A Soldier's Medals: A Tribute to Robert Curren

by John Aquino on 05/29/12

I tried for a number of years to have this published in newspapers and magazines. With love, I publish it here.

Memorial Day has special meaning for all of us. It’s more than the start of summer; it’s the beginning of a national journey through summer and fall, a road through the calendar from Memorial Day through the Fourth to Veterans Day, remembering loved ones who served.

For our family, the day and the memory of a man have blended to become one.

He was born on May 30, the traditional celebration date of Memorial Day, shortly after the end of the First World War in Brooklyn, N.Y. and died the last day of summer 65 years later. The day of his birth predicted his patriotism, especially his service in World War Two, and also, since it is the traditional start of summer, that he would become what he truly was--a bright and sunny summer man. His leaving this life when summer left confirmed this too.

He was my wife Deborah's Dad, Robert Curren. An Irish tenor, a dancing man, a loving and giving man.

And then when he died, there was unusual talk of medals.

Shocked at his sudden death from a heart attack at the still youthful age of 65 in Silver Spring, Maryland where he and his wife Adelaide had moved to live with us, we phoned the Washington Post and found that the obituary writer was not too keen on providing more than a paid death notice. "As for an obit, well, you know, space is tight. Hey, wait," he said, suddenly inspired, "you say he was in the war. Was he wounded? Did he win any medals?"

He had received the European-African-Middle Eastern Service Medal with Bronze Arrowhead and the Good Conduct Medal, which he more than earned in risking his life for three years but which was not what the writer was looking for. Bob Curren was fortunately never wounded and, since he was a medical assistant, his heroism was in caring for those wounded while he was under fire. And yet, the answer should have been and is, "Yes, he won medals. Lots. The special kind."

He was so genuine. In keeping with his Memorial Day birthday, when World War Two broke out he tried to enlist but was rejected for service because he was too skinny. And so he gave himself a diet of milkshakes and bananas, built up his weight, and was accepted. He heard they needed medics. Even though, as his aunt remembered, he hated the sight of blood, he became a Tech 5 medical assistant and attended the wounded and dying from Africa to Anzio to Normandy + 3 to the Bridge at Remagen to the Battle of the Bulge. In other words, if you’ve ever seen a motion picture about the war in Europe, one of those soldiers was Bob Curren.

His war service came at a high price. His mother passed away while he was gone. (After he received the news, his friends wanted to take him out for a drink, but he declined, saying in a letter home, "Mother was my stimulant.") At war's end, he entered the concentration camps. He wrote to his father, “We visited Dachau. You can still smell the burning flesh. I did not care to go, but, as we have some new men now, they were inquisitive. I have seen enough.”

In Munich while waiting to be shipped home, he and his buddies had their portraits done. The painter's wife in studying Bob Curren's handsome but sad face said, "If all men looked like this, there would be no wars."

His letters home show a keen sense of poetry as he reflects on the beauty and hope that survives war.

Last night was so bright I could hardly sleep. One can think of the nicest things when seeing such beauty, and I know that when God gives us these things and when you stop to think about it, He surely will not let anything mar it all.

But like so many veterans, he almost never spoke about the war. I remember watching the 1969 movie The Bridge at Remagen on television with him—and he had been in the battle. After what was a horrific scene in which U.S. soldiers were pinned down on the bridge by an incredible sight and sound barrage of zinging and pinging rifle volleys, I asked, "Dad, is that the way it happened?" Dad Curren turned to me and said quietly, "Actually, there was a bit more shooting than that."

When he wasn’t in combat, he saw a great deal of a family in Winchester, England. Shortly before he died, he and Adelaide were on vacation in Europe and visited the family. He was greeted as if he were a returning son. The mother, 87 years old, said, “Oh, I never thought that I would see my Robert again!” The daughter remembered him cradling her on his knee after she had bumped her head and holding a metal knife against the bump to keep the swelling down. Afterwards, they wrote him with other memories. He had made quite an impression on them, as he did on all of us.

After the war, he returned to Long Island to his work as a metal lithographer, married Adelaide, the love of his life, fathered Deborah, and sometimes worked three jobs to put her through school. Deborah remembers playing with her mother in the high school yard while her Dad swept the floor of the gym. Deborah went on to earn her Ph.D. and become a university professor and Shakespeare scholar. Her father was so proud

"Did he win any medals?"  The obituary writer for The Washington Post asked. When I gave the factual answer, the man lost interest and did not write an obituary.

Bob Curren risked his life every day for three years in service to his country, and when he came home he lived his life with a perpetual smile, twinkle in his eye, laughter, and a goodness and generosity that endeared him to all he met. Everyone remembers him singing and dancing. He was born to dance.

In my eulogy, I told the story about the obituary writer and quoted his question about the medals. "Where are Bob Curren's medals," I asked aloud. I then pointed to my heart and my head. That is where Bob Curren's medals are, I said.

After the service, as the family passed by those in attendance, many took their right hands and touched their foreheads and chests, saying that, yes, they knew where Bob Curren’s medals were. 

On Memorial Day, we celebrate all who served their country, those who died in her defense,  and those who continue to serve, those awarded gold stars, purple hearts, bronze medals, and the good, decent soldiers whose lives constitute the essential medal of honor--on the battlefield and in the lives they lived and those they enriched by their living. We celebrate all medals winners, of all types, for their courage and sacrifice.

Copyright 2012 by John T. Aquino.