Each year Memorial Day we honor and mourn the U.S. military personnel who died while serving in the United States Armed Forces.

All lives are equally precious, but for this Memorial Day I want to address one life and one man who died as a result of serving in the United States Army during World War II.

Frederick Stiles was 31 and a member of the Coast Guard when he volunteered for US Army active duty in 1943. At the time he was a dock master in Tampa, attending mostly to boatloads of fruit arriving from South America to nourish American citizens. It is likely that because of his age and dock master duties he could have been exempted from active military service, but that was not his way.

So in August 1943, he found himself in uniform, in Boston, preparing to depart by convoy to the European Theater of Operations. Not too many days before this, he had said goodbye to his wife, Irene. At the time, neither knew that Irene was pregnant with a baby girl, who would be named Joyce.

The United States military, like any other, very, very large organization can make mistakes; but it can more often make very good decisions. One good military decision was to assign Frederick Stiles, now a Staff Sergeant, to be a dock master in London - a perfect fit for his civilian expertise. (As an aside, he was evidently so good and respected in the accomplishment of his duties that he was assigned soldiers who apparently did not "fit" at their previous assignments, to include some who had been given an "Army or Jail" choice. Sergeant Stiles created a reputation for his handling of these men, turning them into an effective team to support ship dockings. Yes, you may think of the movie, The Dirty Dozen, but with many, many "Dozens" undet Stiles strong leadership.)

Unfortunately, Staff Sergeant Stiles would not be able to see the full fruits of his labor, because he was seriously injured in a dock crane accident, requiring him to be evacuated to the United States.

Even worse, he was selected to participate in what was the beginning of radiation medicine. His fate was that instead of healing his back with radiation; it essentially fried his back, and this - many years later - led to him being a paraplegic and ultimately a quadriplegic. Throughout all of this, to include some very bad experiences in hospitals, he remained upbeat, and a loving husband and father in every respect.

I love my father more than words can express. Losing him was one of the saddest days of my life. I think of him so often. I attend to his grave, placing flowers there regularly.

In my sorrow, I can empathize with those who have lost loved ones in military service. I pray that God's Peace will overcome their grief.

I also trust in a Loving God, and I know that he has a plan for all of us, though, in our humanity, we may not see it at all times.

~Joyce