In 1940, Col. Denman went to West Point. Duty, honor, country. He wore cadet gray, then graduated to Army blue in 1944 and went off to fight in France and Germany. I once asked him what he was thinking about the night before he was committed to combat. “I prayed that I would not be a coward,” he said matter of factly.
His prayers were answered. He fought hand to hand against the SS and won. As a forward observer, he ran through sniper fire and machine gun fire to call in artillery to rescue his company when it was pinned down. He participated in the liberation of at least two concentration camps. He got pneumonia fighting in the cold, refused to be evacuated and kept fighting. He came home with the Bronze Star, many other medals and a certain way of looking at the world.
“In the Army, we hate war more than anyone else,” he once told me just before I married his daughter in 1968. “We hate it because we’re the ones who get killed.”
“Why do you do it then?” I asked him.
“ So you and my daughter won’t have to,” he said.
After the war, he served in dusty bases out west and on the front lines of the Cold War in Germany. He went on maneuvers in bitter cold getting ready to fight the Red Army. He was away from his family for months on end. That was his job. Duty, honor, country.
When he was in his forties, he went to Vietnam and served as an advisor to South Vietnamese troops. For extraordinary combat bravery, including more hand to hand combat, he won the Silver Star and the Distinguished Service Medal. He kept them. When he talked about his friends who died in Vietnam, he cried.
He retired to an idyllic place called Eden Isle, in Heber Springs, Arkansas. He did Meals on Wheels for the elderly, spoke about war at the local high school, interviewed young people for West Point, was treasurer for decades of the First Presbyterian Church, cared for his dying first and second wives. He never said no to any request for help.
They had a memorial for him at the Presbyterian Church in Heber Springs two weeks ago. He had written out in longhand his plans for the service. He wanted his family and friends to remember that he lived his life by the Army code: Duty, Honor, Country. A small honor guard from the Veterans of Foreign Wars handed his widow a folded flag “...with the thanks of a grateful nation...” and fired five volleys and then a man played Taps. A veteran handed Col. Denman’s widow, Sue, a folded flag, “with the thanks of a grateful nation.”
This is a story of one man in a small town in Arkansas. But let’s be clear about this: Without Col. Denman and the men and women like him, we would have no freedom, no country, no Constitution, nothing worth having. We owe him and his fellows our lives. From Cadet Gray to Army Blue to the sky blue of eternity. Rest in peace, Col. Denman. You are my hero.