Here I raise my Ebenezer

In my Memorial Day post on May 26th, I mentioned that the name 1LT Edwin Steven Brague Jr. is engraved on the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, D.C.

From Ridgewood, New Jersey, Lieutenant Brague was 23 years old in 1967 when the helicopter he piloted crashed during hostilities in Quang Tin, South Vietnam. One of the commenters on that May 26th post was a Gerry Brague, whom I did not know. Gerry said that he was Steven Brague’s cousin and that Steve’s dad, Ed, had been his oldest uncle. Gerry also said he would love to find out if we are related in some way.

Elizabeth said she had a good feeling about this turn of events.

Gerry and I subsequently exchanged a couple of emails and some family information, and although there are a couple of gaps in the information on his side and also on mine, it appears that Gerry may be my third cousin, once removed. It is possible that our common ancestor is Ebenezer Brague, but we can’t tell because of the gaps. Ebenezer might be Gerry’s great-great-great-grandfather (three greats) and my great-great-grandfather (two greats). Ebenezer Brague was born in 1770, probably in Connecticut, married Elizabeth Brandon, and moved to Ulster, Bradford County, Pennsylvania, in 1812. Counting Ebenezer as generation 1, I am in generation 5 through Ebenezer’s and Elizabeth’s son William, and Gerry is in generation 6, possibly through one of Ebenezer’s and Elizabeth’s other two sons, Charles F. or Horace. Gerry’s dad, who is in generation 5, may be my third cousin, which would make Gerry and me third cousins, once removed.

A lot of this is speculation and guessing, since there are -- all together now -- gaps. But it has been fun. Perhaps we’ll never know for sure.

In the meantime, listen to the magnificent Mormon Tabernacle Choir and Orchestra performing “Come, Thou Fount Of Every Blessing” (6:12) , which includes the line “Here I raise my Ebenezer.”

I do not share the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and Orchestra’s theology, but their music is top-notch.

Your mission, should you decide to accept it, is to find out what an Ebenezer is and why someone would raise one. As always, should you or any of your team be caught or killed, the Secretary will disavow any knowledge of your actions. This post will not self-destruct in five seconds.

As a result, you can listen to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and Orchestra perform “Come, Thou Fount Of Every Blessing” over and over.

But only if you want to.

Lest we forget

Since today (Monday, May 26 -- yesterday if you're in Australia) is Memorial Day in the United States, I choose to use my blog to honor two young men whose names appear on the Vietnam Memorial Wall in Washington, D.C.

The first, Captain Edward Wilson Griffith (1941-1969) , was the brother of my blogger friend Pat - An Arkansas Stamper.

The second, First Lieutenant Edwin Steven Brague, Jr. (1943-1967) , shares my surname but I have not yet determined the relationship, if any, between us.

Since Brague is not a common surname, I used to think that everyone named Brague must be related. But after I discovered that Brague is the name of a river in France, I have come to believe that perhaps the Bragues of today share a common area of origin geographically but are not necessarily related. I intend to keep investigating.

Twenty-eight-year-old Captain Griffith (Panel W25, line 48) was from Jacksonville, Arkansas. He died on May 11, 1969 during hostile ground fighting in Kontum Province, South Vietnam. His body was recovered and is interred at Little Rock National Cemetery in Arkansas.

Twenty-three-year-old Lieutenant Brague (Panel 13E, Line 120) was from Ridgewood, New Jersey. He was the pilot of a helicopter that crashed during hostilities in Quang Tin, South Vietnam, on January 7, 1967. His body was recovered also and is interred in Pennsylvania.

These are but two of the 58,272 names inscribed on the wall as of 2011. Today Americans also remember the fallen of other wars in our nation’s history. The major conflicts were:

American Revolutionary War (1775-1783) : 25,000
War of 1812 (1812-1815) : 20,000
Mexican-American War (1846-1848) : 13,283
Civil War (1861-1865) : 625,000
Spanish-American War (1898) : 2,446
Philippine-American War (1898-1913) : 4,196
World War I (1917-1918) : 116,516
World War II (1941-1945) : 405,399
Korean War (1950-1953) : 36,516
Vietnam War (1955-1975) : 58,209
Afghanistan (2001- ) : 3,441 as of May 24, 2014
Iraq (2003-2012) : 4,804

Sources: U.S. Army Military History Institute; iCasualties.org; Wikipedia

Click here to see Captain Griffith’s grave in the national cemetery in Little Rock (photo by his sister, our good friend Pat).

Finally, click here to read a good Memorial Day post by another cyberfriend, Michael Burns of Carlsbad, California (our good friend Reamus).

Everyone who plans to concentrate on boats, barbecue, or baseball today should read it.