By Jennifer Ripplinger
With American Flags waving high and fresh flowers covering cemetery grounds, there are additional ways to pay tribute to those who died for America.
On Thursday, May 24, the Special Collections Motion Picture Archives Film Series will pay a true Memorial Day tribute to our fighting forces of all branches, not just the army, said James D”Arc, curator of the Special Collections Motion Picture Archives.
The American Legion post will present colors and the Pledge of Allegiance will be given. After an introduction, the World War II film “Ernie Pyle”s The Story of G.I. Joe” will be shown.
D”Arc compared the film to “Saving Private Ryan,” although he contends “The Story of G.I. Joe” is better.
“It”s a very moving, profound motion picture that isn”t seen that much any more,” he said.
The Archives has a rare copy of the film. Thursday will be the first day this particular print will be shown publicly, D”Arc said.
Ernie Pyle was a Pulitzer Prize-winning war correspondent who traveled from unit to unit to report the lives of the U.S. Army infantrymen, often called “dog soldiers.”
Pyle reported on the day-to-day drudgery and heroism that occurred in combat, D”Arc said.
The 1945 film is the story of the 18th Infantry that Pyle accompanied during the WWII Italian military campaign to take a monastery called the Monte Cassino, D”Arc said.
“It was made even as the war was going on,” he said.
Many people in the cast were brought back from the front, and actual combat infantrymen were in the film, D”Arc said.
These infantrymen were reassigned to go back out after the film was finished, and many of them did not come home, he said.
According to the event”s flyer, the “New York Times” said the movie “moves across the screen with tremendous impact. It is humorous, poignant and tragic, an earnestly human reflection of a stern life and the dignity of man.”
D”Arc agreed saying this is one case where the quotations from newspaper reviews are all true.
“It”s not hype – it”s that good,” he said.
This free event will take place in the Harold B. Lee Library Auditorium, which is located on the first floor of the library next to Special Collections.
Doors open at 6:30 p.m. and the movie will begin at 7:00; this will be the only showing of the movie. Seating is limited.
The film is open to all members of the community eight years of age and older.
Ernie Pyle”s The Story of G.I. Joe” is just one way to observe Memorial Day.
During the holiday observers visit cemeteries and place flags or flowers on the graves of those who died defending the United States, according to the U.S. Memorial Day Web site.
People can also recognize the holiday and honor those who died during the war by flying the U.S. Flag at half-staff until noon or flling the Prisoners of War/Missing in Action Flag.
People around the world can participate in the “National Moment of Remembrance.”
At 3:00 p.m. on Memorial Day, observers are encouraged to pause and think of the meaning of Memorial Day, and “Taps” can be played, according to the Web site.
Memorial Day was officially declared on May 5, 1868 and was first observed on May 30, 1868.
At first, the day honored Union and Confederate soldiers who died during the Civil War. However, after World War I the holiday was changed to honor Americans who died fighting in any war.
The idea to wear red poppies on Memorial Day to honor those who died was created by Moina Michael, according to the Web site.
In 1915 she wrote a poem:
“We cherish too, the Poppy red
That grows on fields where valor led, It seems to signal to the skies
That blood of heroes never dies.”
