The Eagle-Tribune, North Andover, MA, Friday, November 11, 2005
The oft-cited number, as tracked by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, is 1,000--an average of 1,000 World War II veterans dying every day, this one being no exception.
It's a reality experienced on an abstract level by a nation that sees fewer parade participants and more flag-marked cemetery plots, and on a personal level by the wives, children and grandchildren who say graveside goodbyes.
Somewhere in the middle are Charles Abdinoor and his fellow surviving members of the U.S. Army's 83rd Infantry Division. Like those in countless other units from every corner of the military, these men feel the number in shrinking annual reunion attendance and ever-rarer opportunities to compare shared pieces of history.
But if their death is inevitable, Abdinoor and company don't believe the same must be said of the spirit of the 83rd. So the 79-year-old Dracut man is leading the local portion of the group's new effort to guarantee a future, as they reach beyond the battlefield bond for family members and descendants to welcome into the 83rd Infantry Division Association.
"We want to continue the 83rd, with the history of it," Abdinoor said. "And the only way we can is to get descendants into the organization."
Getting family involved is a practice some veterans groups have long employed--the American Legion and Veterans of Foreign Wars, for instance--but one which smaller bodies the the 83rd are now realizing is imperative to the long-term survival of both the organizations and the memories of the men and battles that embody them.
Roughly 3.7 million are all that remain of the 16.5 million that fought the war, and by 2020 the survivors are expected to make up just 1 percent of all veterans. In the case of the 83rd, the now-inactive division will produce no more new veterans, said Abdinoor. The association is left with just 640 members of the tens of thousands to have served in it during World War I, World War II and the Gulf War.
Facing numbers like those, they recognize that gatherings like the 83rd's weeklong 59th annual reunion, held in Paducah, Ky., last September, are more than just an opportunity to see the men and women with whom they once saved the world.
When rougly a dozen descendants turned up in Paducah, Abdonoor says, it became clear that they could play a key part in ensuring that the division's specific contributions are remembered and celebrated. They may not have fought with the Thunderbolt Division--the name stuck when news stories described it "moving like a thunderbolt across Europe"--but the next generation can pass on detailed individual stories of its journey from Omaha Beach to the Battle of the Bulge to liberating 1,100 near-death prisoners at the Langenstein concentration camp.
"You'd be surprised how bonded you get with these people," Abdinoor said. "These descendants mingled right in with us, sat right at our table, asked us questions. It was really a history lesson."
So in addition to searching for old members of the 83rd, the association quickly made it a priority to draw more family members to the 60th reunion next August in Indiana.
It's hoped the experience can be mutually beneficial, as children and grandchildren have the chance to gain insight into a part of a loved one's life that, in many cases, has remained closed for decades.
"Most veterans, they don't tend to talk to their wives or their kids about what they went through, but they'll sit down and talk to another vet about it," said Edward Curran, Methuen's veterans affairs director and a Vietnam veteran.
"That's just the way it is," he said. "So it is good to have these groups with sons and daughters, and maybe they can learn from other vets what their fathers did or their grandfathers did. Because they'll never know by them saying it."
That could be the strongest selling point, according to Methuen resident Gary Comins, the son of Andover native and 83rd Lt. Richard C. Comins, who died in 2003. Though short on details, he knows his father was wounded in Normandy within a week of landing.
"I would be interested in attending," said Comins, believing that not only would other 83rd members have something to offer, but that other family members could exchange resources like the several books that have been published on the 83rd.
"(They might pick up) something that they didn't learn just in general history class," he said.
And if some are able to glean something about a father or grandfather they hope to know better, others seek a sense of a man they never knew at all. Abdinoor recalls a man who arrived at Paducah with nothing but a photo, a father killed in action when his son was 6 weeks old.
"He was curious if anybody had known his father, who his father was," said Abdinoor.
The man never found anyone who knew his father personally, but Abdinoor knew several members of his company, and the pair spent much of the week in Paducah together. The man's wife became the first woman in 83rd Association history to participate in the annual memorial service, Abdinoor said, and they have stayed in touch by e-mail.
"He's coming next year, already talking about it," said Abdinoor. "He's going to be coming every year."