'The Ballad of Ervin O. Jones' is a testament to the power of music and the grief of wartime loss
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A World War II hero from backwoods Georgia inspires Americans today even from the grave.
The story of U.S. Army PFC Ervin O. Jones is worthy of a song.
Craig Gleason, a Georgia songwriter, penned "The Ballad of Ervin O. Jones" in 2014, after he and his daughter came across the soldier's headstone in a churchyard cemetery in the city of Alpharetta.
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"It’s a powerful story, man. It’s powerful," Gleason said Sunday in a telephone interview with Fox News Digital.
Gleason, in turn, teaches the art of songwriting to struggling veterans who attend Warrior Week each month at Camp Southern Ground in Fayetteville, Georgia.
U.S. Army PFC Ervin O. Jones of Alpharetta, Georgia, was just 20 years old when he was killed in the Battle of Okinawa in 1945. Seven decades later, his Georgia gravestone inspired musician Craig Gleason to write "The Ballad of Ervin O. Jones." (Jones Family/Craig Gleason)
Grammy Award-winning musician Zac Brown founded the camp in 2011. Gleason is a former coordinator for the Nashville Songwriters Association.
Gleason looked at a church cemetery near his home in Alpharetta as an opportunity to learn about, and teach his daughter, then aged 12, about local history.
"When you homeschool your children, you use real-life experiences, every place you go and everyone you meet, as a learning experience," said Gleason.
It's the same skill used by songwriters to take everyday experiences and interpret them for others through the human gift of music.
"I told Audrey, you can learn a lot from these tombstones."
The Gleasons found out about a hometown hero buried in their midst. Along the way, they earned a lesson about the grief that grips a family decades after wartime loss.
U.S. Army PFC Ervin O. Jones of Alpharetta, Georgia, was just 20 years old when he was killed during the Battle of Okinawa in 1945. His gravestone inspired musician Craig Gleason to write "The Ballad of Ervin O. Jones." (Jones Family/Craig Gleason)
PFC Jones was just 20 years old when he was killed on the island of Ieshima during the Battle of Okinawa on April 17, 1945, as Americans forces closed in on the home islands of Imperial Japan.
Gleason was haunted by the grave and was moved to write about the soldier. But he wanted to know the real story about the young man resting under the headstone near his home.
He soon learned that PFC Jones' younger brother, Curtis, was still alive and living nearby, in Canton, Georgia.
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"Curtis was living in a little trailer out in the woods and I knocked on his door and introduced myself," said Gleason. "I said, 'I'm writing a song about your brother Ervin' and asked if we could talk."
He added, "Curtis was like old-school backwoods Georgia. Real salt of the Earth. He invited me in and for the next three or four hours in his living room he pulled out artifacts, pictures and an old guitar that Ervin owned."
Turns out that Gleason and the forever-young dirt-poor Georgia farmboy shared the gift of music.
Curtis Jones, now deceased, lived his adult life with the pain of his older brother's death during World War II. PFC Ervin O. Jones was killed on the Japanese island of Ieshima on April 17, 1945. (Jones Family/Craig Gleason)
"We laughed and cried, and by the end I felt like I had become part of that family within just a few hours."
Among other things, Gleason learned that the former stranger, PFC Jones, died a hero.
"His courage and aggressiveness in this action was truly an inspiration to the officers and men in his company," his commanding officer, Capt. William B. Cooper, wrote in July 1945, in a letter addressed to the soldier’s mother, Jennie.
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One of Gleason's most painful discoveries was that Jones' parents never fully coped with the overwhelming grief they suffered upon learning of their son's death.
"Granny Jennie and Papa Harmon never mentioned Ervin, and we visited them every Sunday until they passed," PFC's nephew and his wife, John and Judy Jones, said via text message on Sunday.
"American patriots and war heroes, much like songs, grow from the most humble circumstances."
"The pain of the loss of their firstborn son Ervin never went away and they grieved until they died."
Gleason learned one other lesson — a powerful lesson he said he tries to pass on to aspiring musicians, veterans, everyday Americans and the people for whom he performs "The Ballad of Ervin O. Jones."
He learned that American patriots and war heroes, much like songs, grow from the most humble circumstances.
Army PFC Ervin O. Jones was killed on April 17, 1945, during the Battle of Okinawa. His Georgia grave inspired musician Craig Gleason to write "The Ballad of Ervin O. Jones" seven decades later. (Jones Family/Craig Gleason and Will Lester/MediaNews Group/Inland Valley Daily Bulletin via Getty Images)
He writes, and sings, in the last lines of the ballad: "From the lowlands to the highlands / Across every stick and stone / Came heroes who gave and lost their lives / Heroes like Ervin O. Jones."
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Kerry J. Byrne is a lifestyle reporter with Fox News Digital.
