Gene Marx
May 26, 2025
May 26, 2025
Memorial Day weekend began for me with a late-night viewing of Currahee, the first episode of the HBO miniseries Band of Brothers. It always resonates, reflecting on how my father and I voluntarily underwent similar, usually demeaning military training and indoctrination to earn our commissions and aviator wings. My father enlisted in 1942 to defend the republic, in arguably our last good war. He is one of the fallen remembered today, dying in a B-47 aircraft crash in 1953.
A hometown hero by default, my father’s B-24 and B-29 Pacific War exploits from a steady stream of former crew members were staples for his young sons growing up in the 50s and 60s, when Memorial Day was special. Major Gene Marx was a hero to me, not a “fallen warrior”, despite the accolades showered on the dead and an unknown soldier at Arlington today by another sham Commander in Chief.
A hometown hero by default, my father’s B-24 and B-29 Pacific War exploits from a steady stream of former crew members were staples for his young sons growing up in the 50s and 60s, when Memorial Day was special. Major Gene Marx was a hero to me, not a “fallen warrior”, despite the accolades showered on the dead and an unknown soldier at Arlington today by another sham Commander in Chief.
Soldiers place Memorial Day flags at Arlington National Cemetery in honored tradition
But memory is fragile, and valor, noted writer/composer Mark McInerney, can be distorted. “We often lionize the fallen because they can no longer speak. We drape the word hero across the dead—but sometimes we do it to silence the living.” This tactic could not have been more than effective, with Congress abdicating its war powers responsibilities since Saigon’s fall and public apathy prevailing. Today, war tributes and memorials are now no more than shiny appeasements to unbloodied patriots or effective recruitment tools for endless conflicts.
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