Sgt. York’s 1941 Memorial Day Message Still Inspires

On Memorial Day, 1941, Sgt. Alvin York spoke at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

This humble farmer from the backwoods of Tennessee began his military career as a pacifist. While he was serving with the U.S. Army during WW I, a Bible study with his commanding officer persuaded a reluctant York that it was right to help defenseless civilians even if it meant killing their attackers. In 1919 he was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor after singlehandedly dispatching more than twenty enemy soldiers and capturing 132 on October 8 of the previous year. He saw first-hand the price of liberty through the smoke and carnage of a French battlefield.

Sgt. Alvin’s York’s Memorial Day 1941 speech at Arlington National Cemetery was Page 1 news in the Knoxville Journal on May 31, 1941. (Courtesy Newspapers.com)

Like many who lived through the horrors of the Great War, York hoped death and loss on such a scale would never happen again. “No one can possibly hate war as much as a soldier,” he said. “I don’t approve of taking human life unless it is necessary, but I considered it necessary.” As he saw it, “We had to go into it to give our boys and young ladies a chance for peace in the days to come.”

York risked his life to win that peace abroad (a canteen beside him during the firefight had eighteen bullet holes in it), expecting to secure a lasting peace at home. When Hitler’s rise to power in 1933 again threatened Germany’s neighbors, York insisted the battle was theirs alone and that America “should fight a defensive war only” this time around.

But as the new conflict in Europe entered its second year, Americans became divided over whether to join forces with Britain and her struggling allies against the Nazis. Powerful voices argued that it wasn’t America’s fight and there was no reason to get involved. One leader of the noninterventionist camp was legendary flyer Charles Lindbergh, who believed the only people interested in going to war were “the British, the Jews, and the Roosevelt Administration.”

The sergeant was one of many who had a change of heart as Nazi armies occupied one nation after another and began the systematic murder of Jewish citizens. York condemned Lindbergh and other isolationists, taking heavy criticism in the press from the aviator’s supporters, who called York a “skunk,” “ignoramus,” and worse. With Japan in the east and Germany in the west flexing their military muscle, York encouraged American leaders to answer with “millions of soldiers being armed with the very latest and best equipment.” The peace that seemed so secure in 1918 had vanished in a cloud of destruction even more horrible than before. America must be prepared to fight.

In 1941 York was fifty-three years old and nearly a hundred pounds over his fighting weight. His legendary sharpshooter eyes looked out at the crowd through wire-framed reading glasses. The old soldier declared that the fight for freedom was a never-ending responsibility.

“By our victory in the last war, we won a lease on liberty, not a deed to it,” he said. “Now, after twenty-three years, Adolf Hitler tells us that the lease is expiring, and after the manner of all leases, we have the privilege of renewing it, or letting it go by default.”

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