Served Our Country

Five Star Banner
by: Mari Zinn

The Story Of The Banner by: Mari Zinn

There was a time when windows told a story. Perhaps it wa another life time ago, few people seem to remember it. But, once just by driving down the street of Anytown,USA, there was an intimate connection to the pople inside. To be sure it was only a tentative connection but one that touched the heart strings and involuntarily produced feelings of gratitude. Here was a small white banner with one star, there one with two and only so seldom - one with five stars. The color of the star told the level of sacrifice. If one held a gold star, it seemed that the world should stop to take notice for this was a family who had given a child, almost always a son, so that you and I could drive on that street or any street - free-. Yes the cost of freedom is extremely high. Evan when there was not a gold star among the others, we all knew that this mother and father lived each day in hope and anticipation and dread.

The window in the front room of athe small frame bungalow at 102 SW Boundary, Hobart, Oklahoma, held one of those rare banners with five stars. With the coming of Pearl Harbor on December 7,1941, no one's world would ever be the same. From the radio came the unthinkable news that the United States had been attacked by Japan. All that Sunday arodios were turned to the news Monday brought a day of continure disbelief - school classes stayed in home rooms all day to hear the somber news - the United States was at war. The unforgettable voice of President Franklin D. Roosevelt told us this was a day that would live in infamy and then, like a father to a nation, he told us the only thing we had to fear was fear itself. but there was much to fear - the unknown most of all. With Germany at war in Europe and Japan, the future was not at all certain. This very uncertainty prompted acin from the young men across this continent. Even before a draft could be initiated, bolunteers lined up to be sworn in and after the friefest of training, sent to corners of the world they never knew existed. And so, one by one, Rose and Wylie Zinn saw their boys leave - Albert, Van, Clyde, Doug and finally Domby = and five stars marked their absence for all the world to see. How can anyone even imagine the feelings of that mother and dad as they watitd not days or months but years for a letter to come from one of the boys: from Clyde (now become Johnny, the military didn't vare what you were called at home, your first name ws your name) in England or Domby at sea on an aircraft carrier in the South Pacific or the others wherever their bases were. Long hat days melded into long cold days and the years passed and the unthinkable came to an end. Not one gold star replanced another on the shite banner in the window. By the spring of 1946 all Zinn boys had returned "home" safe and sound, but changed forever. Changed by the reality of life - and death. Changed by everything that wasr brings about.
Somewhere in some box, perhaps the banner still exist. If it does it needs to be framed and kept in a prominent place for all the world to see. Let it bear witness in some window again that freedom is not free. Let it tistify that this country and this family produced men of valor who willingly gave years of their lives and would have given even their very lives for their country, their families and themselves that each of us could enjoy a way of life undreamed of in most of the world and most of time. The next time you drive by 102 SW Boundary, look carefully at the south living room window -can you see it? It's ust a small white banner with five stars.

Note: by Janice
This story is one of my very favorite stories and it was written by the wife of one of the five that the stars represent Mari Zinn. These five brave men are my mothers brothers and our family has always been so proud especially today when we are in the time of war again and there are young men and women losing their lives each day for the freedom that we as Americans take for granted. God Bless each and every one of them and God Bless America. Thank you Zinn Uncles and special thanks to my dear Aunt Mari for sharing with me not only this story but many more.