We all love holidays and vacation days.
As we grow up, if we are not taught and especially if we don’t experience each holiday, we have a hard time fully understanding its true significance.
This was me as it relates to Memorial Day.
After college, I became a banker. For bankers, we look forward to government holidays because it is a paid day off. News Years Day, Martin Luther King Day, Presidents Day, Columbus Day etc….
Memorial Day was just another day off.
He was different from the start
I was a young kid whose father was a bi-vocational pastor of a small Baptist church in a dairy farming community in east Tennessee. We knew everyone in town and one day a new kid arrived on the scene. I was 9 or 10 years old and he was 12 or 13. As I recall, he was chubby and smoked cigarettes.
Due to some odd family dynamics, he had moved to our little town to live with his grandmother and near his aunt and uncle.
Again, as memory serves me, he was a rough kid and CLEARLY not from our neck of the woods.
His aunt and uncle attended our little church so he sorta was forced to attend. In a short period of time, I believe through family and the wonderful influence of the adults in our church and community, he found Jesus, he found purpose and he felt alive for the first time in his life.
I have personally never witnessed such a radical outward change in someone so young. I watched as he transformed from a chubby kid who was rough around the edges to a chiseled athlete.
When he changed his life, he REALLY changed his life. He swam in his aunt and uncles above-ground pool and changed his diet so radically that everyone, for a season, was on alert.
As he went into high school he was a leader on his HS swim team and became the de facto leader of our little youth group. He was, at age 16, a man among boys.
For me, I was the youngest member of the young group and by my own admission, the most impressionable. And that quality in me directed me straight towards my new friend, Bill Bennett.
I went everywhere Bill would take me. I went hiking, caving, riding, biking and swimming with Bill. I learned about tents, flashlights and camo pants. I learned about body-weight strength training and the joy that comes from personal discipline.
I spent the night with him as often as I could. Several times I went to work with him when he was a tour guide to one of the largest underground caverns in the Great Smoky Mountain.
I was introduced to the idea of being carefully dangerous. We went caving and hiking in some extremely dangerous places, but Bill made us go slowly and carefully so as to mitigate the danger.
I also learned about the idea of leaving no trace. When we took snacks for our day-long adventures, Bill ALWAYS had an apple. When it was time for a break, he ate his apple whole.
He became known for that as he would eat the entire apple, core and all.
After high school
I was only a rising junior in high school when Bill enlisted in the Army. And just like that, he was gone. Off to bootcamp and then various deployments.
I am SO GLAD I stuck by his side during that short period of time I had with him.
Bill, as he did with us, became a leader.
Natural Leader
Over the course of a 20 year career in the military, he was a leader among leaders everywhere he went. Respected. Trusted. Needed. Appreciated. Decorated.
Silver Star Medal
Bronze Star Medal with Valor Device
Purple Heart
Army Commendation Medal
Army Achievement Medal
Army Good Conduct Medal with 5 Bronze Knots
National Defense Service Medal
Southwest Asia Service Medal
Afghanistan Campaign Medal with Bronze Star
Iraq Campaign Medal with Bronze Star
Global War on Terrorism Expeditionary Medal
Global War on Terrorism Service Medal
Humanitarian Service Medal
Army NCO Professional Development Ribbon
Army Service Ribbon
Army Overseas Service Ribbon
Kuwait Liberation Medal (Saudi Arabia)
Kuwait Liberation Medal (Kuwait)
Combat Infantryman Badge with Star (Second Award)
Parachutist Badge
Special Operations Diver Badge
Special Forces Tab
Returning home
On rare occasions, Bill would come back home and his uncle and aunt would invite all the boys over from HS to visit with Bill and his new wife, Allison. All of us were at his wedding and we were all pallbearers at his grandmother’s funeral.
We stayed in touch as much as possible, but years passed and we enjoyed visiting more and more but the frequency was less and less.
September 12, 2003
The attacks in NY and PA on Sept 11, 2001 will forever be ingrained in the minds of those of us who were alive and witnessed, via CNN, those awful events.
It was a result of those events that our US military beefed up our presence and our aggression in the middle east. Of course, by that time, Bill was a trained medic, a green beret-special forces trained warrior and the recipient of several service awards.
Just 2 years after the attack, Bill was slated to have some time off and all of us were planning a small reunion. But something went wrong with the very last skirmish he was involved in – in fact the last raid he was assigned to before his leave – and his unit was ambushed.
Bill saw several of his men get picked off and he spotted the sniper. He aided his fallen men with as much medical attention as possible, and then, after they were taken care of or out of range of the sniper, he climbed the tallest building in that area to get a good shot at the sniper. They shot at the same time and both men, Bill and the sniper, were killed by each other.
Official announcement from the United States Military
The President of the United States of America, authorized by Act of Congress July 9, 1918 (amended by an act of July 25, 1963), takes pride in presenting the Silver Star (Posthumously) to Sergeant First Class William M. Bennett, United States Army, for conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity in action while serving with Operational Detachment Alpha 583 (ODA-583), 3d Battalion, 5th Special Forces Group (Airborne) in support of Operation IRAQI FREEDOM in Iraq, on 7 April 2003. Sergeant First Class Bennett’s performance as a member of a two-detachment direct action force was exemplary. His selfless dedication to his fellow Soldiers served as an example for others. Sergeant First Class Bennett’s willing sacrifice of his own life proved instrumental in saving the lives of his fellow warriors. Sergeant First Class Bennett’s gallant actions and dedicated devotion to duty, without regard for his own life, were in keeping with the highest traditions of military service and reflect great credit upon himself, his unit, and the United States Army.
Memorial Day
It was after that, and maybe a year or two to soak in, that Memorial Day took on a new meaning.
It made me think of his widow, Allison, with high regard and respect as she lives a life that would make him proud.
It makes me think of all the moms and wives and children and husbands and dads who have a special someone serving.
It makes me think of the men that I didn’t know, never met and will never know their name that sacrificed just like Bill did.
It makes me want to live up to my own personal potential since that is one of the freedoms that Bill died to protect.
A small memorial
I don’t know how to honor someone like Bill. I don’t know how to thank his wife.
As a small token of my appreciation, each year on Memorial Day I go buy the biggest, juiciest, red apple and I quietly and reverently eat the apple – core and all.
I then send Allison a text that simple reads. “Today I remember Bill.”
I hope we can all enjoy all the holidays and vacations we can get. But I hope that we can all find a deeper meaning on all of them and find a reason to celebrate other people and what they did for us while we are taking time off. It truly is the VERY LEAST WE CAN DO.
