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Thank you, Urie
To the editor:
This coming Oct. 19, 2022 marks the 100th birthday of my father's cousin, Urie Zook. But there will be no 100th birthday celebration. Urie was the son of Amish parents, Henry and Annie Zook of Belleville.
Although Henry, a farmer and first-rate carpenter, was quite progressive for his time (the first Amishman in the area to use electricity, own a telephone, and drive a car), the family's traditional Anabaptist roots required pacifism in time of war.
With Japan's bombing of Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, the United States was pulled into World War II. Breaking with Amish pacifism, Urie voluntarily enlisted in the Army Air Corps in 1942. He served as a staff sergeant tail gunner on B-24 Liberator bombers in the 8th U.S. Air Force, known as the "Mighty Eighth," due to its capacity to deliver more than 2,000 four-engine bombers and 1,000 fighter planes for any given mission.
As the Mighty Eighth carried out the Allied strategic bombing of Nazi-controlled Europe, its servicemembers earned 17 Medals of Honor, 220 Distinguished Service Crosses and 442,000 Air Medals.
Those honors, however, came at a high cost. Nearly half of the U.S. Army Air Force's casualties (47,483 of 115,332), including more than 26,000 fatalities belonged to the Eighth.
Urie Zook was one of them.
After flying 50 successful missions, Urie's B-24, with a crew of 10, was shot down over Italy 100 miles behind enemy lines. Traveling at night and wearing stolen enemy uniforms, Urie and the plucky crew miraculously reached the safety of an Allied camp within two weeks.
Urie was sent back briefly to the States. Although his 50 missions entitled him to the option of remaining there to train tail gunners, he declined that safe offer. After seeing his family and friends for only 90 minutes at the Lewistown train station, Urie returned to combat in England, where he flew 49 more successful missions.
The 50th mission would not end well.
Urie was shot down again over Hamburg, Germany on Feb. 22, 1945. He parachuted into enemy territory, landing in a wood pile and sustaining serious injuries. As a prisoner of war, Urie and other prisoners were moved frequently to avoid advancing Allied Forces. During one such move, Urie's train car was mistaken for a munitions car and bombed by Allied planes because his captors failed to mark the car with the Red Cross symbol for wounded soldiers. Urie Zook died that day, March 10, 1945, at the tender age of 22, in service to his country -- and to us.
Initially interred in Europe, Urie's torn body eventually was returned home at his family's request and was buried in the Locust Grove Cemetery outside Belleville. He rests there now beside his parents, Henry and Annie.
Another Memorial Day is here, marking the beginning of summer fun, a day off from work for most of us, and an opportunity to fire up the grill in the backyard with family and friends. We will enjoy a day of liberties blessings bought and paid for by the blood and sacrifice of Urie and countless other brave servicemen and women.
I believe Urie and his comrades would want us to enjoy ourselves and make the most of the remarkable freedoms for which they died. Otherwise, their sacrifice will have been in vain. But there should also be deliberate time on Memorial Day for us to remember, contemplate, and express gratitude.
I often think about Urie's death and ask questions in my mind. When the bomb hit his rail car, did he die instantly? Was he trapped alive under rubble? As he lay there slowly dying, what did he think about? Did he think about his girlfriend whom he would never marry? The children he would never father? The family he would never raise? The parents, brother, three sisters, cousins and friends he would never see again?
I think about the gut-wrenching anguish and grief of Henry and Annie when two servicemen knocked on their door. They certainly did not approve of Urie's decision to enlist, but surely their hearts were broken when their boy returned home in a coffin.
The horrors of war are often masked by triumphant tales of victories won, deeds of heroes, and noble political outcomes, with little reference to the lives of real people, and oblique references to nameless, faceless casualty counts. We read about war on the lifeless glossy pages of history books that can never capture the true measure of bravery, fear, brutality, and pain.
As a hunter, I have seen first-hand what a rifle shot can do to a deer. Imagining that rifle shot ripping through human flesh is terrifying and sobering. Yet countless men stormed the beaches of Normandy on D-Day and parachuted into enemy territory through blistering torrents of searing lead bullets.
This is the cost of liberty in a savage world of communism, socialism and fascism. On Memorial Day, will we remember?
Pearl Harbor Day, the day that FDR proclaimed would "live in infamy," now passes by annually with a collective national yawn and barely a mention. Indeed, remembering becomes more difficult the farther away in time we are removed from the horror and reality of the actual atrocity.
For this reason, we are obligated to force ourselves to remember, to be willfully mindful, lest the deaths of those who have fought for us become trivialized, forgotten and expunged from our vacuous national memory and uncivil civic dialogue.
This Memorial Day, let us demonstrate that we understand and appreciate the great price that has been paid on our behalf to secure the marvelous blessings of liberty for us and our posterity. Let us take a moment to whisper quiet prayers of thanks to Urie Zook and his fallen comrades for their brief lives and heroically enormous sacrifice.
Thank you, Urie. A grateful nation salutes you.
Postscript. I am indebted to the Allensville Voice (Summer 2006) and personal conversations with Evalena and Joe Zook (Urie's sister and brother-in-law) for details about Urie Zook's life, death and service to our nation.
Kevin Zook
Lewistown