One last bottle for the 'boys' of the 6th Division (Marines)

A Gresham veteran wants an historic bottle of Chivas Regal preserved in a Marine museum

A Gresham man who won a piece of U.S. Marine Corps history during a veterans auction is trying to make sure his prize -- a bottle of scotch in a handmade oak display case -- doesn't end up collecting dust in the back of a closet.

Reese "Andy" Anderson, who served three years in the fabled 6th Marine Division during World War II, hopes to get what's called "The Last Man's Bottle" displayed at the National Museum of the Marine Corps in Virginia.

The bottle -- a liter of Chivas Regal -- was presented to Gen. Lemuel Shepherd Jr. in 1989 by some 6th Division Marines who served with him on Okinawa. Shepherd returned the bottle to the vets and told them to "give the boys a drink" when division members gathered for their annual reunion. Instead, the group decided to auction off the bottle each year and donate the money to Shepherd's alma mater, the Virginia Military Institute.

At last year's reunion in Las Vegas, Anderson, 84, was high bidder at $500. His daughter-in-law won that much playing poker and told him to use all of it to take the bottle home. It couldn't have ended up in a better place. Anderson still has his old uniform. Marine stickers -- "Semper Fi" and "Marines" -- are plastered on his front door and car bumper.

He moved to Portland from Lincoln, Neb., when he was 18 to work as an apprentice pattern maker at a foundry. A year later, he was drafted and joined the Marines. His battalion became part of the 6th Division, and Anderson served as a forward observer on a small artillery unit.

Since winning the bottle, Anderson has shown it to friends and neighbors, pointing to a plaque on top of the box that explains the history, as well as to another that lists the names of the vets who've won the bidding over the years.

But Anderson recently learned that his name will be the last. The veterans will have only one more reunion.

"We're all getting too old," said Anderson, who three years ago moved to Gresham. "Some of us are crippled or injured. It's too hard to get around. Each year, they blow taps for the men who've passed away. Each newsletter has a mention about one of us dying. That's the sad part about reading those letters."

Anderson didn't want the Last Man's Bottle to end up lost in the shuffle. He plans to bring the bottle to the final reunion, in Oklahoma City in September, so the "boys" can get a last look at it. Then he wants to make sure the bottle and sentiment behind it outlive them all.

The 6th, made up of Marine battalions, at one time had about 10,000 members. Anderson said the number of Marines who remain in the 6th Marine Division Association, the group that holds reunions, has dwindled to 1,700.

"This is the last reunion, and we're trying to make it a good one," said Joan Willauer, a member of the group's auxiliary and one of the Oklahoma City reunion organizers. Her husband, who died a few years ago, was a member of the 6th.

Knowing the end wasn't too far off, Anderson decided to act. Three weeks ago, he brought the bottle to the downtown Portland Marine Corps Recruiting Office to see whether he could get some strings pulled to let the bottle live on.

Federal building security guards, though, didn't buy his story. Anderson insisted he wasn't going to drink the scotch. Nor was he trying to smuggle in something dangerous. Even after carefully examining the display case, guards insisted on personally escorting Anderson to the Marine Corps office.

There he met with Maj. Ladd Shepard, the office's commanding officer. "I'd read some history," Shepard said. "But I didn't know much about the 6th. He filled me in."

Shepard, 35, was touched by Anderson's request for help in getting the bottle back to the Marine museum.

"Ask any Marine what the most important, life-changing event was, and he'll say becoming a Marine," Shepard said. "Tradition is important. We conjure up ghosts of the past to remind new Marines that we will not fail. We owe it to the guys who came before. When the last vet from the 6th dies, that will be the end of the line."

Retired Lt. Col. Bob Sullivan, head of curatorial services at the Marines museum, said a decision on whether the bottle will be accepted for the 6th Division display will be made after Anderson makes a formal request through channels following the September reunion.

"My uncle, who's now dead, was in the 6th," Sullivan said. "This 6th was demobilized. This literally is the end of the line for the 6th."

"These guys made the grade," he said. "They went to war and survived. When they have their final reunion, the book will close on them. That division will literally fade into history."

The elderly parking lot attendant wasn't in a good mood!
Neither was Sam Bierstock. It was around 1 a.m., and Bierstock, a Delray Beach, Florida eye doctor, business consultant, corporate speaker and musician, was bone tired after appearing at an event.
He pulled up in his car, and the parking attendant began to speak. "I took two bullets for this country and look what I'm doing," he said bitterly.
At first, Bierstock didn't know what to say to the World War II veteran. But he rolled down his window and told the man, "Really, from the bottom of my heart, I want to thank you."
Then the old soldier began to cry.
"That really got to me," Bierstock says.
Cut to today.
Bierstock, 58, and John Melnick, 54, of Pompano Beach - a member of Bierstock's band, Dr. Sam and the Managed Care Band - have written a song inspired by that old soldier in the airport parking lot. The mournful "Before You Go" does more than salute those who fought in WWII. It encourages people to go out of their way to thank the aging warriors before they die.
"If we had lost that particular war, our whole way of life would have been shot," says Bierstock, who plays harmonica. "The WW II soldiers are now dying at the rate of about 2,000 every day. I thought we needed to thank them."
The song is striking a chord. Within four days of Bierstock placing it on the Web, the song and accompanying photo essay have bounced around nine countries, producing tears and heartfelt thanks from veterans, their sons and daughters and grandchildren
. "It made me cry," wrote one veteran's son. Another sent an e-mail saying that only after his father consumed several glasses of wine would he discuss " the unspeakable horrors" he and other soldiers had witnessed in places such as Anzio, Iwo Jima, Bataan and Omaha Beach. "I can never thank them enough," the son wrote. "Thank you for thinking about them."
Bierstock and Melnick thought about shipping it off to a professional singer, maybe a Lee Greenwood type, but because time was running out for so many veterans, they decided it was best to release it quickly, for free, on the Web. They've sent the song to Sen. John McCain and others in Washington. Already they have been invited to perform it in Houston for a Veterans Day tribute - this after just a few days on the Web. They hope every veteran in America gets a chance to hear it.
GOD BLESS every EVERY veteran... and THANK you to those of you veterans who may see this. Click below to listen:
Before you Go

My daddy was a naval aviator in the Pacific. He didn't talk about it. This song really makes me blurry eyed.

Tubebender sent it to me in an email a while back. Thanks Tork.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.