ARMED FORCES AND MEMORIAL DAY STORY
"Remember Me" ... Battle Cry from Wounded Marine
Touches World War II Veteran's Inspiring Documentary

Malibu, CA, May 11, 2009 – World War II veteran and author Leon Cooper, and filmmaker Steven Barber, were recent guests on Fox News, discussing their new documentary, “Return to Tarawa :  The Leon Cooper Story”.   Narrated by Ed Harris, Cooper travels back to Red Beach in Tarawa, hallowed ground where over 3,000 US marines were killed or wounded in one of the bloodiest battles in U.S. history.   Go to the Fox Web site at:
http://www.foxnews.com/video2/video08.html?maven_referralObject=4566048&maven_referralPlaylistId=&sRevUrl=http://www.foxnews.com/livedesk/

The film tells of Cooper’s mission to urge our government to locate and repatriate the remains of the hundreds of Americans who still lie in Tarawa, even now sixty-five years after the battle, and to take other action to honor those who fought and died in defense of our country’s freedom.      

During the newscast, Cooper recounts a poignant exchange between himself and a young wounded Marine he had been taking back to Cooper’s ship, along with other wounded, for medical treatment.  Hearing the Marine’s moans in pain, Cooper gave him a morphine shot to stop his pain.  The morphine evidently worked.  Shortly afterwards, the Marine motioned to Cooper with his eyes.  Cooper crawled over the deck boards of the boat to the Marine, who was trying to say something.  “What did you say?” I asked.  “I asked him again, as I put my ears against his lips, and then he said ‘remember me’, and shortly after that he died….Or, maybe he didn’t actually say those words…maybe I wanted to believe he said it…either way, I feel I have an obligation to honor the memory not only of that kid in my boat, but of all the others who died during those three days of savagery.” Cooper said. 

A few days after the broadcast he received a touching letter from a viewer who had seen the TV interview.  In his letter to Cooper, he told of a Captain Orlando Palopoli who was born in Marlboro, New York in 1918, who had been mortally wounded in Tarawa.  The viewer said that Palopoli had been shot in the abdomen and would die from his wounds.  According to the viewer, Palopoli was transported back to a Navy ship by landing craft for medical treatment.   The viewer added that Capt. Palopoli had written a poem in September 1943 that was published in their local newspaper.  It was entitled, “Remember Me.”  The viewer never actually knew Palopoli, but mentioned that many of the veterans in Marlboro, including his late father, used him as a role model.  Every Memorial Day since he was thirteen, the viewer has read Capt. Palopoli’s poem for himself, his father, and for his country, and most of all – to remember him.

The following is a copy of the poem Remember Me:

“Remember me, beyond this lurid day
Of hate and laughter brimming deep in tears
Remember me beyond this narrow way
Of darkness, pressing darkness and of fears
The clinging mire wrapt so close to earth
One day will vanish with the mist and rain
And out of hate will come a new rebirth
Of shining glory tempered deep in pain
The Shattered hopes the tyrannies deny
Will grow again to bolster harried men
And lift their hearts in music singing high
The shackled dreams will gambol once again
In surging freedom through the wide blue sky
And all I ask is – You remember then”

Was Palopoli the wounded Marine in Cooper’s boat?

Mr. Cooper is available for interview.  Copies of his books, “90 Day Wonder – Darkness Remembered,” and “The War in the Pacific – A Retrospective”, are also available upon request.   For further information visit his Web sites at: http://www.returntotarawa.net/, or http://www.90daywonder.net/, or http://www.warinpacific.net/, or his blogs: http://www.90daywonder.org;/ or http://www.asmatteringofignorance.info/.  The DVD of his documentary “Return to Tarawa-the Leon Cooper Story” is also available. He can also be reached at

Leon Cooper
P.O. Box 6030
Malibu, CA 90265
Tel: (310) 457-2832
Fax: (310) 457-2866
leoncooper@verizon.net

Rhonda Rees
(818) 325-2089
rhorees1@att.net