Stories & Poems About War

I would like to share with you the following article which gave some comfort to my family when it was sent to us after my brother, Pvt. William Niader USMC, was killed June 12, 1945 at Kunishi Ridge, Okinawa during World War II.

                                                                   New York, August 2, 1945

“What Is Dying?”

“I am standing upon the seashore.  A ship at my side spreads her white sails to the morning breeze and starts for the blue ocean.  She is an object of beauty and strength, and I stand and watch her until at length she hangs like a speck of white cloud just where the sea and sky come down to mingle with each other.  Then someone at my side says, ‘There, she’s gone!’  Gone where?  Gone from my sight – that is all.  She is just as large in mast and hull and spar as she was when she left my side, and just as able to bear her burden to the place of destination.  Her diminished size is in me, not in her.  And just at the moment when someone at my side says, ‘There, she’s gone!’ there are other eyes watching her coming, and other voices ready to take up the glad shout, ‘There she comes!’ – And that is dying.”

Frank Niader

807 Van Houten Ave.

Clifton, NJ  07013

973-779-1791

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