Samuel Isaac Runyon

Submitted by: James Hillyer {Grandson}

Samuel Isaac Runyon born around 1898. Samuel Runyon served in World War 1 with the United States Navy. The enlistment was in 1918 and the service was completed in 1919.

Story of Service

New Sailors Honor the Fallen, 1918

By 1968 health challenges were making it difficult for my grandpa Samuel Isaac Runyon to continue his lifelong ministry as a pastor of churches, so he accepted the assignment of writing a series of Sunday school lessons and I became his sixteen-year-old scribe and assistant. During breaks from the writing he would sometimes tell me what life was like for him when he was not much older than me -a time when he was still in his teens and the whole world had gone to war. In particular, he remembered a breakfast announcement at the Washington Navy Yard in 1918, which I will try to report verbatim, with the understanding that he was remembering an event that took place fifty years in the past, and I am now remembering that conversation with him from fifty years ago.

That morning he'd been in uniform for a few months, but many of the men had just arrived from the Great Lakes Navy Recruit Training facility and were wearing brand-new uniforms. During breakfast an officer strode into the room and announced, "You men have volunteered to serve your country. Some of you may think you don't know how to do much yet except put on the uniform, come to attention, and salute. This morning you will have the opportunity to serve your country by doing nothing more than showing up in uniform, coming to attention, and saluting." With that he marched about thirty of them down to the Receiving Station and arranged them alongside the dock.

A large ship was using a crane to offload rectangular crates, and the officer explained that these were the shipping caskets of American troops killed in Europe. Many, many thousands were buried near the battlefields, but, when conditions allowed, the military believed it to be appropriate to take the trouble to return the remains of the fallen to their loved ones. He also explained that their little detachment was now the official honor guard of the Receiving Station for this shift, representing the U.S. military as a whole . . . and representing a grateful nation.

As the crane lowered each coffin, two enlisted men would assure that it gently came to rest on a cart, then they would step back respectfully. The officer would then read a name, rank and branch of service, and home town. At this point he would take a step back, come to attention, and salute the fallen serviceman- and the thirty sailors followed his lead, welcoming the remains back to American soil and honoring the sacrifice.

The coffins were then staged for delivery to Arlington National Cemetery or to Union Station in D.C. for transport back to the train stations in cities and small towns where these young men had started their journey to the War not many months before.

Later Samuel I. Runyon would serve as a U-boat hunter in the Atlantic, and would finish his enlistment as a crewman aboard the Presidential yacht Mayflower, he also served in the Receiving Station honor guard at least one more time, and served as an armed escort to the fallen on their journey to Arlington, but he said that morning was the moment when the Great War became real to him, as he and other young men saluted their returning brothers-in-arms who, not long ago, had been in exactly their position: eager, confident, patriotic young men in brand-new uniforms.