05/25/2026
Memorial Day is more than just a day off work and a cookout with hot dogs and hamburgers. It's a day when we remember military members we've specifically lost in wartime. Later in the year we have a thing called Veterans Day where we rinse and repeat, so to speak, where we focus on thanking people for the sacrifices they made to serve. This has always felt strange to me because somewhere in the middle there's a third group. The people we lose after wartime from the physical and mental aftermath of what they might have experienced. This sometimes affects entire families. Below is a little bit from my mom about this subject and how that connects to my family. I think her words can relay the tail better than I can.
But also... I want to dangle this book in front of you because I think it's a great one to revisit this summer and to highlight today. I've specifically chosen to highlight Krakauer this spring and summer because I love his deep research, how he's able to tie so much into fairly small books, and how he chooses singular octopus type subjects. This book is not just about a talented and decorated member of U.S. Armed Forces who also played in the NFL. Pat Tillman's story also has Octopus arms that reach into military cover-up of friendly fire, and the justice that ultimately his family had to push for.
The Bookshop is closed today but we will be open on Tuesday and you can pick up this and other Krakauer titles, all of which I have in stock.
In the meantime, here's a little from mom...
❤️H
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My dad (Halley's grandpa) was the youngest out of five sons. Dad never served in the military, although his two eldest brothers did and I grew up hearing about their military service my whole life.
When my dad was still in diapers, his oldest brother Oland joined the Navy while the country was still in the midst of World War II. He served as a pharmacist assistant. He had only been out of high school for 2 years. He was still a smiling kid in every photo that I've seen except for one.
Somewhere along the way my dad showed me a photo from Time magazine. The black and white photo showed the opening to a cave with a crowded collection of American Military members standing inside. Prominently near the front there was one face that was circled. This was my Uncle Oland. NO ONE smiled in this picture, because these were Japanese Prisoners of War who had been tortured and marched to this point. This was photo evidence of the 65-mile Bataan Death March.
At the time when this photo was taken though, back home in Missouri people had stopped receiving letters from my Uncle Oland and had presumed him MIA (missing in action). So my Uncle Richard (dad's second oldest brother) did the only thing he COULD do. He joined the Navy too!
And while it seems crazy that Richard would join the Navy to try to *find* his brother (or find out what happened to him),.... I could not make this story up if I tried. My Uncle Richard succeeded. He 'found' his brother.
Somewhere along the line Richard found himself sitting in a military theater as they played black and white film footage showing servicemen in action around the world. We didn't have CNN then. There was no social media. The way people were 'updated' about what was happening in the war was by crowding into theaters and watching rough reel to reel footage. And as Richard looked up at the screen, his brother Oland flashed in front of him... Right there standing at the mouth of that cave in the Philippines. It was QUICK... That shot. But it was HIM.
Richard went up to the projection booth and was able to convince the projectionist to give him a cut from the film where that scene appeared. But the photos from that same moment in history had already went around the world with Time Magazine. Family now knew why Oland had stopped writing, but they never received the final chapter to his story.
It is presumed Oland lived long enough to go onto a ship headed for Japan, but sunk later by torpedoes. Like teens of thousands of Veterans, underneath Oland's headstone, there is no buried body because one was never recovered. Oland will always be memorialized as a documented POW with an unknown ending.
And as we pause on Memorial Day to remember him, I can't help but also think of Richard and my Grandpa.. their dad. Because losing Oland in the War had ripple effects that affected ALL of his brothers, including my dad.
While proud of Oland's military service and clutching his Gold Star pin, my grandpa also rapidly poured himself into alcoholism. My dad never really knew a sober version of his father, and he died from a stroke while my dad was still very young.
War is so much bigger than battleships and battlefields. It affects a thousand things back home. And every loss is multiplied. I assure you that Memorial Day is about more than just the specifically numbered dead. It's also about the numbers of families who had to move on with whatever version of events they were handed. Maybe some Memorial Day stories truly are heroic. I think it's more likely though that most Memorial Day recognition is given to Veteran stories that were not cut and dry. Whether it's Pat Tillman or my Uncle Oland, families sort through and we find something heroic to embrace in the complicated mess that is War. Because this is how we process and move on.
