Visit to memorial evokes memories for many families

It was a deeply emotional day for one veteran and the widows of others.
COLUMBUS DISPATCH
Sitting apart from the crowd at Gate C21, Harry Schetter cries his only tears of the day.
They don't fall as he toys with the dulled dog tags that hang from a chain around his wrinkled neck. They don't fall as he speaks of time spent crouched in a foxhole, so cold that his fingers could no longer bend around the ammunition he needed to hand to his gunner.
But just before a Boeing 707 rumbles to the Dayton International Airport gate in a driving rain, there to take Schetter and a small group of others to the National World War II Memorial, his voice breaks.
"I didn't want to go to Washington, D.C., to see a memorial that came way too late," he says. "But my sons, they're both officers in the Air Force, you see. They said this memorial is for me and my friends.
"They said I have to go, so they bought my ticket. They said they're proud of me."
Only then does he cry.
The moment passes, though, and the spry 79-year-old -- who lied about his age so that he could march across Europe with Patton's 3rd Army -- pulls out a boarding pass and checks his seat assignment one last time. His hand shakes just a little as he gives his ticket to the young man in the airline uniform.
In Billy's honor
Next in line is Eileen Cahoon. She's been crying all morning, and the sun hasn't even risen yet. She'll shed many more tears before this long day is done.
She's crying for Billy, the man who "fell in love with me at the age of 6 and never stopped." Their family farms abutted along the Vinton-Jackson county line in southeastern Ohio.
They married in 1945, not long after his release from a German prison camp.
The enemy had captured Mr. Cahoon, an Army machine gunner, in North Africa, and the Germans had locked him up for 28 months. He spent a lifetime refusing to share the stories of the horrible things he'd seen.
But a fall and a broken hip proved too much last year. He died just three months after the stone and granite memorial, built in his honor along the National Mall, was finished.
Mrs. Cahoon is going to see it in his place. She's joined by her only son, her daughter-in-law, a nephew, a friend, four other widows and Schetter -- who just happens to be her neighbor in Springfield -- on a Veteran Tour Service Ltd. one-day trip from Dayton to D.C.
She intends to read every inscription at the memorial, study every picture on its wall and inspect every inch of its massive pillars. It was paid for, after all, with a piece of her husband's soul.
"This trip is for him," she says. "This trip is in his honor, to remember everything he did for this country that he loved so, so, so much."
As she straps into seat 14D, she is crying.
Sharing stories
Across the aisle sits Mary Lou Lemon. She and her husband met the Cahoons 15 years ago at a POW survivors meeting in Springfield. The men got to talking and discovered they were in the same stalag at the same time. The women formed an instant bond, one few others would understand. Together, they realized that their husbands had lived a lifetime without them in those 850 or so days inside Stalag 7A and Stalag 3B.
Unlike Mr. Cahoon, though, Mr. Lemon talked about what came after his capture at the Kasserine Pass in North Africa. He even had a favorite story, defined by what he called a sustaining moment, something that carried him through when nothing else could.
In all the emotion of this day, the story surfaces in Mrs. Lemon's mind, and she shares it without prodding.
"The men, probably 500 of them, were herded into a completely dark barn. They were sure they'd be killed. And somewhere, from way in a back corner, a violin began softly playing.
"My husband said it was the most beautiful sound he'd ever heard, the most beautiful, peaceful thing. And until the day he died, he drew comfort from that noise. He dearly loved the sound of a violin."
She closes her eyes and readies herself for the ride ahead.
The charter-bus trip from Baltimore/Washington International Airport to the memorial passes quietly.
Schetter sits near the back of the bus, apart from the others, alone.
No one on board has seen this memorial before. Few know how they'll react.
As the hydraulic door swings open, they hurry down the bus steps, belying their age.
But no one heads straight to the granite pillars. They stop instead at the computers to look up names of loved ones in the registry of veterans.
'In awe'
Schetter slowly punches in his own name. S-C-H ...
He stops, shakes his head. E-T-T ...
He stops again, looks skyward. E-R.
Up it pops. A picture of the memorial in front of which he now stands.
Harry J. Schetter
U.S. Army
Springfield, Ohio
Served with the 91st Chemical Mortar Battalion. Attached to the 3rd Army.
With the excitement of a kid on Christmas morning, he says to no one in particular, "Look, there I am. Right there I am. Why, I didn't do anything. I'm nobody special."
He grins.
"Look," he says again, this time much more quietly, "There I am."
He'll pause to pull up the grainy computer screen twice more before he leaves.
He spends an hour wandering, mostly alone, through the memorial that is his.
He snaps an entire roll of film.
Later, he thinks about the experience. "I was too in awe to get very emotional. It's so overwhelming, so inspiring. But I think if I came back tomorrow, I'd feel differently. Then, I'd be sad."
Back on the bus, he still sits alone.
Tearful journey
Mrs. Cahoon begins her journey at the computer screen, too. But there's been a mistake. While everyone else finds the names they're looking for, Army Cpl. Billy Cahoon doesn't come up.
She tries several times. So does her son. "It's so sad," she says, crying. "He's not there. But, by golly, I'll get him in there. Daddy won't be forgotten."
As she moves on, she stops several times at the 12 sculptures along the wall, each one depicting a scene of America at war. She has a favorite, visits it twice, makes sure her son gets the image on his video recorder.
The scene: liberation.
She touches the image of a man being set free.
Mrs. Lemon is in no hurry. Clutching her purse to her side, she ambles along the memorial's walkway, stops at the water's edge.
"Oh, my husband would be so impressed, so proud," she says of the former Army tank driver she lost almost five years ago. They'd been married 53 years.
"He would have loved this, every bit of it. It's a shame most of the men it honors will never see it. It's just not right."
She moseys away. She spots Mrs. Cahoon on the other side. She heads over. The two complete their first pass around the circular path, walking arm in arm.
They don't say much. They don't have to.
Returning home
Back at the airport, the attendant announces a flight delay. Everyone settles in, begins sorting through their souvenirs.
By the time the announcement comes that the plane is at the gate, ready to return them home, eyelids are heavy. When they get back to Dayton, this crew -- bound together by a war that ended 60 years ago -- will have been at it for more than 17 hours.
Mr. Schetter wants to go home, share his stories with his wife and kids, develop his film to show them the computer screen bearing his name. He can't stop smiling.
Mrs. Cahoon wants to rise early the next day and make a phone call, find out why her husband's name isn't in the registry. She can't stop crying.
Mrs. Lemon wants to call her kids, too. Tell them all about her day. It was a fabulous day, she says. Couldn't have been better.
Her husband would have loved it.
"But he knows I went for him," she says with a gentle smile. "He's happy."
And as she walks the Jetway toward the plane that will take her home, Mrs. Lemon knows that, somewhere, a violin is playing.