If you were born into the Roman Catholic faith, you must be familiar with St. Christopher, also known as the Patron Saint of Travelers.  Despite his status as one of the Church’s most popular Saints, much of what we know of Christopher’s life is attributed not to fact but to legends, including the tale that this man from Canaan, born some time during the third century, stood 12 cubits tall (18 feet).

 

After giving his allegiance, respectively, to an earthly king and Satan and finding both lacking in courage, Christopher decided to serve the greatest being of all: God in heaven.  Because of his great size and strength, Christopher was asked by a hermit to help people cross a dangerous river, insisting that this service would please the Lord.  The future martyr accepted.

 

One day Christopher ferried a child across the river, a relatively simple task that proved to be most difficult and perilous.  Once safely across the water, the child declared himself to be the Creator and Redeemer of the world; he promised to prove this after Christopher had planted his staff into the ground. The following morning, the staff was found transformed into a living, fruit-bearing palm tree.  This miracle enabled Christopher to convert thousands to the Christian faith, particularly in the pagan city of Lycia.  Thus, he invited the anger of that city’s monarch, who ordered his beheading.  Christopher was made a martyr and centuries later, a Saint.

 

Because his canonization occurred many years after the Roman tradition, his feast day was removed, in 1969, from the Roman Catholic Calendar of Saints.  Despite his decommissioning, many Catholics still venerate the martyr.  As a former soldier drafted to serve in World War II, I am one of them.

 

Thousands of Americans were inducted into the military following the December 7th, 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor; the induction was mandatory and inevitable.   A few weeks after I turned 18 years of age in October of 1944, I received a draft notice stating that I was scheduled for induction into the United States Army on January 18, 1945.  In keeping with the tradition of many families whose loved ones were marching off to war, my family gave me a going away party at our row house in South Philadelphia.  My entire family and all of my friends showed up to wish me well and present me gifts and mementos. At the end of a gala evening, I found that I was the recipient of thirteen St. Cristopher medals.

 

The next morning after breakfast, I kissed my family goodbye and convened, along with other inductees, at the 30^th Street Train Station in Philadelphia.  There, we boarded a train to an induction center in Indiantown Gap, Pennsylvania.  Arriving late in the evening, we were ushered into a mess hall and fed, and then assigned sleeping quarters. Over the next few days, we underwent complete physical examinations and received a full complement of Army equipment. Upon completion of induction, we were assigned to fifteen weeks of Infantry Basic Training at Camp Robinson, near Little Rock, Arkansas.

 

During my training, other soldiers asked me about the thirteen medals in my possession.  After I had explained that St. Christopher was the Patron Saint of Travelers, I received offers to purchase the medals.  To my comrades, I presented the medals along with the good wishes that they were intended to carry.  When I finally boarded a troop ship bound for the invasion of Japan, I retained but one medal given to me by a dear friend.

 

During the war, St. Christopher served on land, on sea, and in the air; he was a constant companion to those who carried him.   I believe that St. Christopher was in North Africa, at Normandy, Guadalcanal, Anzio, Iwo Jima, the Battle of the Bulge, and Okinawa.

 

When the global conflict finally ended in 1945, and the automobile became the mode of travel, St. Christopher was placed with reverence upon many a dashboard.  His next mission was to protect a multitude of drivers and passengers.

 

Although St. Christopher no longer appears on the Roman Catholic Calendar of Saints, he is still venerated by many.  Should he not receive recognition in the World War II Hall of Fame, or would that be considered politically incorrect?  Perhaps, St. Christopher can still be found protecting the souls listed in the rosters below.   Click on the links to view these Websites.

 

American Cemeteries and Memorial Parks

Aisne-Marne, France Ardennes, Belgium Brittany, France Brookwood, England Cambridge, England Corozal, Panama Epinal, France Flanders Field, Belgium Florence, Italy Henri-Chapelle, Belgium Lorraine, France Luxembourg, Luxembourg Manila, Philippines Meuse-Argonne, France Mexico City, Mexico Netherlands, Netherlands Normandy, France North Africa, Tunisia Oise-Aisne, France Rhone, France Sicily-Rome, Italy Somme, France St. Mihiel, France Suresnes, France

 

Attorneys can be disbarred.  Saints can be de-canonized (just ask St. Christopher, the guy who used to protect us as we took our lives into our hands on the Jersey highways).  So what do you call it when the man credited with discovering America is no longer honored, as he was in the recent past, with his own day and parades replete with marching bands?  I’m really not sure what to call it, other than a miscarriage of justice for the great Italian explorer, Christopher Columbus.

 

Far more progressive and controversial than his contemporaries, Columbus postulated that the world was not flat but round.  Columbus’ theory put forth that a spherical planet would enable a faster trade route to the East, wherein lay all manner of goods and beaucoup bucks, as we say today, for those who traded those goods.  With visions of riches dancing in his head, Columbus made his sales pitch to the King of Spain, who was both tolerant and solvent.  It was a good sales pitch, for it earned the explorer three fine ships and a crew by which he had planned to haul back the goods, create new wealth for himself and the Spanish monarch, and offer the people of Europe the luxuries of the Orient.

 

Instead of discovering a new route to the East, Columbus ran ashore of the New World (America).  Planting the flag of Spain on North American soil, he dubbed and befriended the native “Indians”, for indeed, he’d assumed initially that he’d hit India.   Eventually, he found his way to the Caribbean, where he located the spices and other interesting commodities for which he’d been hoping.

 

In his honor, October 12^th was dedicated as Columbus Day: a day to remember the man who’d discovered this continent.   Not so very long ago, schools closed in Columbus’ honor.  Floats moved in stately fashion down the streets of our cities as well as small towns, such as the one in which I was raised.  Brass instruments flashed in the sun, children waved the Stars and Stripes, and entire communities marched in honor.  Everyone celebrated Columbus Day.

 

Inevitably, the Politically Correct came slinking out of their dark, foreboding crevasses to kill Columbus Day, just as they have been trying to do, systematically, with Christmas and Halloween.   Heated discussions arose as to whether or not Nordic explorers or even St. Brendan of Ireland discovered America before Christopher.  And then, of course, came the allegations that Columbus, through guilt by very tenuous association and many generations removed, was responsible for the near-obliteration of the “Indians” (Native Americans).

 

Ergo, no more annual Columbus Day parades, except for those few surviving in proud Italian-American communities, such as Bensonhurst, in Brooklyn, New York.

 

At the time when The Troubles were rampant in Northern Ireland, Great Britain published history books that showed maps of Ireland removed of the 9 offensive Northern counties.  England effectively rewrote history, as it was a bit uncomfortable.  Across the globe, Japanese history books made no mention of the events of Pearl Harbor.  When Japanese tourists visit Hawaii for the first time, they are shocked and horrified to learn of this portion of their history that has been buried.

 

Now that we’ve removed the pomp and circumstance, along with the pride we once felt surrounding Columbus Day, is America now guilty of rewriting history to make things comfortable for the so-called Politically Correct?