A Hero In The Family.

I recently received this newspaper clipping from Macon County Tennessee from 1944. It concerns my 1st cousin, Pfc. Jasper T. Smith.

Jay as he was known was the eldest son of my mother's oldest Sister. As my mother was the youngest of ten children, her oldest sister was married and having children of her own by the time she was born.

Although Jay was technically her nephew they were so close in age that they we're in the same classes in school and grew up as virtual brother and sister.

I grew up hearing stories about him from my mother and members of her family but never knew the full circumstances of his death.

Given the time frame of the action we're he was killed I was expecting to find records of his being intered at the American Cemetery in Normandy but they have nothing under his name listed. I can only assume then that he lies under one of those crosses marked. "Here Rests In Honered Glory, A Comrade In Arms. Know But To God".

A truly selfless act in
the defense of others.

There are far to many of these
crosses scattered across the
American Cemetaries in
Europe and the Pacific.

We're these the luckey ones? Tens of thousands more have no graves. Lost to the vast depths of the oceans, impenetrable jungles or blown to pieces such that there was nothing to recover. May none of them ever be forgotten.