Centuries of Service

In top hat and great coat, the tour guide swung his lantern to illuminate the stone façade of the building before him. A cluster of tourists crowded closer, eager to hear a ghostly tale. From my perch in the upper window of our room across the road, I could sense their disappointment in slumped shoulders and shuffling feet as the guide spoke of history, not spirits. 

Newport’s Clarke Street is lined with clapboard eighteenth and nineteenth century homes painted the dark colors of that era. The glow of streetlamps is just bright enough to light the way, and the past seems to coexist with the present. I must have made a movement that caught the attention of one of the tourists, and my face, suddenly glimpsed through the misted glass pane, seemed the eerie vision they’d hoped to see. There was a ripple of startled exclamations as heads turned and tipped, then a hesitant flutter of hands returning my wave. 

Because of that gathering in the street below, I keyed into the 1838 Artillery Company Museum, and the next morning, Dave and I went to visit. 

The stone building houses an extraordinary collection of military memorabilia and is home to the Artillery Company of Newport, chartered in 1741 by King George II of Britain. The company is now a ceremonial unit of the Rhode Island militia and the Council of Historic Military Commands.

We were greeted by men in navy blue polo shirts bearing the Artillery Company’s insignia. I could imagine each of the three volunteers, whether bearded, craggy, or clean shaven, in the  uniform of the Union or Confederate armies. In fact, this company fought in the French and Indian Wars, the Revolution, the War of 1812, and the Spanish-American War. Members of the Company have served in the country’s  20^th and 21^st century engagements as well. Memorabilia from each are preserved in the museum.

A faded American flag with a unique circular configuration of  37 stars spans most of a side wall, its tattered condition attesting to years of service to the company. Uniforms, still gold-buttoned and dignified in bearing, surround the room. Once worn by such illustrious individuals as Prince Philip of England, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, Egyptian president Anwar Sedat, and Colonel Katherine Towle, first Director of  Women – U.S. Marine Corps, they stand guard now over four bronze cannons cast by Paul Revere in 1798. In glass cases, spent shells and bullets from the World Wars and the Battle of Gettysburg rest beside letters, medals, weapons, caps, and vintage photographs.

Near hidden in the shadows in the back of the museum is an ambulance jeep, the poles and canvas stretchers that once carried the wounded mounted on each side. I thought of Dave’s Uncle Jack, who was assigned to a medical unit in Africa as an ambulance driver during World War II. His brothers, Dave’s dad and Uncle Phil, served in the Air Force and Navy in Italy and the Pacific, respectively. All three boys were first generation Americans born of Italian immigrants.

Jack was a gentle guy, not cut out to carry a weapon that might harm someone else, but he saw, up close, the brutal aftermath of battle. 

Whatever wounds he tended, whatever fears he tried to soothe, whatever carnage he witnessed, came home with him after the war, pain as real to him as the suffering of the men he’d transported on stretchers. While he was always funny and dear to Dave and Steve, his little nephews, Jack was never the same.

Now, the tactics employed by the Fascists in the 30’s are back in play: dehumanization of vulnerable populations, exaltation of a cult leader, violent rhetoric, and disinformation. Those who support them or remain silent dishonor the uncles, aunts, parents, and grandparents who endured grievous harm in striving to defeat such forces. 

We Americans have a critical choice before us. Now, all together, Vote as if Democracy depends on it… because it does.