This Memorial Day, take a moment to think of a young man from Kansas City who died in a war he didn't start, in a country he'd never been to, for the freedom of people he'd never met.
That's a tragedy. Memorial Day isn't about barbecues or three-day weekends; it's about the soldiers who never came home. It's about the graves we visit, the names etched in stone, the families left behind. And in my family, it's about a young man named Pvt Robert Petersen from Kansas City, whose photo fell from the wall the day he was killed before anyone knew he was gone.
It was June 11, 1944. Robert's wife, Sarah Mae Petersen, stayed with her in-laws at 510 Wallace Street in Kansas City. Her husband was fighting with the 36th Infantry Division in Italy, part of a brutal Allied push up the Italian peninsula after the fall of Rome just ten days earlier.
That afternoon, as Sarah sat quietly in her father-in-law's home, Hans Petersen's, something inexplicable happened. A framed portrait of Robert hanging on the wall suddenly fell to the ground. No one touched it. There was no gust of wind. There was no tremor. There was just a moment of stillness, and then glass shattering on the floor.
Sarah turned pale. "He's gone," she said. "I can feel it."
The War Department telegram wouldn't arrive until days later. Robert had been killed in action that same day.
Robert attended Benjamin Harrison Grade School and studied at Lathrop Trade School. He worked as a spray painter for the Benson Manufacturing Company before answering his country's call. He was just a working-class American who believed in something greater than himself. A young man with a job, a family, a church, and a future.
That future now rests under a headstone at Mount Washington Cemetery, where we still go to honor him today. We remember.
The family story is one we never forget. On the day he died, Robert had allegedly captured several squads of Italian soldiers and was marching them back toward the American lines. But to the American troops ahead, it must have looked like enemy forces were approaching them.
Only one of the men—a tall Kansas City farm kid—was carrying a rifle.
The Americans opened fire.
By the time the smoke cleared, all were dead, including Robert. It was later surmised that he had single-handedly taken the group prisoner, walking them to safety and disarmament. Instead, he was mistaken for the enemy and cut down by his side. He never received a medal. He never had children. But he left behind a wound in our family that never fully healed. Robert's body was buried in Tarquinia, near Rome. The family was shattered. His father, Hans, was a naturalized American immigrant from Denmark. Robert's brother, my grandfather, also named Hans, was devastated. And Sarah Mae, Robert's young widow, carried that grief for the rest of her life.
For decades, the Petersen family held on to one mission: bringing Robert home.
In the years after the war, Hans Petersen, his daughter Olga, and Sarah Mae made a journey to Denmark, hoping to continue to Italy to visit Robert's grave. However, as a 1940s newspaper clipping recorded, they could not complete the trip's final leg. Visa complications, travel restrictions, and Europe's lingering postwar chaos thwarted their efforts. The journey was rugged, and their grief was renewed. But they did not give up. Over the years, family members navigated red tape, made inquiries, and pushed through government hurdles until, finally, their request was granted.
Robert's remains were brought home to Mount Washington Cemetery in Kansas City, Missouri. A headstone now bears his name. We still visit it. And every Memorial Day, we tell his story. This kind of personal heartbreak was exactly why Memorial Day was created.
In 1864, with Civil War casualties mounting and burial space in D.C. dwindling, Union Quartermaster General Montgomery Meigs ordered that soldiers be buried on the confiscated estate of Confederate General Robert E. Lee. It was both practical and poetic, a direct rebuke to the rebellion. Thus, Arlington National Cemetery was born, and with it, the custom of a national day of remembrance. But not every hero lies at Arlington. Some are buried under foreign skies. Some came home years late. Some, like Robert, were once forgotten by the government but never by their families.
As we approach America's 250th anniversary in 2026, stories like Robert's remind us of the price paid for liberty. He didn't live to see the end of the war, he didn't raise a family, and he didn't get a medal. But he gave his life in a fight against European fascism, against authoritarianism so dark it engulfed the world.
That is a sacrifice worthy of remembrance, not just by family, but by a grateful nation.
They say a person dies twice, once when their body falls and again when their name is spoken for the last time. On that hillside in Italy, Robert Petersen gave his life in the prime of youth, but today, through the telling of his story, he lives on. With every reader who now knows his name, who sees his face in their mind, who imagines the heartbreak of a picture falling from a wall, Robert defies that second death. And as long as we remember and speak his name, the sacrifice he made for liberty will never be forgotten.
This Memorial Day, take a moment to think of a young man from Kansas City who died in a war he didn't start, in a country he'd never been to, for the freedom of people he'd never met.
Think of the picture that fell and the family that never let go.
Remembering is not just an act of mourning; it is an act of defiance against forgetting.
In remembering, those who died for us live once again.
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