LeRoy Pennysaver & News

LE ROY PENNYSAVER & NEWS - MAY 30, 2021 by Lynne Belluscio I went over to Machpelah Cemetery last Saturday. A box of 100 new grave flags had been delivered a couple of weeks earlier. I reached in the box and took one flag and then headed over to section G, on the south side of the cemetery. I looked for the granite stone that marked the final resting place for my friend Mack Booten, who had passed away the day before. The flag will guard that place until the family gathers at the gravesite. And each year, from now on, a flag will be placed there to remind all of us, of his service - like the 400 others in Machpelah, and the hundreds in St. Francis, and the others in Myrtle Street, and Fort Hill, and the old burying grounds on back roads and country crossroads. Those flags, a small tribute to the men and women who served our country. The monuments on Trigon Park list the names – from those in the Revolution and the War of 1812; the Civil War and World War 1; World War II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War. Those who were drafted and those who volunteered - - those who paid the supreme price - - and those who returned home to deal with what they saw and what they had to do. And each year there are more flags. Some are immortalized in books and stories. Some like Gary Scott, will be remembered this Memorial Day on a television special on Channel 13 in Rochester, because Alexis Arnold became interested in his story. But others, like Mack, were quiet participants in the wars that they fought. Choosing to remember in their own way. My memory of Mack was standing at the monument in his impeccable uniform as Commander of the LeRoy Veterans of Foreign Wars, his head bowed in remembrance. He was a quiet man and never talked about his service in World War II. Today, when I called his wife and talked with his daughter Kim, I asked them, “What do you know about Mack’s service?” They knew he had been stationed in the Philippines and Okinawa and in Japan in a Quartermaster unit that serviced an Army Aircorps unit. They had just found his Honorable Discharge papers and a box with his medals and ribbons and flags. “We never knew about this! There is a list of the men that he served with.” So eventually, when his family sorts through the box of papers and mementoes, we will know more about Corporal Sherman Booten. He wrote a letter home which was printed in the December 14, 1944 Gazette: “I am stationed in the Philippine Islands and I find it much different than the other places I have been in the southwest Pacific . . . the Filipino people possess the same characteristics as the Americans. They are very energetic, friendly, kind, polite and honest.“ The best stories that I coaxed out of Mack were the stories of playing baseball. His eyes would light up, and he would remember a game, or a lineup, or a throw to home. I was overjoyed when his wife Elaine produced a couple of shirts and a pair of pants from the Aces – the team that he played for which came to the Historical Society a few years ago. When I asked him about the year that they won the championship, and were denied the trophy and the celebratory banquet, it was pretty obvious that that didn’t matter to him. He just liked playing baseball. So maybe, the story of Memorial Day is the story of people like Mack Booten. People who did what had to be done, so they could come back home to play a game of baseball. Heroes in their own way, because they returned home, and were still denied some of the freedoms that they had fought for. As Mack noted in his letter, “Americans are very energetic, friendly, kind, polite and honest.” Yes indeed, Mack, you will be remembered as a true American. Thank you for your service. Thank You For Your Service