There was never any closure for Stephen Srstka's family, his sister said Monday, following a Memorial Day ceremony at the Poplar Bluff Veterans Memorial Wall.
The 20-year-old Marine died June 15, 1944, and received a burial at sea. It broke her mother's heart, Ione Deken explained.
They were sent a notice from the state department. It said Srstka was part of an amphibian attack, but never made it to shore. Although gravely wounded, he took over the station of another wounded Marine for as long as he could.
Memorial Day is a very sad time, the 91-year-old Butler County resident said, but also a different kind of reminder.
"I feel very patriotic today, that we have people in this country that are willing to fight for our freedom," said Deken, whose husband, Clem Deken, was one of three World War II veterans attending the ceremony.
Memorial Day carries its own meaning for every family, said keynote speaker Lt. Col. Nathaniel Balentine Jr., who served in the Marine Corps, Army military intelligence and retired from the U.S. Army Reserves.
Today, he is the Poplar Bluff post master. While in the service, Balentine was deployed during the Iranian crisis, Desert Shield, Desert Storm and Operation Enduring Freedom.
Like his uncle, a Vietnam veteran, for Balentine Memorial Day is a time to remember those who didn't make it home. His uncle cried every May for the friends he lost.
"I do the same thing, I look at the sky on Memorial Day. I think about all those who went to war with me. All those I didn't bring back, and all those who actually died during the conflict, and I cry for them," said Balentine, becoming emotional. "They are the ones that made the ultimate sacrifice, so I can stand here today."
It is a debt that can never be repaid to the families of fallen service members, said retired U.S. Army Col. Patricia Hall, director of John J. Pershing VA Medical Center.
"Every minute of our day, we Americans enjoy the blessings of a free nation, blessings protected by the selfless service of men and women in uniform for nearly two and a half centuries," Hall said. "Millions of the finest citizens have answered the call to duty since our nation's founding.
"More than one million have been laid upon the altar of freedom, a staggering number, a staggering price."
What citizens can and must do is remember that sacrifice, she said.
The cost of war is not always seen immediately, Clem Deken knows.
His father was a World War I veteran who later died from emphysema, the result of exposure to mustard gas.
Clem Deken served in World War II, drafted at the age of 21 from his home in Qulin, Missouri. He was sent to England in January 1944 and traveled across France and Germany in the coming months.
His unit arrived 12 days after D-Day in France.
Within a month, his unit was part of the Battle of St. LO, as U.S. forces fought to prevent German forces from taking a more advantageous position above the city of St. LO.
"That was quite a day to see. You saw airplanes fall out of the sky. You saw men fall out of the sky, ours and mostly German," Clem Deken said, now 95.
He still remembers seeing Dachau concentration camp in Germany less than a year later. His unit arrived after it was liberated.
American soldiers found more than 30 railroad cars filled with bodies when they arrived at Dachau, which held more than 188,000 prisoners during over a decade in operation, according to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
Dachau reinforced what the American soldiers were fighting for, according to Clem Deken.