ACCORDING to Ken Burns, whose World War II documentary “The War” was shown on PBS recently, many American high school students think that Germany and the United States teamed up in that war to fight the Soviet Union.
Historical ignorance on that scale is enough to make parents and grandparents gasp in disbelief. Burns said it was one of the things that pushed him to make his film. Such ignorance would have been enough to drive Bob Ecklund up the wall.
Ecklund, who was buried in Memorial Lawn Cemetery last week, spent much of his life working with young people, as a parent and grandparent, as a teacher and staff member at Emporia State University, as a scout leader and as a mentor in Emporia schools. A smart, gentle man, he was a good friend to the children he worked with, and they were his good friends. They helped to keep him young.
Even as he approached 90, he maintained the curiosity and the mental agility of a much younger man, leavened with a sly sense of humor that made him a welcome guest at any gathering.
What’s that got to do with World War II and modern ignorance?
That was Ecklund’s war, and it cost him dearly. He was a pilot in the Army Air Corps, flying a camera-equipped P-38 Lightning over Italy in 1943 when the plane was shot down in flames. After he crashed, terribly injured, he was captured and held for days without treatment before being sent to a German military hospital. Then he was sent to a prison camp in Germany.
He spent 16 months as a prisoner of war before his camp was liberated by the advancing Soviet Army. Shortly after the war, he lost a lung to a disease he always thought was caused by the smoke from his burning plane.
So the war was important to Bob Ecklund. He never made a big deal about it, and told his story only when he was asked. He never claimed to be a hero, just another pilot who hit a streak of bad luck. The important difference, he said, was that he got out alive when many others didn’t.
During his life, Ecklund was not a “forgotten soldier.” He received military and civic awards enough for a handful of valued citizens. He died honored, loved and respected by many generations.
But in death, he and many others of his generation risk being dishonored by a national amnesia that could erase the memory of what they did and why they did it.
Ken Burns is right. The memories of World War II must be preserved now, in the last days of that generation, or they will be lost forever.
Bob Ecklund and the others deserve to be remembered for many years to come.
Patrick S. Kelley
Editorial Page Editor
wanderer (anonymous) says...
I talked to Bob Ecklund many times and always found his stories and recollections fascinating. You're absolutlely right -- these tales need to be told, and saved, while there's still time.
October 11, 2007 at 2:43 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )