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Hershel (Woody) Williams USMC (MOH) is from my hometown of Fairmont, WV. He was the sole survivor of his 18 man flamethrower squad on Iwo Jima. I have met him on a two occassions.

I have also seen him interviewed on TV about his experiences on Iwo. It is hard to grasp what they went through. At some point in the last couple of years I can't read or hear these things without crying. I don't know how that happened but I can't do it anymore without the tears running down my face.

Earl started out with an airweight .50 cal machine gun... Lost one of his friends coming up the beach just after they landed (first wave, IIRC) to a guy with a samurai sword. Towards the end, he was using a flame thrower, too. He started out delighted to do it, but by the time it was over, he was sick of it. They'd toss a grenade into a cave, and then he'd squirt it down with the burner. Started doing that after they lost the second guy checking wounded in the caves.

I read about it, and sometimes I cry, sometimes I don't. I got lucky, as a kid. I enlisted during Nam, and volunteered to go, and never made it. By the time Desert Storm started, I'd grown up, and I was support, way back from the front lines. I've got some friends still on active duty, and a couple of my cousins are in. One was in the firefight that took out Saddam's sons. I'm too old, and the arthritis is giving me hell just getting out of a chair these days. I've got to accept that it's in other hands now.

I'm a teacher now, and maybe I can help prepare the kids who'll be fighting when my cousins are retired, Lord Willing.