As Memorial Day approaches, memories from my childhood become more poignant. My family would drive 20 miles from our farm to O’Neill, Neb., to watch the Memorial Day parade make its way down Main Street and out to the cemetery on the north side of town.     

What fun it was to listen to the beating of the drums and watch the band members in colorful uniforms marching in step to the music.

In my mind’s eye — now a treasured memory — I see my Uncle Freeman (He had big ears!) marching with a limp down the street and carrying the flag of the World War I Veterans of Holt County — his annual honor. I step alongside my 5-foot, 8-inch uncle and march with him a block or so. His gray eyes barely notice me.

Uncle Freeman carried that flag until he was one of the two WWI veterans left in Holt County. In with his papers is his Diamond Jubilee Certificate from The American Legion, signifying he had been a member in good standing continuously for 60 years.

Uncle Freeman, 87, died in January 1989 at the veterans hospital in Grand Island, Neb. And, as I am thinking about him this Memorial Day, I so wish that I had talked to him more about his military service for America.

I just found out that Uncle Freeman lied about his age to get into the Army. He was only 15 years old when he enlisted on Dec. 14, 1917.

He served in France with Troop B, 15th Cavalry, American Expeditionary Forces, U.S. Army.

I can’t believe I didn’t know he rode a horse during WWI. His papers indicate his horsemanship was “very good” and his character rating was “excellent.” I don’t really know how long he served in France.

His papers include an honorable discharge in 1920, but there is also a re-enlistment paper for August 1923.

I could have asked my uncle all sorts of questions. I spent lots of time with him. He was my dad’s half-brother, and he married my mom’s sister in 1933. They lived in O’Neill. On the summertime Saturdays that I got to come to town, I would go to a movie for 25 cents and then walk east of the theater three or four blocks to the DX station where Uncle Freeman worked.

Uncle Freeman would be dressed in his DX uniform. His cap with the yellow diamond DX insignia on it covered his bald head. He’d be sitting on a straight-back chair just outside the gas station door with his legs crossed, smoking his pipe.

When I walked closer, I could smell the gas fumes mingled with the sweet smell of tobacco from his pipe. He always seemed glad to see me, and would ask, “How about an Orange Crush or a Squirt?” He knew what I liked.

Those were the days before people pumped their own gas. So, when a car drove up, he’d pump the gas, check the oil and wash the windshield, all the while talking to the customer — everyone knew him. When his shift was over, we’d walk to his home together, past Christ Lutheran Church where he was baptized in 1948 and where he and Aunt Clara became members in 1949.

But there was something different about my Uncle Freeman. Ever since he came home from France, his hands shook terribly, so much so that he had to drink his coffee through a straw. I was told he had shell shock from being in the war. However, his papers say “Wounds-None”

and that he had Parkinson’s disease. But, he shook badly ever since I knew him.

Uncle Freeman had another incident. I wish I knew what it was all about. But sometime after he was married, my dad took him to the veterans hospital in Knoxville, Tenn., because he had become very sick with his war disease, whatever that was.

When my dad took Freeman’s wife to see him, my uncle was wrapped in a white sheet in the morgue. But my dad noticed that Uncle Freeman moved. Dad slowly gave him water and nursed him back to health.

Time moved on and my family moved away. Uncle Freeman, in time, buried Aunt Clara. He’d drive to visit my brother and his wife on a farm from time to time.

One night in 1981, while driving out to the farm in the fog, he was involved in a car crash that left him pretty broken up. After he healed, he went to live with my brother and his wife because he could no longer live alone. Uncle Freeman lived with them for 4½ years before going to the veterans hospital in Grand Island.

My brother has since died, but my sister-in-law, Alice, speaks of their time with Uncle Freeman with fond memories and love. She said that Uncle Freeman was her friend and that he went everywhere with her, “even to Tupperware parties.”

“He enjoyed talking,” Alice said. “He had so much to tell.”

Alice gave me the best piece of information yet about my Uncle Freeman.

“We talked about God a lot,” Alice said. “He was a true believer.

There is no doubt in my mind that he knew God.”

Uncle Freeman fought for the freedoms I enjoy, but WWI took a toll on him. Part of his health was left in France.

I’m so glad that Uncle Freeman is in Heaven waiting for me. I hope when I get there he asks me if I want an Orange Crush. I’ll say, “Sure, and I have some questions for you.

“What was your horse’s name? Was it a French horse?”