I sit beside my dad’s body.
All are gone. He is gone.
Just me, the shell of him, and history.
53 years of history.
An intermittent physical presence.
But a constant presence carried in me.

Now I will carry that history forward.
And in that history, those memories, my deeds, he will live on.
He will live on within me.
He will live on for others through my influenced deeds.
And I will upon future reflection learn yet more things not yet known from him.

He now lies covered up to his neck before me.
Tubes withdrawn, death having come peacefully within several minutes.
Only the side of his face. White, mottled. Slight white hair. Mouth slightly open, to be closed when I leave and he is reclined.
His head on a pillowcase with lace knitted by his mother before him.
The nurse Linda enjoyed the lace as her sister in learning how.

It is well that he died before me. I often feared his having to bury a second son.
Having cried several times alone, I think it best to think on what I learned from him.
It is in what we teach that we each live on.
And one thing I learned from his habit was dependability.
Another was humor.
Another the value of antiques and history.

Interrupted, the chaplains have now come and gone.
One Jewish, one Christian, fine since without Jews we would be not Christians.
The papers for the release of his body have be signed and delivered to them.
They will assure the nurse does not let me forget the pillow case for his wife who sat with him and lovingly stroked and kissed his head so tenderly after his body died.
A tender farewell after more than 45 years of marriage.

I am left to make my peace as best I can in my complex yet simple thinking.
Collect my things.
Have one last cry. Wipe my face.
Leave his body for others to handle.
And begin the rest of my life, the last survivor of my original core family.

But I am blessed with the company of my infinite wife to return to.
And comforted by the fact that my father was blessed with a good wife.
And certain through my many experience proving my faith that all of this terribly hard yet immensely beautiful life leads to a particularly special end well worth having.

Martin C. Boire
January 14, 2009, 8 p.m.
In Tampa General Hospital

It turns out my family has a connection to the Iwo Jima Memorial Statue. This connection is through my father, Harold A. Boire, a former Presidential Appointee through several administrations as a Regional Director of the NLRB.

The Iwo Jima Statue is actually properly called the Marine Corps War Memorial, and is near the Arlington National Cemetery. The memorial is dedicated to all personnel of the United States Marine Corps have died defending this nation 1775.

During my life my father now and then talked about things he had done, one of them related to this. So on August 4, 1985 I wrote him:

“Once you told me the story about how during to work in D.C. you saw a the minoring newspaper with the picture of the Marines raising the flag at Iwo Jima and told the Congressman you were working for that it would make a great national monument. For the sake of family history, I would like you to take some time and put all of this down in writing for me with as much detail as you can. I think that this is something important”

On August 12, 1995, I got a writing back from him recounting this as follows:

“I must mention about the only bright idea I ever had in my lifetime. It so happens that I was working for Congressman Joe Hendricks (D-Florida) in 1945 as his Administrative Assistant. On the morning of March 1, 1945 I was walking to work, reading the Washington Post morning newspaper. As I walked along (I lived on Capitol Hill in back of the Supreme court Building) and I noticed on the front page the Joe Rosenthal picture of of the Marines raising the flag on Iwo Jima Island. I thought immediately what a striking picture and what a monument it would make. I would judge this was about 8:30 A.M. when I was walking to work. As soon as the Congressman came into the office about 10 or 10:30 A.M. I showed the newspaper to him and commented what a great monument it would make. He immediately asked me to have a bill prepared establishing the monument, so that he could drop it in the “Hopper” when the House of Representatives convened at Noon - - so that no other Congressman would get the jump on it ahead of him.

The bill as prepared and the Congressman dropped it in the Hopper when the House convened. The Bill is H.R. 2420, 79th Congressman 1st Session. He hit the newspapers etc with it, and received several calls from other Congressman asking if they could join in as well as in the Senate. Some Senator filed a companion bill but forget who it was. It was filed at a later date. Joe was first.

I do not recall what Committee it was referred to, but I do know that in due time the Committee held a hearing in the House on it and it was decided to defer action on it until the end of the war.

I then lost track of the Legislation. Suffice to say that today the monument has been erected and it is located not too far from the Memorial Bridge near the Arlington Cemetery entrance.”

Harold A. Boire

His letter to the Library of Congress stated, and provides a few more details:

“3905 Pearl Avenue
Tampa, Florida 33611
February 19, 1985

Library of Congress
Washington, D. C. 20540

Attention: Reference Service

Sir:

About March 17, 18, or 19, 1945, the famous Rosenthal photograph of the U. 8. Marines raising the American Flag on Mt. Suribachi, Iwo Jima appeared in a Washington, D. C. newspaper.

At that time I was the Administrative Assistant to Congressman Joe Hendricks (Democrat from Florida). That morning when I saw the photograph I immediately showed it to Congressman Hendricks and suggested that it would make a great national monument of World War II.

He asked that I have a bill prepared immediately so that he could introduce it in the House of Representatives when it convened at noon. The bill was prepared and Congressman Hendricks introduced it that same day. It so happens that the photograph which appeared in the Washington newspaper was not too clear and I believe in describing the flag raising in the bill it stated “four Marines”. A later clarification of the photograph disclosed that there were five (5) marines in the flag raising. Congressman Hendricks did not want to reintroduce the bill (because other Congressmen were starting to join in and he wanted the credit to be the first Congressman, including Senators, to introduce the bill) so he wondered how it could be corrected without having to reintroduce it. I believe it was corrected the next day or two by a “star” copy or something to that affect - but the bill still carried the original date it was introduced in the House. Congressional hearings were subsequently held on the bill but it was decided to wait until the end of World War II before final action would be taken.

I later lost track of what happened to the proposed legislation; however, we know today this U. S. Marine Corps War Memorial is now near the National Cemetery in Arlington. One thing is clear is that Congressman Hendricks was the first to think of making the Rosenthal photograph of the U. S. Marines raising the flag on Iwo Jima a national monument.

Would it be possible to obtain a copy of the HR bill, and the “star” copy, which Congressman Hendricks introduced the day it appeared in the Washington paper? If so, I would appreciate if it were sent to me.

Thanking you, I am”

Harold A. Boire

Work began on the bronze memorial in 1951, four years before I was born.

President Dwight D. Eisenhower officially dedicated the statue on November 10, 1954, which was the 179th anniversary of the U.S. Marine Corps.

My father’s letter to me was accompanied by his letter to the Library of Congress, a copy of the bill which they send him, and a photograph of he and his mother beside the monument.

A PDF of his letter to me appears here. LetterToMe
A PDF of his letter to Library of Congress appears here. LetterToLibCong
A PDF of the bill he wrote (HR 2420, 79th Congress) appears here. BillHR2420
A jpeg of the photo of him at the monument appears here. PhotoFront&Back

A 2MB high res of the photo appears here. BoirePhoto