The Uncle I Never Met

Every Memorial Day, I think about the uncle I never met—Charlie Boyd Pike, Jr.

Boyd was the oldest of the eleven children in the Pike family.

According to family records, Boyd enlisted in the United States Navy on October 9,1941. Seven months later, on May 7, 1942, Boyd was declared missing in action. Boyd was a Fireman Third Class on the Navy destroyer the USS Simms. The Simms was attacked by Japanese war planes and sunk in the Coral Sea.

Despite this notification, the family held out hope that Boyd might have survived. Sadly, his body was never recovered.

Out on the Burlington Road in Greensboro at the cemetery for Mt. Pleasant United Methodist Church, there is a gravestone for Boyd.

Additionally, Boyd’s name is inscribed on the Tablets of the Missing at the Manila American Cemetery and Memorial in the Philippines.

According to United States military records, there are 36,280 missing in action names commemorated at the Philippines cemetery. That’s about the equivalent of the population of Salisbury, North Carolina (35,825) suddenly disappearing.

I can’t begin to imagine what Boyd’s loss was like for my grandparents and his brothers and sisters.

Subsequently, four of Boyd’s brothers served our country. Perhaps, it was luck or the grace of God, but they served without permanent injury or death.

Since our founding, America knows how horrible war is.

Our historical accounts and the trauma for families who experienced these too many losses confirm these horrors.

And despite this awfulness, at the end of every war, we hold on to a false hope that this one might just really be the last war of our lifetimes.

On a recent outing to the Virginia War Memorial, I came across these words: “Tell all who enjoy freedom of the deeds and sacrifices required for freedom to flourish.”

Every Memorial Day, I worry a little bit more that America is slipping away from understanding those “deeds and sacrifices required for freedom to flourish.”

I don’t think my Uncle Boyd, nor the thousands like him want that to happen.

From the author: I wrote this post on Sunday, May 17, 2026. On Monday, May 18, I sent the piece to the editor of the Greensboro News and Record. I gambled that the editor might take the piece and run it for Memorial Day because of the Greensboro connection. That didn’t happen, and I’m fine with the editor’s decision not to use it.