Posted on 07/24/2018 5:42:18 PM PDT by eastforker
Enlisting in the United States Navy during World War II, he was an active participant in the Battle of Tarawa in November, 1943, one of most savage battles in the Pacific Theatre. He is credited with braving enemy fire during 26 rescue missions saving wounded United States Marines, and was awarded the Bronze Star with a combat ‘V
(Excerpt) Read more at navy.togetherweserved.com ...
I’ve know many WWII combatants very well. They were so modest, and they were so kind to us. I want to tell my kids and grand kids how spoiled they are, and how rough I had it, having to fix my own car, wear clothes until they were worn, eat baloney on cheap bread .... my father watched his friends burn alive, he flew in below zero temperatures with malaria, he became a chain smoking alcoholic to cope with the stress .... and he was kind to me.
We are not worthy.
Even those of us who did have a clue sometimes didn't know as much as we thought we knew. About the time I got my driver's license, I complained to my dad about a man in my hometown who I considered a real jackass not deserving of my respect. Dad heard me out and then proceeded to tell me what that "jackass" had done in WWII... after which I felt about THIS big (thumb and forefinger touching).
Mr. niteowl77
Thank you for the Famous Veteran articles, I’ve become addicted and read them all.
This brought up a discussion, why so few Famous Viet Nam Veterans?
~ 3 Million served in country (RVN).
~12 Million served overseas WWII.
Am I looking in the wrong places?
This was the best I could find.
https://forums.armchairgeneral.com/forum/historical-events-eras/vietnam-war/117736-famous-vietnam-veterans
#11. That was not Mr. Rogers’ neighborhood. It was a neighborhood of heroes.
#24. Try “VVFH.org” (Vietnam Veterans for Factual History) website. Written by those who were there.
In my father and grandfather’s little wholesale plumbing supplies business we had.
Grandfather - immigrant, Clerk, Edgewood Arsenal, WW1
Father - Chemical Warfare Service, WW2, got very ill and wasn’t allowed to deploy to Europe
Driver - US Navy
(One short time driver - US Army Europe, drove captured Germans to POW camps. Drove SS off of cliffs).
Salesman - No. Africa, Air Force or Army
Salesman - US Army 1950’s - tanks
Sales Rep. to us - one was tanks, 1950’s
Another One was an ordnance armorer - England
Hebrew School(3) teachers - Auschwitz - never spoke about it
Hebrew School teacher - US Army, camp liberator, told us a little
Delicatessen store owners - Auschwitz and Poland woods
Deli staffer - Auschwitz
High school teachers - WW2
Junior HS teachers - never spoke about it
My present day Dermatologist - Father - 1 of 2 Death March survivors - Lithuania
His mother - 7 slave labor camps, escapee
My Dermatologist - born in a DP camp
My uncle - Army Judo Instructor, Aircraft maintenance officer- got his back broken during work
Most of my early neighborhood served WW2 - didn’t talk about it
We were lucky grouping up. We lived amongst the “quiet heroes”. Many of today’s kids have no “heroes” unless they had someone in their family who served in Desert Storm, OIF (my son and son-in-law), Afghanistan or Kosovo (again, my son-in-law, whose son was a Marine too).
My father-in-law, WW2 - Saipan, Eniwetok, Kwajalein, Iwo Jima
And they were just kids plucked from life and thrown into a meat grinder.
My 50 year-old brother, a doctor by-the-way, was of the persuasion that we provoked the Japs into WWII and were the aggressor until I set him straight. Since that I have not spoken to him since 2013.
Wish it could be found online.
I read a great essay about the boringly “normal, unexciting” 1950’s as portrayed in Leave It To Beaver and Father Knows Best. The reason? All the dads in the 1950s were WWII vets. They had had enough abnormal and exciting to last 10 lifetimes.
A lot of difference between the actors then and the pansies we now have spewing their commie rhetoric
Oh yes, very familiar with that most famous son of Cornwall.
Yet, fifty years after RVN, and not so many well known Viet Vets?
Fifty years after WWII, they were everywhere!
My guess, RVN 25% of total forces in country were draftees.
WWII 66% of U.S. armed forces members were drafted.
That appears to make the RVN guys more self-selecting.
Therefore, not a broad spectrum group.
Was also a very unpopular war and the bureaucrats didn’t allow the military to do what was needed to win the war. Many soldiers primary goal was to just survive their one year.
Yes, agreed.
But how does that affect the future performance of the troops?
Not trying to be argumentive, simply grasping for a root cause.
Guadalcanal, Bougainville, Tarawa, Saipan, Peleliu, Iwo Jima, Okinawa.... ALL meat grinders. Let’s be equally thankful we WEREN’T there, and live in awe and reverence for those who were.
Amen.
Well said.
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