The observance of Veterans Day on November 11 is a celebration to honor America’s veterans for their patriotism, love of country, and willingness to serve and sacrifice for the common good.
We invited Marc Wilson, author of Hero Street, U.S.A: The Story of Little Mexico’s Fallen Soldiers, to reflect on some of the lesser-known veterans from Hero Street U.S.A. in Silvis, Illinois – the single block in America that suffered the most combat deaths in World War II and Korea.
Of death and heroes, Tanilo Sandoval is an expert
On a bright autumn day, after a prairie wind storm had blown most of the brightly colored leaves from the towering oak, maple and elm trees, Tanilo guided me through the more than 25,000 graves at the U.S. military cemetery on Arsenal Island, Illinois.
The vastness of the white markers could overwhelm, but Tanilo knows where the bodies are buried. He’s been a regular here for more than 60 years. Many times, he’s heard Taps played. Many times he’s walked the vast graveyard alone, silently visiting his fallen brothers. Many times tears have trickled down his long, white beard.
Three of his brothers are buried here, so are four of his childhood friends. Two other gravestones serve as memorials for his friends whose bodies never were found after they were killed in combat. Veterans Day has special meaning for him – on top of everything else, his father died on Veterans Day. Memories haunt his soul.
When President Woodrow proposed the first Armistice Day for Nov. 11, 1919, he said, “To us in America, the reflections of Armistice Day will be filled with solemn pride in the heroism of those who died in the country’s service…”
November 11 was chosen because Germany signed the Armistice ending World War I at the 11th hour or the 11th day of the 11th month. Congress formally made Armistice Day a federal holiday in 1938. After World War II and the Korean War, efforts were made to expand the day to cover all U.S. military veterans, and, in 1954, Congress passed a law to change Armistice Day to Veterans Day.
Since 1954, the holiday also honors veterans from wars and battles in Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Grenada, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Lebanon, Yemen, Iraq, Afghanistan, the War on Terror, and other battle fronts, some unknown.
We can honor with “solemn pride” those veterans who paid the ultimate sacrifice, and, as President Wilson first suggested, label those who died as heroes. We can bury them with high tributes, erect monuments in their honor, and declare holidays in their memory. But we cannot talk to these heroes.
Their story is left to be told by their survivors, their friends, sisters, and brothers. That’s why I asked Tanilo to guide me through the acres of white grave markers on the island in the Mississippi.
Tanilo is from Hero Street U.S.A. – the single block in America that suffered the most combat deaths in World War II and Korea. From some 35 poor homes in Silvis, Illinois, more than 80 men went to war. Six – including two of Tanilo’s brothers, Joe and Frank – died in World War II. The other four were his friends Tony Pompa, Peter Masias, Claro Solis (some in his family spell it Soliz), and Willie Sandoval. Two more of Tanilo’s friends and neighbors from the same street (then known as 2nd Street) died in Korea – Joe Gomez and Johnny Munos.
Veterans Day has special meaning for Tanilo, now 84, and one of the last survivors who knew all eight of the Heroes. He and all five of his brothers served in the U.S. Army. Two died in combat, a third was wounded in Korea and died shortly after returning home. His father, Eduvigues – a Mexican refugee who never gained American citizenship – died on Veterans Day in 1967.
Our first stop was the grave of Joe Gomez, in the cemetery’s Korean War section. Then we walked in silence to the southern edge of the cemetery, on a knoll overlooking the tree-lined Mississippi River. His brothers Joe and Frank rest side-by-side in the row nearest the river. He paused a moment between his brothers’ graves and closed his eyes.
Then he pointed just three graves away in the same row as his brothers to the grave marked “Claro Solis.” Then Tanilo led me to Tony Pompa’s grave, just a few rows to the north. Then we walked east between the rows of graves to Peter Masias’ final resting place.
We then walked silently up a slight grade a hundred yards or so to the north and east to the area designated for memorial markers for slain veterans whose bodies were never recovered. Tanilo pointed out Johnny Munos’ marker, then Willie Sandoval’s. I felt I knew each of the eight Heroes because I profiled each of the eight in the book Hero Street U.S.A.
We took side trips to visit the graves of two Medal of Honor winners buried in the cemetery, and to another pair of brothers buried side by side. Tanilo showed me the side-by-side graves of two men from Illinois who were killed on the same day in February 1948 while fighting in the U.S. Army’s 30th Infantry Division. He pointed to the graves of “Buffalo Soldiers” in the Civil War section of the cemetery. He took me to visit the monument of the “Unknown Soldiers” buried near his brothers. He is too much of an expert about sad things.
Tanilo said he’d been visiting the cemetery regularly since 1947, when his brothers were disinterred (from U.S. military cemeteries in India and Germany) and buried on Arsenal Island. He regularly drove his parents – Mexican citizens who never learned to drive or speak fluent English – to the cemetery to place flowers on their sons’ graves until his father, Eduvigues died in 1967, and his mother, Angelina, died in 1984.
“Now the duty of delivering flowers to my brothers is mine alone,” Tanilo said as he sat on a bench overlooking the endless sea of white markers. “It’s important that we remember.”
Marc Wilson is a veteran journalist, reporter, and news executive for the Associated Press and founder and CEO of the International Newspaper Network. He has been a reporter for the Rocky Mountain News, the Denver Post, and the Boulder Daily Camera. The Montana Newspaper Association honored him in 2004 as a Master Editor-Publisher for his work at the Bigfork Eagle.
