To the editor:
Like many old folks do, I (in my 80s) visit our local Madawaska Cemetery nearly weekly to remember those who have gone before us. I always pay my respects to relatives and friends who have met their final resting place and the number seems to grow rapidly as I age.
Every time I visit, I cannot help but stop my auto at the gravestone of Onias G. Martin, 2nd Lt., Armored Infantry Division, World War II (front row, second or third stone from the southeast side). I am not related to Lt. Onias Martin. I do not even know anyone of his past or present family. I am a military veteran of the early 1960s (1961-1965) and find myself in 2024 mourning someone who got killed in 1944.
Onias was obviously a young man who spent years in local schools and even graduated from college. Following his college graduation, at the young age of 22, Onias, with his newly acquired degree and military commission, with a full life ahead of him, went off to fight the enemy of our nation. He was killed in action even before he reached the young age of 24.
Somebody out there reading this, may have known or may even be related to Onias. Maybe he was unkind or arrogant. Maybe he was the opposite, a young man everyone would love to have as a father, brother, husband, uncle, or co-worker. All I know of Onias is that he died so young in a war he did not start!
Onias has become kind of a hero to this old man (and I know nothing about him). Let me finish by simply saying, ‘Thank you so much, Lt. Martin, and those like you who made it possible for me to write this today. God bless you, Lt.”
Lou Ouellette
Madawaska
