As he looks out at me from an old black and white photograph,
the brim of his hat is still so new that it shines. His dress
uniform is still crisp, his tie still perfectly knotted. His eyes
are looking directly into the camera, and it seems as if he is
looking right at me. His work as a welder in the shipyards in
Alameda have given him the muscular build of a young Marlon Brando,
but his idol good looks remind me more of a young Cary Grant.
As he looks out at me from an old black and white photograph, the brim of his hat is still so new that it shines. His dress uniform is still crisp, his tie still perfectly knotted. His eyes are looking directly into the camera, and it seems as if he is looking right at me. His work as a welder in the shipyards in Alameda have given him the muscular build of a young Marlon Brando, but his idol good looks remind me more of a young Cary Grant.
John was a Marine for almost exactly nine months; he enlisted in September of 1944. He received his training at Paris Island, S.C., and left for overseas from Camp Pendleton in March of 1945.
The battle to take the island of Okinawa was the last major campaign of WW II in the Pacific. It was also the bloodiest; more people died during the Battle of Okinawa than all those killed during the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. More than 50,000 Americans were among the missing, killed, or wounded.
Troops became mired in mud as monsoon rains turned the battlefield into part graveyard and part garbage dump. John fought bravely in the campaign for two months and eight days before taking a grenade to the stomach … the War Department wired his wife to tell her that “Pvt. John D. Powell, Jr., 24, was killed June 9 in the Okinawa campaign.”
John’s younger brother Seaman 2nd Class Everett (Elmo) E. Powell also served overseas. But Elmo returns from the war to find his parents are now broken people. The death of their beloved firstborn child and namesake, John Jr., sends them into mourning for the rest of their lives; 30 years later, his mother still cries at the mention of his name. The family dynamics change forever. How could the favored son be the one lying in a grave on Oahu, Hawaii, while Elmo, the so-called “black sheep” of the family, is the one who has returned home whole? It is as if John and Jewell have lost both their sons; their focus stayed with John.
I didn’t meet my cousin Elmo until it was almost too late. I discovered that he was a delightful person, wise, witty and always ready for adventure. I was cheated of all those years I could have known him, if only our family had not been so wounded and torn apart by the emotional fallout of war.
There are times I feel the impact of John’s death all over again, such as when I became engaged to a Japanese American. How could my family sit down across the table from someone who looked like those who had been the enemy for so long?
While John’s picture and medals are preserved on display in the Cement Oklahoma Museum, his body will never come home. The last time I talked to Elmo – last year – he said, “Promise me you will go find John’s grave and say good-bye for me.” He died six days later.
I see now that war doesn’t just affect one family or one generation. It affects generations to come. A beautiful young man full of promise dying on a bloody beach 59 years ago still impacts my life today. There are some tragedies that a family never gets over.
I plan on fulfilling that promise.
