Virginia McDonald

A year ago today we lost a great one. Here is the speech I gave - with a few minor variations - at my Mom's memorial service
a few months later.
A SHINING FACT
Hello, my name is Bill McDonald and I’m Virginia’s elder son.
Several years ago I was in contract talks to become a newspaper columnist in Portland Oregon, and they were dragging on. I would always discuss these things with Virginia so one day I called and said, ”Good news, Mom. The editor says we’re on the 2-yard line.” And Virginia said, “Yours or theirs?”
Once I got the job, one of my first ideas was to write a column about Virginia, and there was a good reason. Sure, she was quotable, but Virginia was one of those rare people whose lives have a shining fact in them. A shining fact is something magnificent and huge. A shining fact is unassailable. It floats in the air forever and just grows brighter as the years roll on. For Virginia it was what she did while serving in the Red Cross during World War 2.
Think of the history of those years: Pearl Harbor, The Battle of Britain, The Invasion of Normandy. The Allied Forces fighting against Adolph Hitler, the worse villain of all time, with the fate of the free world hanging in the balance. There are shelves in libraries all over the globe full of books about these events: Books like “The Greatest Generation” by Tom Brokaw. Movies like, “Saving Private Ryan”, “Sands of Iwo Jima” “Patton”, and of course “The Longest Day” about the Invasion of Normandy. Did you know that while Virginia was still stationed in the States, she met plane after plane of wounded soldiers coming back from Normandy? Wounded from places like Utah Beach and Omaha Beach, now enshrined in legend. What a remarkable experience. For Virginia these weren’t books in a library or movies. She was face to face with the quintessential surviving heroes of D-Day, one of the most important events in modern history.
Then it was her turn to go over. Can you imagine being on a big ship in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, knowing there were enemy submarines out there, trying to torpedo your vessel and sink it? What about when night fell and you had to go way below deck to a crowded room full of bunks and cots and try to get some sleep knowing there were Nazi subs hunting for you.
When Virginia got to France the war in Europe was raging. Her job as a Red Cross recreation worker, was to go into hospital wards full of freshly wounded soldiers and console them. Of course many would recover fully and return to the fighting, or go back to long productive lives in the United States. For them a recreation worker might help break up the boredom, the tedium of a hospital stay. But what about the men who were hurt much worse? How did Virginia help them? And how difficult was it?
You know I once got a chance to meet Bob Dole. I was a banquet waiter in a hotel hallway chatting with Senator Dole, and later I called Virginia and we talked about him and his war wounds. At one point she casually mentioned, “I knew a lot of men who were hurt much worse than Bob Dole.” Do you know how long Bob Dole was in the hospital after he was wounded? 39 months. And Virginia was around men who were hurt much worse than that? It must have been a horrible situation and she had an absurd, nearly impossible task: Go into these hospital wards and cheer everybody up.

Now even today you see wounded soldiers at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, getting fitted for their new artificial limbs and their attitude is tremendous. They’re resilient and optimistic. They’re inspirational. But you KNOW right after serious wounds like these occur, there has to be a time when you are emotionally crushed; just the shock of it, losing your legs? There has to be a time when you feel devastated, and that was the world Virginia was living in. She probably didn’t mention this to many of you, but she was carrying around a lot of pain from what she had seen in those wards. She barely mentioned it to me my entire upbringing. However in her later years she began to open up. It was like she was saying, “Okay, 50 years have passed. I’m ready to talk about it now.” She told me she still couldn’t watch any ceremony on TV with American soldiers and the flag. It moved her too much. It brought back too many memories from World War 2. And it wasn’t the totality of the experience. She still vividly remembered individual soldiers among the thousands.
You know how we all make innocent little mistakes, but they can haunt you, especially in a critical situation when the stakes are high? Well, in World War 2 the stakes couldn’t have been any higher. One day she told me about this handsome young soldier who had been shot in the chin. His chin area was just gone and he was in despair, thinking about what his life would be like now. How would he meet someone back in the States? You know, the real things young men worry about. Virginia talked to him for a long time and helped him regain his composure. She went to the dark place he was in, and helped bring him back out. Then just as she was leaving she made a perfectly understandable mistake. She told the young man to keep his chin up. A half century later the memory of that still made her wince in pain. The Greatest Generation held a lot in. They had to. They were in an overwhelming situation and there wasn’t time to deal with their feelings. Virginia couldn’t go see a counselor. She was the counselor; the de facto counselor for these young men. And long before my brother David and I came along, these were her boys.
One amazing thing happened years later, after we found out my dad, Harry, was in his last days. I got to see an echo of what Virginia had done in World War 2. And interestingly, Harry had also served as an American soldier in France although my parents didn’t meet till later on an island in the Pacific. Isn’t that dashing? They met on an island in the Pacific. These were epic lives, folks. Anyway, everyone knew Harry was dying and one day I was talking with him, just the two of us. I asked him, “How are you doing this morning, Dad?” He said, “Not bad for someone in my line of work.” For someone in my line of work? What was it with this generation and the great quotes? Anyway, Harry looked sad and I know I was feeling very discouraged. Then Harry said, “Where’s Virginia?” so we asked her to come out and join us. Now Virginia wasn’t a physically imposing person, she had a soft voice and quiet demeanor, but when she walked in that morning, the room was suddenly full of emotional strength. And Harry and I were transformed. It was mysterious. In her presence, we were strong.
I understood then what those wounded soldiers had felt. Like Harry, some of them were in their last days too, even back then. You have to remember medical care wasn’t as good as it is now, and besides there were so many wounded. So one of Virginia’s jobs had to have been to comfort the dying, just as Margaret and Eileen would later comfort her.
Then there were the soldiers who were just beginning to realize that their futures had been changed forever by their wounds, men who could have easily become locked into bitterness and anger or feeling sorry for themselves. I believe that by being there at this critical time, giving emotional support and courage, Virginia had a positive impact on these men that would last them the rest of their lives. And believe me, I can imagine my Mom telling them, “We’re all sorry this happened to you but you’ve got to pull yourself together, young man, and go on.” I’ve heard that voice, too.
But there was a last group of soldiers; soldiers who were not out of immediate danger. Soldiers who needed to have a strong attitude not to live out their lives back in the States, but just to make it through the week. These men couldn’t afford to feel despair right then. They needed to be strong to fight through infections and other medical complications. They needed to be strong to survive. I have no doubt that Virginia with her presence and sheer goodness, saved some of these soldiers from death. Just as surely as the doctors treated their physical bodies with transfusions of blood, Virginia helped save their lives with transfusions of strength.
It’s ridiculous that the word hero only applies to men. And by the way, if we’re going to have a word for heroic women can we do better than heroine? I mean come on. Well, it might not be correct English but it’s true: By helping save the lives of these men, Virginia was an American hero.
Now there was one problem with my column about Virginia. She did not want me to write it. She said things like she was worried that someone would see it and show up in Bernardston looking for her. I explained to her that thousands of people might read it, but they were all in Oregon and besides I was not planning to include her address. This discussion went on periodically for months and yes, it was annoying. But Virginia wouldn’t budge. So one summer with the 4th of July approaching, right around this time of year, I said to myself, “I do not need my Mommy’s permission to do my job” and I wrote the column anyway. As far as I know no one showed up in Bernardston looking for Virginia, although she did have a point. See, my picture was on these things so sometimes when I was walking around Portland, let’s just say I would hear directly back from the community about what they thought of my work. After Virginia’s column came out, a lady approached and said, “I really, really want to meet your mother.” And I’m like, “Oh, great.”
I waited a full year before I told Virginia about the column. I read it to her the next summer on the 4th of July. She called me a scamp and a rascal but she didn’t really mind. I realized there was a deeper reason that she didn’t want this column out. Once again, it was a Greatest Generation thing. They felt any recognition should go to the soldiers who died during the war, some of whom Virginia had met, who are buried to this day in acres and acres of cemeteries in France and elsewhere. For Virginia, it was about them, and she did not want to be singled out for praise.
You know, we live in an age when people rush to the TV cameras to tell you how wonderful they are and to tell you how patriotic they are. It’s so refreshing to think about the Greatest Generation and how they let their deeds speak for themselves.
The truth is Virginia wouldn’t want me making this speech right now, but as I told her back then with the column, this is the stuff we should be remembering. This is the stuff the next generation should take with them. These are the shining facts. Virginia was born right across the river and after she left Northfield she landed in the middle of some of the biggest history of the last century, and when she got there she acted heroically. Then afterwards she carried the pain of that experience with dignity and grace for the rest of her life.
They just celebrated the 60th anniversary of the end of World War 2 but for many of those involved, wars don’t end with surrenders and treaties. World War 2 didn’t end 60 years ago for Virginia. It ended 4 months ago when she died. That’s when she found peace.
Today our family thinks about the fun and the great honor it was to have Virginia with us, and it’s tough. It is tough. But it’s nice to think about all the other families who also benefited greatly from Virginia’s time on earth, especially her time in the Red Cross helping wounded soldiers. Their families are still out there right now, all across America, from sea to shining sea, and that’s a shining fact. Thank you.