Faith | Celebrate 250 years but pause to remember the sacrifice

The humid air wrapped around me like a blanket as I slipped away from my missions team in Manila.

In the midst of all the ministry and busyness, there was another deep pull that tugged at me. There was somewhere else I wanted—needed—to go.

As I entered the 152-acre grounds of the Manila American Cemetery and Memorial, I felt a weight in the air that went beyond the humidity. Nearly 17,100 white marble headstones greeted me in 11 plots around a central memorial, leading to the Walls or Tablets of the Missing.

Those walls towered above me, two massive semicircles of white limestone. As I walked around the vast curved corridors, I passed 36,286 names—inscribed to memorialize those whose remains have never been found.

Moving through the alphabet, row by row, the moment arrived. There, etched above my head and out of my reach were:

WALLACE NELSON SAND AOM3c, U.S. Navy Missing June 1945, and CYRUS HARVEY SAND BM1, U.S. Navy Missing July 30, 1945

Everything in that moment narrowed to those two names, my wife’s two uncles—brothers who had once shared laughter, dreams and a family back in Pasco, Washington. Standing between those towering marble walls on that steamy afternoon, I meditated on their courage.

Wallace “Wally” Nelson Sand, Aviation Ordnance man Third Class, served in Patrol Bombing Squadron 117. He crewed a PB4Y-1 Liberator, flying long, hazardous patrols over vast seas, hunting submarines and enemy shipping. In June 1945, his aircraft was shot down. The entire crew remains unaccounted for.

Barely weeks later, on July 30, his brother Cyrus “Harvey’ Sand, Boatswain’s Mate First Class, met his fate aboard the USS Indianapolis. Departing Guam unescorted, the heavy cruiser was torpedoed by Japanese submarine I-58 shortly after midnight. The ship sank in a horrific 12 minutes. About 300 sailors perished with the ship. Nearly 900 had entered the water alive. In the end, only 316 were rescued. Harvey was not among them.

The Sand family received the telegrams like twin blows to the soul.

Missing in Action.

I can’t fathom the grief: two sons lost in rapid succession during the war’s closing act. In small-town America, private pain of this magnitude cuts deep.

And you know what comes next. All the heartbreaking “what-ifs” and “if-only’s” of marriages never celebrated, grandchildren never held, and contributions to community forever unrealized.

Knowing what I do of this family, the brothers did not seek glory. They answered the call because they loved America, and the ideal of defending faith, freedom and family.

Their sacrifices in that faraway place didn’t happen because of a perfect Republic or perfect government back home; they happened because, to these young brothers, defending our country was a cause worth risking everything. More precious than life itself.

On this, America’s 250th birthday, no one claims we have always been just or wise or godly as a nation. And yes, for these deep shortcomings and failures we should repent. Honest reckoning before God restores and strengthens us and lays us at the mercy of God, who is quick to forgive and rebuild.

Yet if the nonstop voices that work to diminish or tear down our nation dominate, that dark vision will, I fear, unravel something that cannot be mended. We must not allow our national celebration to become a footnote of national fault that overshadows what these men and women—from Valley Forge to Da Nang to Fallujah—so willingly sacrificed.

On a faraway monument almost 7,000 miles away, the Sand brothers from Pasco have their names etched in marble. They would have rather come home and picked up their lives, but that outcome was taken from them.

So on this momentous Fourth of July, we celebrate, yes. And we remember, certainly. But we also cry out to God for mercy.

We have never needed it more.

Rev. Micah Smith is president and founder of Global Gateway Network (globalgatewaynetwork.org). Questions and comments should be directed to editor Lucy Luginbill in care of the Tri-City Herald newsroom. Email lluginbill@tricityherald.com.