In observance of Memorial Day this year, I thought I would share this personal writing with my friends who read my Catholic Finish Strong blog and the 24HourCampfire.
This story is absolutely true and I tried my level best to relate the experience precisely as it unfolded in my life.
As a note: The First Lieutenant’s family still lives in the Milwaukie, Oregon area, so I X’ed out his name to protect the family’s privacy.
Have a safe and enjoyable Memorial Day and God Bless,
Steve
TO A SATISFACTORY SON
One day, in the 1980s, a young man walked into our jewelry store. He handed me a pocket watch and a ring and said that he wanted to sell the pair for scrap gold.
I looked at the items and was surprised. The ring was marked "United States Military Academy" with the date 1916 and it was gorgeous. If memory serves, the ring was fourteen-karat yellow gold and the inside of the shank was engraved with the graduating cadet's name.
The watch really set me back on my heels. It was a twelve-size Howard, which was arguably the finest pocket watch ever made in America. The case was eighteen-karat yellow gold, hunter style with the crystal cover and in perfect shape.
On the back of the watch was engraved:
To First Lieutenant Xxxxxxx X. Xxxxxx,
Upon Graduation from the
United States Military Academy
Class of 1916
To A Satisfactory Son
I had to read the last line again … "To A Satisfactory Son."
Later, I came to understand that the cadet’s Mom & Dad were so incredibly proud of their son that they could not describe their feeling with mere words.
After all, this wonderful young man had excelled to a degree that was well beyond what any reasonable parents could ever expect. And he’d worked for four long years at West Point, scoring high enough in his class to be commissioned a First Lieutenant in the Army.
Sometimes words fail.
I suspected that the long-haired youth who was trying to sell me the watch and the ring had stolen them. His story was that he'd inherited them from his grandfather, who was a local medical doctor. Anyway, the stuff didn't mean squat to him and he just wanted to sell it. He told me that it would be fine to call his mom, just in case I suspected the items were stolen.
His mother happened to be a good customer of ours, so the call was friendly. She told me that her son had inherited the ring and the watch from her father, the doctor. Further, that nobody in the family particularly wanted them, so it was fine with her if the kid sold them.
She went on to tell me that the ring and the watch had been given to her father’s cousin by his loving parents. She was aware of the fact that the cousin had graduated from West Point and he’d left a lot of personal effects, including the ring and the watch, with his parents when he shipped out to fight in World War One.
And he was KIA ... killed in action.
Tears welled up; Steve kills big furry critters, but part of him is a big old softy.
To make a long story mercifully short, I paid the kid about three times gold scrap value for the ring and $200 for the watch.
I kept the watch and the ring for a couple of years. It seemed inconceivable to me that anyone could sell such a family treasure. I vowed that if any of the family came into our store, wanting to buy back the watch and the ring, I would simply sell them back to the family member for what the articles cost me.
Nobody ever came.
Meanwhile, I enjoyed the pieces of history. Every time I popped open the hunter case and looked at the Howard's enamel dial, it was like I stepped back seventy years in time. And, in looking at the engraving, especially the "To A Satisfactory Son;" well, to me the words always related a special love between parents and an exceptional young man.
On a sad note, every time I read those words, I secretly wished that my own father had considered me a satisfactory son … but this was never to be.
A Permanent Home for the Ring and the Watch
I guess I always knew that it would be my responsibility to find the proper home for the watch and the ring. Eventually, I called the US Military Academy and asked to talk to someone in their museum. A very nice young man answered and he was thrilled when I told him about the Howard watch and the USMA ring.
When I offered them to him, he guardedly asked "How much?"
I said, "It would be my total privilege to donate the ring and the watch to the USMA Museum. This young man, this ‘Satisfactory Son' gave his life for our freedom. How could ANYONE sell these wonderful pieces of history?"
At that, the young man was silent. He did not speak. The phone was silent for a couple of minutes. I was beginning to think that he just thought I was a crank and put me on hold.
Finally, he came back and said, "How can we possibly thank you? This is literally beyond anything I've experienced here."
I told him that no thanks were needed; I just needed a proper address and I'd drop the watch and the ring in the mail.
He gave me the address and asked me to send them in care of him, so he could truly appreciate the additions to the USMA Museum. I mailed the package to him that afternoon.
About a month later, I received a really nice “thank you letter” from the Head Curator of the USMA Museum. They loved the items and would put them in a proper display of WWI items.
Also enclosed was a long letter of thanks from the young man on the phone. In the letter, he told me that he was an upper classman and that he would be graduating from West Point in a few months.
The cadet told me that his father had been killed-in-action in Viet Nam and it was by his father’s sacrifice that he had been allowed into the United States Military Academy. He wrote that, without pride, he was in the top ten-percent of his class ... and he prayed to God that HIS father considered HIM to be a "Satisfactory Son."
I wrote back: “There is no doubt in my mind that your father, that martyr for our American freedom, is in Heaven and looking down upon you right now … And he absolutely considers you to be A Satisfactory Son.”
A Reflection on Stewardship
In looking back over the three decades since I bought the United States Military Academy ring and the Howard watch, I’ve never regretted the donation to the USMA Museum. In my mind, they were never truly mine to own. Indeed, there was never any other choice BUT to donate those incredible pieces of history and of sacrifice.
If I had kept the items, only I would have enjoyed them. And if I’d sold the pieces, the buyer alone would have gotten pleasure from the ring and the watch and I’d have eventually spent the money on something considerably less meaningful.
As I saw it, the only right choice was to donate the ring and the watch to a facility where they would be enjoyed by the public for all perpetuity. Eventually, I decided that the perfect place for the items was the United States Military Academy Museum.
I always intended to visit the USMA Museum, just to see the First Lieutenant’s ring and watch permanently and properly enshrined. Reality seldom equals our dreams, however, so maybe it’s just as well that I never made the effort to travel there.
After three decades, I really don’t know why I even bother to think about the watch and the ring. After all, I never really owned them. Indeed, we really never “own“ anything … we are only stewards of the physical things that we acquire.
We are made richer only when we see that physical things that are temporarily in our possession are properly used and then passed on for others to enjoy.
A Closing Thought
I believe that there are no coincidences; that there are no accidents, and that our existence on earth is not guided by mere chance. We are not pawns, set adrift in a life of randomness.
Further, I believe that God carefully weaves situations, opportunities and problems into our lives. He does this because He wants us to learn patience, tolerance and love; He wants us to become better people.
The real meaning of life is the love we share, the love that we selflessly give and the lives we touch in a positive way. That is the only heritage we truly leave behind.
Nothing else is important.
May God Bless All of You,
by Steve
