Front Porch: Greatest Generation models a quiet, dignified patriotism

This is a patriotic time of year.

A few weeks ago there was Memorial Day, a national remembrance of American soldiers who lost their lives in combat. The D-Day celebration was last week, commemorating the day in 1944 that the Allies invaded Nazi-occupied France, marking the beginning of the end of World War II. And, of course, July 4th is upcoming, celebrating the day the Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence in 1776.

I was particularly moved watching on TV last week the ceremonies observing the 80th anniversary of D-Day, held in France. It wasn’t about the 25 heads of state in attendance (including U.S. President Biden, French President Macron and Ukrainian President Zelenskyy). It was about the aging men who stood or sat behind them as they spoke, veterans who as young men, some who were underage at the time, were conscripted or enlisted to fight in what would become the deadliest conflict in history. These men were among the few still living who were veterans of the D-Day invasion … and much more of the combat that followed.

A number of awards were given to honor these heroes from the U.S., Britain and Canada, one of which being the Legion of Honor, France’s highest distinction. It was presented to 11 American WWII veterans, now ages 98 to 104, by Macron, who kissed each man on both cheeks. And hearing from French people in attendance, people who were not yet born on D-Day, but who were there to give thanks to the Allies in memory of their own parents, grandparents and great-grand parents, who were freed from occupation as a result of the Allies’ landing on the beaches of Normandy, France, on D-Day.

A lot has been written about the Greatest Generation, a term given to WWII-era soldiers, as a stoic, private and clearly patriotic generation who stepped forward quickly and lived with quiet dignity after the war. Some in great pain.

I remembered a man I knew from that generation, a modest man who had a similar experience with gratitude from European citizenry when he returned to Europe as an aged man in the early 2000s. I didn’t know his history when I knew him back in the 1960s and ’70s; he never spoke of it. But when he died in 2007 and I read his obituary, I was stunned and felt compelled to write about him, and with permission and help from his daughters, I did just that.

His name was Lee Milot, and I’d like to revisit his story. Although he was something of a mover and shaker in Spokane (president of the Lilac Festival Association and manager of the Spokane Flower Growers), I knew him as a quiet, kind and generous man whose mild manner was balanced by a vivacious wife who was more at ease in the spotlight than he was.

His humility was such that when one of his daughters had asked him, back when she was a child, what the framed Bronze Star they saw on the wall was for, he deflected with a smile and said he’d gotten it for peeling the most potatoes when he was in the Army.

His beloved wife, Mary, died in 1998. Not long after that, he traveled with his daughters to Europe. He wanted to visit Amsterdam, home of the world’s largest wholesale flower market. They also went to Belgium, Germany and Luxembourg.

And he finally discussed his war experience with his daughters.

This florist, who was the son of a florist, had been a company commander in the 320th Combat Engineering Battalion and assistant division engineer of the 95th Infantry Division – part of Gen. George S. Patton’s 3rd Army. He and his units went in ahead of the troops to find the best route in to an area, to build or blow up bridges (depending on what was needed), to clear the way.

He received his Bronze Star for heroism during the assault on the city of Metz, considered the most heavily fortified city in Europe. He went on to the Siegfried Line. And, after that, the Battle of the Bulge – the bloodiest of the battles U.S. forces experienced in WWII, the battle at which America experienced 81,000 casualties (19,000 killed).

On his return trip to Europe with his daughters, they took a guided tour to the memorial at the site of the Battle of the Bulge. The tour guide asked if he would share with the group some reflections about that pivotal battle. That was a lot to ask of this unassuming man who had barely spoken of it for nearly 60 years, but he did.

His daughters recalled how he recalled the bone-numbing cold and how desperate the civilians were, how the cart he thought was filled with cord wood was actually stacked with frozen bodies. He was deep within his memories.

As they walked around the memorial, there was a group of Belgian high school students there who were listening. The teenagers came over to him, and each shook his hand. Many personally thanked him for what he had done, for what the Allies had done, to free their country so many decades ago.

Then they circled around him and sang to him. “Dad just shook his head slowly and looked in disbelief that these young people did this,” his daughter Mary Kay Bakken told me.

His heart was full. A hero was honored.

All military service and sacrifice should be honored, but watching the 80th D-Day ceremonies last week, I couldn’t help but feel especially attracted to the patriotism and sacrifice of the disappearing Greatest Generation – quiet, modest and deeply felt.

So I’d like to thank them all once more – while we still can, while they’re still here to hear us.

Voices correspondent Stefanie Pettit can be reached by email at upwindsailor@comcast.net.