Remembering the Forgotten Heroes: Paul and Stephen Marcisak

Memorial Day Special – #52Ancestors

On this Memorial Day, as we honor those who served our nation, I find myself thinking about two men whose stories deserve to be told: my grandmother’s brothers, Paul Marcisak (1922-1959) and Stephen Marcisak (1913-1961). These weren’t generals or war heroes whose names appear in history books. They were ordinary men who answered their country’s call during extraordinary times, serving in World War II. With no one left to carry on their stories, their voices have been largely silent in our family narrative.

Today, I want to change that.

Brothers from Unity Township, Pennsylvania

Paul and Stephen were born into the immigrant experience that shaped so many American families in the early 20th century. Their parents, Vasil (Charles) and Anna (Hurkala) Marcisak, had arrived from Litmanová, Slovakia, around 1901, settling in the coal mining communities of western Pennsylvania. Stephen was born in 1913, when the family was still finding its footing in America, while Paul came along nine years later in 1922, by which time the family had established itself in Unity Township, Pennsylvania, Westmoreland County.

Growing up in a Slovak-American household during the 1920s and 1930s meant straddling two worlds—the Old Country traditions their parents cherished and the American dream they were helping to build.

Two Brothers, Two Services, One War

What makes Paul and Stephen’s story remarkable is that both brothers volunteered for military service before Pearl Harbor brought America into World War II. By 1941, the family had moved to Manhattan, where they lived with their parents at 12 Morris Street, New York, NY.

Stephen enlisted as a volunteer rather than waiting to be drafted. By July 1941, he was stationed at Schofield Barracks in Hawaii—one of the very installations that would be attacked on December 7, 1941. In a letter to his parents dated July 23, 1941, written in Slovak, Stephen described life at the base: attending company picnics, playing ball, swimming, and conducting rifle practice. “We just finished shooting with new rifles,” he wrote. “Every year we have to practice shooting.”

Little did Stephen know that those training exercises would soon become deadly serious. When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor just months later, Stephen and his unit were among the first American forces to experience combat in World War II. Although Schofield Barracks wasn’t a primary target, its proximity to Wheeler Army Airfield made it vulnerable. Japanese aircraft strafed the barracks with machine gun fire, causing damage and prompting soldiers stationed there to mount a defense from the rooftops, albeit with limited success.

Paul chose a different path to service, enlisting in the U.S. Marine Corps. By September 1941, he was stationed at Parris Island, South Carolina, assigned to Platoon #125 at the Recruit Depot. In a letter dated September 25, 1941, Paul wrote to his parents about his training, mentioning that he was “trying to get to go to school” and hoped to advance his military education.

Both brothers saw action during the war, though the complete details of their service remain to be uncovered as I continue researching their military records.

Letters Home: Voices from the Past

What makes Paul and Stephen’s story so poignant are the letters they wrote home to their parents—documents that survived nearly 85 years to tell us about their military experiences in their own words.

The fact that no one was left to carry on their stories tells us something about the era they lived through. Many men who served in World War II came back changed by their experiences. Some struggled to readjust to civilian life, others threw themselves into work, and still others found it difficult to form the lasting relationships that would preserve their memories for future generations.

The Price of Service

Both brothers died relatively young—Stephen at 48 in 1961, and Paul at 37 in 1959. These early deaths hint at the toll that military service, hard physical work, and perhaps limited access to healthcare took on men of their generation. Both Paul and Stephen are buried together under a joint headstone in Calvary Cemetery: Third Calvary in Woodside, Queens—the same cemetery where their parents are buried, ensuring the family remains together even in death.

The timing of their deaths is particularly poignant. Paul died in 1959, during the optimistic Eisenhower era when America was experiencing unprecedented prosperity. Stephen died in 1961, just as John F. Kennedy was inspiring a new generation of Americans to ask what they could do for their country. Both brothers had already given their answer to that question years earlier.

The Unmarked Stories

What strikes me most about Paul and Stephen is how their military service represents thousands of similar stories that remain largely untold. These weren’t the generals whose strategies are studied in military academies or the heroes whose actions earned them medals and recognition. They were the foot soldiers, the support personnel, the men who did their duty quietly and returned home to live quiet lives.

In researching this post, I was reminded of how many military records remain inaccessible to family researchers. A lot of veterans’ military service records are not online yet, or were lost in the fire in 1973. This means that countless stories like Paul and Stephen’s remain locked away, known only to the men who lived them and the families who mourned them.

A Memorial Day Reflection

As I write this on Memorial Day 2025, I’m struck by how Memorial Day has evolved since Paul and Stephen’s era. Originally established to honor Civil War dead, it grew to encompass all American military casualties. But perhaps it should also honor those like Paul and Stephen—veterans who served, survived their wars, but died young, possibly carrying invisible wounds from their service.

Their sacrifice wasn’t just the years they spent in uniform or the dangers they faced in combat. It was also the lives they might have lived differently, the families they might have raised, the stories they might have told if war hadn’t claimed pieces of their hearts and souls along with their youth.

Keeping Their Memory Alive

In my family’s genealogy, Paul and Stephen often appear as footnotes—brothers mentioned in passing, relatives who attended weddings and family gatherings but left no descendants to remember them. But their service to our country makes them heroes worthy of our memory and gratitude.

I think about Stephen, stationed at Schofield Barracks in 1941, writing cheerful letters home about company picnics and rifle practice, having no idea that Pearl Harbor would soon make him one of the first Americans to face combat in World War II. I think about Paul, training at Parris Island with the Marines, preparing for battles he couldn’t yet imagine. The brothers may have served in different branches and different theaters, but they shared the common experience of putting their country’s needs before their own.

A Promise to Remember

This Memorial Day, I’m making a commitment to research Paul and Stephen’s military service more thoroughly. I want to request their service records, search for unit histories, and perhaps connect with other descendants of families who served during these conflicts. Their stories deserve to be told in full, not just remembered in fragments.

But more than that, I want to ensure that in our family’s ongoing narrative—in the stories we tell our children and grandchildren—Paul and Stephen are remembered not just as “Eva’s brothers,” but as young men who served their country during some of history’s most challenging times.

They may not have left families to carry on their names, but they left a legacy of service that deserves our remembrance and gratitude. On this Memorial Day, and every day, we honor not just those who died in service to our country, but those like Paul and Stephen who served, returned, and lived lives shaped by their sacrifice.

Their story is America’s story—immigrants’ children who proved their loyalty to their adopted homeland through service, men who answered their country’s call and came home to build the prosperous, peaceful America we inherited from their generation.

Final Thoughts

As genealogists, we often focus on the ancestors who left the most records, the most stories, the most descendants. But Paul and Stephen Marcisak remind us that some of our most important family members are those whose stories we have to work hardest to uncover and preserve.

This Memorial Day, I encourage my fellow family historians to look for the forgotten veterans in their own trees—the uncles, the cousins who served quietly, the family members whose military service has been overshadowed by more dramatic family stories. They deserve our memory, our research, and our gratitude.

Thank you, Paul. Thank you, Stephen. Your service mattered. Your sacrifice mattered. And your stories—incomplete as they may be—matter enough to be told and retold for generations to come.

If you have information about Paul or Stephen Marcisak’s military service, or if you’ve researched similar “forgotten veterans” in your own family tree, I’d love to hear from you. Their stories deserve to be as complete as possible.