I
asked for names of those who had died in service to our country. We remembered Albert McTeer, Alan Kohn
from Columbia, and a member's two Citadel classmates. Today, Memorial Day, I
find myself wanting to know more, particularly, about Albert McTeer and, remembering at the same time,
Jesus' words about counting the cost of what we undertake (Luke 14.28-32) .[1]
WW II cost the church family of St. James Santee, the life of young Albert McTeer. There is a memorial tablet to him in the
Church, and it notes that he died on June 25, 1943 in North Africa. He was a Morrison cousin which means he was
related to about one half of the church membership. Twenty-two years of age, he was a recent
Clemson graduate. His burial record
(interred overseas) , photo and copy of his obituary are HERE
. Without a doubt, there were other losses in the extended church family, but his
is one that is still mourned today by his cousins.
I recall Alan Kohn who was a high school friend and
who died serving our country in Vietnam on March 26, 1968 - a few days after his twenty-first
birthday. I did not know him well but
recall that our school (it was my senior year) mourned his loss. HERE is the link
to his listing on the Virtual Vietnam Veterans Wall of Faces. I looked back at
our high school annual (Dreher High School in Columbia, 1965) and noted the
saying by his photograph- "I have kept unsullied and untarnished that
thing - a name- entrusted to my care."
Indeed, you did , Alan.
The Vietnam conflict cost McClellanville the lives
of two young African-American men. James
Henry Brown, Jr., aged 20 yrs, died on August 21, 1969, almost one month to the date his tour began. He is buried in the Bethel AME Cemetery. David Lee Mitchell, aged 23, died in an
accident 22 days after his tour began.
You can view their records- HERE. (You will need to plug their names into the search box at the top right).
There were 76
Vietnam casualties from Charleston, 12 from Charleston Heights, and close to
900 from South Carolina. It is hard to
imagine the cost of nearly 900 lives to their families and communities.
When my father died nearly three years ago, we
inherited a treasure trove of family papers. Among those papers was a letter from a young cousin, Andrew Crawford Fraser, writing to his first
cousin, my great-grandmother. The letter
was dated May 23, 1862, and he was killed in action seven days later, May 31,
at the Battle of Seven Pines (also known as Fair Oaks) near Henrico, Virginia. He was 19 yrs old when he enlisted in the
Boyce Guards (mostly Fairfield County) under the command of Capt. JN Shedd and served as a private in the 6th
Regiment of the SC Volunteers, 2nd Company G. He enlisted on March 17th, 1862
and died a little more than two months later.
Prior to enlisting in 1862, he had been a Junior at South Carolina
College (now University of SC). Here is an excerpt from the letter. Please note: there is no discussion of valor
or causes - just a description of endless slogging in terrible conditions, the
sounds of battle, and witnessing death.
"We left Yorktown on a Saturday night about
nine aclack [sic] and next morning at daylight we were only two miles from where
we started. The roads were in such
terrible fix. We marched that until about three aclack [sic] in the
evening when we halted about two miles this side of Williamsburg, and had
hardly got off our baggage when we were ordered to fall in again, and was marched
back the other side of the town, and took our position for the expected battle
and had to stay there all night and it pouring down rain all the time, and what
made the matter worse we were not allowed to close our eyes after having already lost two nights sleep. In the morning six companies from our
regiment were thrown out as skirmishers and the remaining four were ordered
about two hundred yards to the right to act as a support to a battery. When took this last position we were
compelled to lie down so as to let the balls and shells pass over us which flew
pretty thick. Our position being on the
left of the whole, we were not actively engaged until about two or three aclack
[sic] in the evening. I never heard the
like in my life before as the firing on the right, it was one continuous roar
of musketry and cannon for more than six hours, except when our men would succeed in driving back the enemy,
then the air was rent with their shouts as they charged on their retiring columns. About three aclack [sic] in the evening we
were somewhat taken by surprise by a cannon ball which came from behind us, and
next thing we were ordered to go and take possession of a about half mile of so
as to prevent the enemy from getting it.
We had to march the whole way through an open field, which the enemy was
raking with his artillery which had by this time got into position, as we
marched along Colonel Bratton noticed some of the men dodging as the balls
would sing pass their ears when he said "men don't mind those things come
on." We succeeded in getting into
the fort, after having some five or six men wounded, one had his leg shot off
by a cannon ball and died on the feild (sic) After we got into the fort fired
some five vollies [sic] at the enemy.
After remaining there for some time we received reinforcements and were
out of the fort to support a North Carolina regiment in a charge on one of the
enemy batteries which they succeeded in taking three different times but on
account of our not {unclear} ____ a sufficient we had to leave it at last when
we filed off into a piece of woods and commenced falling back to keep from
being flanked by the enemy. It now being
dark we took the same position that we had in the morning. I had no idea that the balls that the
infantry of enemy fired at us came so thick but in going into the piece of
woods I spoke of we had to go through an old corn field and I could hear the
balls striking corn stalks just like rain.
"[2]
On one hand, I am wondering, if we have lost the ability to count the cost
of so much loss of life. At present, the
numbers keep adding up - 470,000 in Syria and 480,000 in Darfur - to say nothing of the cost
of extreme deprivation and profoundly disrupted
lives as communities large and small are destroyed by warring factions.
On the other hand, I am also left wondering if we
realize the cost of and treasure the
gift of freedom purchased for us by the blood of our brothers and, now, sisters. Does
our national life show any indication of gratitude for the costs paid for
us? Was the price paid so that we might
enjoy endless national bickering over every imaginable thing? Was the price paid so that our citizens might
have the freedom to succumb to addictions of all sorts: pornography, drugs, and violence?
Was the price paid so that any modicum of civility might be drummed out
of the public sphere? Somehow, I don't
think so. So, please forgive me, if I
don't wish you a Happy Memorial Day.
What I do wish for you, for me, and for us all is a thankful, thoughtful
Memorial Day.
Jennie
Almighty and everlasting God, in whom all souls live now and evermore, the God not of the dead but of the living: We bless thee for all those who have faithfully lived and died in the service of their country. As we ever hold them in grateful remembrance, do thou in thy love and mercy let light perpetual shine upon them, and bring us all at last into thine eternal kingdom of peace; through Jesus Christ our Savior. Amen.
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