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News & Photos
Memorial Day Service Honors Fallen Heroes
Students and teachers gathered in Memorial Court this morning to remember those from McDonogh who lost their lives while serving their country.
Director of Religious Studies John Grega recalled the particular sacrifice of U.S. Marine Charles Carter Anderson '42. Here is his account of Anderson's life:
Before us in the center of Memorial Court stands the monument with the names of McDonogh cadets who not only served their country in the armed forces but also gave their lives in that service. The first name listed on the monument is that of Charles Carter Anderson. Carter entered McDonogh as a freshman on September 12, 1938. At the time his father, Charles Carter Anderson Sr., served as a Captain in the U.S. Navy.
As a sophomore, Carter bunked in Lyle Northwest and is fondly remembered by a dorm mate, Edmund Morse '40 and head cadet of Lyle Northwest: Carter was “one of the finest people I knew at McDonogh”—high praise from a senior for a sophomore.
Carter performed competently as a student, though he did struggle, as many of us do, with Latin and physics. He ran cross country and track and excelled at golf. On the varsity golf team for three years, he played #3 his senior year behind Wild Bill Stauffer and Bob Simpson.
Interested in the performing arts as well, Carter sang in McDonogh’s main choral group then, the Glee Club, and participated in drama and dance. By the time he graduated, Carter had risen to the rank of captain, thanks to his character, competence, and leadership ability.
Graduating in 1942 as a member of the largest class ever to leave McDonogh, he enrolled in the Foreign Service School at Georgetown and after one year of study enlisted in the Marines. On completing basic training, he was promoted to sergeant and stayed at Parris Island to serve as drill instructor for the grueling nine-week basic training required of all new Marines.
After a year of service, Carter was sent to the Pacific Theater as part of the 4th Marine Division and was wounded in the assault on Saipan. Recovering from his wounds, he joined the 25th Marine regiment and, on March 3, 1945, landed with the first wave of Marines assaulting Iwo Jima, the heavily fortified Japanese island known as the Rock.
During that assault, Carter was leading a squad of crack Marines against Japanese mortar emplacements when he crawled past Edmund Morse, his old dorm mate from Lyle Northwest. Lt. Morse was himself leading a Marine platoon in the assault. Looking forward to better times, they promised each other to toast their days at McDonogh when the assault on Iwo had ended.
It was a promise that would not be fulfilled. Soon thereafter Carter Anderson was critically wounded by a mortar attack and was transported to an assault ship anchored offshore. This ship, the USS Frederick Funston, was commanded by Carter’s own father, Captain Charles Carter Anderson Sr. For the next eighteen hours he would be by his son’s bedside as surgeons worked to save his son’s life.
The efforts proved futile. In their final conversation, Carter said to his father, “I wonder how mother will take all this.” They were his last words; he lost consciousness and died moments later.
The story of Carter Anderson shows us as perhaps no other can how the sacrifices we remember today are borne not only by the men and women in service but also by their families as well. Once again we find ourselves at war and once again men and women are dying in combat and their families bear the grief and anguish that result from such a loss.
These men and women and their families endure such sacrifice not because they find war glorious and death in war exalted but because they find war sometimes necessary and death in war the cost of a far greater good.
As we honor today Charles Carter Anderson and Doug Wheelock and Howard B. Henry and all those who have given their lives and sacrificed their dreams for a greater good, let us remember their families as well and look on our own families with renewed appreciation and love. At times familiarity can blind us to the wonders that daily surround us and momentary squabbles can even dull our sense of appreciation further. Along with our lives and our dreams, our families are a treasure not to be taken for granted, a treasure that those in our armed forces have sought to protect.
Let us look carefully at those with whom we share life and dreams every day and not take them for granted. In its own way such appreciation extends our remembrance today of those men and women who have died and who continue to die so that we might live and dream and have families.
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Students and teachers gathered in Memorial Court this morning to remember those from McDonogh who lost their lives while serving their country.
Director of Religious Studies John Grega recalled the particular sacrifice of U.S. Marine Charles Carter Anderson '42. Here is his account of Anderson's life:
Before us in the center of Memorial Court stands the monument with the names of McDonogh cadets who not only served their country in the armed forces but also gave their lives in that service. The first name listed on the monument is that of Charles Carter Anderson. Carter entered McDonogh as a freshman on September 12, 1938. At the time his father, Charles Carter Anderson Sr., served as a Captain in the U.S. Navy.
As a sophomore, Carter bunked in Lyle Northwest and is fondly remembered by a dorm mate, Edmund Morse '40 and head cadet of Lyle Northwest: Carter was “one of the finest people I knew at McDonogh”—high praise from a senior for a sophomore.
Carter performed competently as a student, though he did struggle, as many of us do, with Latin and physics. He ran cross country and track and excelled at golf. On the varsity golf team for three years, he played #3 his senior year behind Wild Bill Stauffer and Bob Simpson.
Interested in the performing arts as well, Carter sang in McDonogh’s main choral group then, the Glee Club, and participated in drama and dance. By the time he graduated, Carter had risen to the rank of captain, thanks to his character, competence, and leadership ability.
Graduating in 1942 as a member of the largest class ever to leave McDonogh, he enrolled in the Foreign Service School at Georgetown and after one year of study enlisted in the Marines. On completing basic training, he was promoted to sergeant and stayed at Parris Island to serve as drill instructor for the grueling nine-week basic training required of all new Marines.
After a year of service, Carter was sent to the Pacific Theater as part of the 4th Marine Division and was wounded in the assault on Saipan. Recovering from his wounds, he joined the 25th Marine regiment and, on March 3, 1945, landed with the first wave of Marines assaulting Iwo Jima, the heavily fortified Japanese island known as the Rock.
During that assault, Carter was leading a squad of crack Marines against Japanese mortar emplacements when he crawled past Edmund Morse, his old dorm mate from Lyle Northwest. Lt. Morse was himself leading a Marine platoon in the assault. Looking forward to better times, they promised each other to toast their days at McDonogh when the assault on Iwo had ended.
It was a promise that would not be fulfilled. Soon thereafter Carter Anderson was critically wounded by a mortar attack and was transported to an assault ship anchored offshore. This ship, the USS Frederick Funston, was commanded by Carter’s own father, Captain Charles Carter Anderson Sr. For the next eighteen hours he would be by his son’s bedside as surgeons worked to save his son’s life.
The efforts proved futile. In their final conversation, Carter said to his father, “I wonder how mother will take all this.” They were his last words; he lost consciousness and died moments later.
The story of Carter Anderson shows us as perhaps no other can how the sacrifices we remember today are borne not only by the men and women in service but also by their families as well. Once again we find ourselves at war and once again men and women are dying in combat and their families bear the grief and anguish that result from such a loss.
These men and women and their families endure such sacrifice not because they find war glorious and death in war exalted but because they find war sometimes necessary and death in war the cost of a far greater good.
As we honor today Charles Carter Anderson and Doug Wheelock and Howard B. Henry and all those who have given their lives and sacrificed their dreams for a greater good, let us remember their families as well and look on our own families with renewed appreciation and love. At times familiarity can blind us to the wonders that daily surround us and momentary squabbles can even dull our sense of appreciation further. Along with our lives and our dreams, our families are a treasure not to be taken for granted, a treasure that those in our armed forces have sought to protect.
Let us look carefully at those with whom we share life and dreams every day and not take them for granted. In its own way such appreciation extends our remembrance today of those men and women who have died and who continue to die so that we might live and dream and have families.