The world watched that horse-drawn caisson go up Pennsylvania Avenue on Nov. 23, 1963
— and forever remembered a slain president and his tiny son, standing at attention,
saluting. Only family and
close friends watched the first horse-drawn caisson in the history of Salisbury’s
National Cemetery bring an American veteran of World War II to his final resting place
Wednesday morning — but the feeling of Ray Ballew’s wife, Mary, his six
daughters and two sons, his 14 grandchildren and five great-grandchildren was just as
real.
And so was the honor.
“He deserved it as much as
any man,” says his son-in-law, Jeff Stepp, a former resident of Salisbury and
re-enactor commander of the re-activated 26th Regiment, North Carolina Troops. Its
Reilly’s Battery, which participated in the service here, was started in Rowan County
in the 1850s.
Ray Ballew, who came back from the
war and sold and installed carpet in Thomasville until cancer took his life, entered the
battle to save the world from Hitler at Utah Beach on D-Day. In the end, he suffered two
wounds and ran ammunition under German fire from Marseilles to the front lines with the
famous Red Ball Express until the war was over.
And what Wednesday’s unusual
and impressive funeral service — the caisson, the three-volley gun salute, a bugler
blowing Taps under an endless canopy of picturebook blue sky — said, when only a
faint echo of sobs broke the final silence, “was that his family valued his life and
his service,” Stepp says. As the service of all soldiers should be honored, not
because it was unique.
But it was unique.
National Cemetery Director Sue
Yarborough said it had never been done here before so “we had to call our office in
Washington.”
And Stepp had to arrange for one
of only two horse-drawn units on the East Coast of the United States to be here and take
part.
And the men participating wore
uniforms that were a mixture of wars of different eras — the Civil War, both world
wars and today.
And people in the neighborhood,
like Rebecca Kelly who’s lived in the area more than 50 years, noticed and wondered
and watched.
Stepp’s re-enactment unit has
had artillery pieces and used them in various re-enactment and living history events
“but we have never used our horse-drawn caisson.”
And he thought it was appropriate
for Ray Ballew, who had been his father-in-law for 22 years.
During that time he’d learned
a great deal about his World War II service and admired him greatly.
“He was a sergeant in the
474th anti-aircraft battalion,” he says, and was wounded in the left leg on Utah
Beach. When he recovered and returned to his unit in about two weeks, he was wounded again
in the right leg in the fighting around St. Lo, France. That was more severe.
So when he recovered and was
assigned as a transport driver, Stepp says, he felt like it might be safer, not realizing
that he was to be part of that Red Ball Express which became famous because it was so
risky supplying lines constantly being attacked by the German air force.
When it was over, he received two
Purple Hearts and a Bronze Star for gallantry.
“And, since World War II
veterans are fading fast,” Stepp said, “I just personally felt that Mr. Ballew
deserved all the military honors that we could provide. My personal opinion is that that
generation of Americans have allowed us all the blessings of freedom we enjoy today. Had
they failed, our lives would be quite different.”
But, he said, during the service,
quoting Stephen Ambrose, these men would much have preferred to be shooting rabbits than
other men and tossing baseballs than grenades, but they performed their duty.
“And they were only boys. Ray
Ballew was 18 when he hit Utah Beach.
“What they have done for
their country and each one of us is very important and should not be forgotten. If it were
in our power, we would do this for every man buried out there.”
Because they had time, Stepp
discussed it with Ray Ballew before he died.
“He was a very simple
man,” he says. “We didn’t want to do anything too ostentatious that might
make him uncomfortable if he had been there to see it himself.”
It was the traditional burial for
a man in artillery service, like Ray Ballew, from the time of the Civil War until about
World War I, when mechanization made caissons no longer necessary, and it’s only
occasionally used today, usually for soldiers or government officials of high rank.
But it’s available to every
man.
And Jeff Stepp wanted it for his
father-in-law.
When they discussed it, Stepp
says, his father-in-law seemed pleased that somebody remembered his service and wanted to
honor him.
More than one somebody remembered
and took part— another son-in-law, Tim DeBoer, who was here from active duty on the
USS Theodore Roosevelt, along with 10 members of Reilly’s Battery and nine World War
II re-enactors with M-I rifles from various units and bugler Jay Callahan of Greensboro.
Little enough, they like Jeff
Stepp must have been thinking, to do for a man who was still a boy when he risked his life
for his country. |
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