Some things are important, and some things are not important, and some things are more important than we think.
What is a medal?
It’s a piece of metal, attached to a ribbon. That’s all.
Or, it is a reminder of honor and bravery and service, sometimes a reminder of pain and death.
They give medals mostly to young men and women, because, in general, it is the young who fight the wars.
Unlike the medals, the young men and women age and die. They are young soldiers, brave and strong, and then they are old, and then they die. The medals lie in a drawer, unaging.
Frederick C. Sylvia Jr. was one such young soldier. His war was World War II. He came out of it with whatever memories he had, with the feeling of having done what was right, and with four medals. He took all of those things to an assisted-living facility in Greater New Bedford.
He wanted to be buried with the medals. The memories and the feeling of having done what was right would go into the ground with him.
An employee at the facility stole his medals, and Frederick C. Sylvia was buried with only his memories and his honor.
Which was important.
Mark Costa, assistant chief probation officer at Fall River District Court, heard the story when he was required to supervise a Fall River woman who was prosecuted for receiving some property stolen from the assisted-living facility.
But not the medals. The medals were gone for good.
So Costa, a National Guard veteran and vice chairman of the Fall River School Committee, went to work.
He had help, including Fall River Veteran’s Agent Ray Hague, but it was Costa who got the idea, Costa who pushed, Costa who got the U.S. Department of Defense to issue duplicate medals. Costa flew to Florida to present the medals to Sylvia’s family.
Which was important.
Frederick C. Sylvia was with Gen. George S. Patton in Europe, taking terrible risks, grinding metal-on-metal with the Nazis. He fought at The Battle of the Bulge when the heroism of the average man was being written on the snow in letters of blood.
All of which was important.
It would have been very, very easy for Costa to do his probation officer’s job, giving no thought to Sylvia, his bravery and his medals. No one would have blamed Costa. No one would have known.
It would not have been important.
But Costa turned aside from his daily work, found people to help him and, like Sylvia, did what was right.
The old warriors who fought World War II are leaving us, taking their honor with them, leaving behind medals, a picture of them in uniform, a son or granddaughter who remembers a few scraps of their stories.
Mark Costa reached out to Frederick C. Sylvia in the best tradition of the citizen soldier, of the veteran’s brotherhood, of simple gratitude.
We thank Sylvia and Costa, both of whom showed us what’s important.