1968

It had been less than five years since the image of Camelot was shattered by a gun man in Dallas.  The tall Texan in the white house had committed US troops to an armed conflict in Southeast Asia that few had heard of prior to 1965 and even fewer could find on a map.  The dreams of a slain President of landing a man on the moon were being over shadowed by tragedy and the Russians forward progress towards that enviable goal.  There was strife in the streets as the “Free Speech” movement begun in Berkley had taken hold across.  The Civil Rights amendment had been passed but Johnson had no intentions of enforcing it in south.  America was in a state unlike any it had seen in over one hundred years but 1968 would be a trying time that would forever change the course of human events.

The 1960’s had begun with an optimism that was unrivaled at that point.  The prosperity that Americans had felt after World War Two was still going strong.  Then the election of 1960 pitted a young senator from Massachusetts against Vice President Nixon.  And in one of the closest elections in American history the young Senator would become the 35^th President of the United States.  JFK would inspire a generation of Americans with the fateful words give at his inauguration…

“My fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.” 

 

 

 

These words were meant to instill the decade instead they would be silenced on that dreadful day in November…  That latter half of the 1960’s was a time unlike any other.  The patriotic feelings of America that had been so prevalent throughout the 40’s and the 50’s was coming to a quick and painful death.  Americans were not happy with President Johnson and many of his policies were flying directly in the face of the dreams that JFK had set forth in 1961.  

This brings us to 1968… It had been 3 years since LBJ had sent the air mobile division into Southeast Asia and the war in Vietnam was not going well.  There were protests in the street to end the war in Vietnam, a war that would ultimately take the lives on 58,000 men in Southeast Asia and countless others after they returned home.  Americans were feeling betrayed on all fronts by a government that they had thought would lead them into even greater prosperity, but instead only stifled their growth.   

But there was a ray of hope on the horizon a preacher from Atlanta, Georgia had marched on Washington, not to protest and incite rebellion against the government, but to teach about how all men, “All God’s Children” could live and work together. And how his dream of equality would improve us all… But just like that brave man who stood on the Capitol steps in 1961 and inspired us; this preacher was also slain in the same manner on April 4 in Memphis, Tennessee when a bullet took Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. from us all. The riots that followed from this tragedy have left scars on America that can still be seen to this day.  But the message of peace and love that Dr. King shared with us have continued to give hope to millions of Americans.    

While Dr. King was preaching his message of love and equality LBJ had decided that he would not run for reelection and just a few days prior to the horror in Memphis LBJ announced that he would not run for President in November.  With no other clear choice for President up stepped the younger brother of the man who had inspired a nation seven years prior.  Bobby Kennedy walked into the election of 1968 with the same energy and inspiration of his older brother, he immediately became the front runner and most probably the 37^th President of the United States.  In any other year RFK would have won the election in a walk, but this was 1968 a year that nothing would go as it should and in June after winning the California Primary, RFK was killed as he walked through a hotel kitchen after giving a speech.  The turmoil continued through the rest of the campaign and in August at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, IL riots broke out.  The police were brought in to no relief and America continued into the inevitable abyss that was 1968.  

One of John Kennedy’s dreams was to land a man on the moon before December 31, 1969 and that clock was ticking shorter and shorter every day.  The space race with the Russians had not been going well.  The Russians had been moving closer and closer to being first to achieve that goal and with the Apollo One disaster Congress was looking for any reason to shut NASA down. But the men and women at NASA achieving JFK’s goal was of paramount importance.  After Frank Borman had given his very personal speech about the men of Apollo One he persuaded Congress not to pull the plug on NASA the Apollo Program was back in full swing.  Very fitting that in late December 1968 a trio of three men 240,000 miles from home read the first ten verses from the book of Genesis from their command module as they watched the Earth rise in Lunar Orbit.  The actions of Apollo 8 were so inspiring that NASA received thousands of telegrams from all over the world but the best was from a woman unknown to anyone at NASA, but she said it best when Mrs. Valerie Pringle writes, very simply, "Thank you Apollo 8, You saved 1968."

August 14, 1945 V-J Day

 

The ashes were still falling in Hiroshima and Nagasaki from the two atomic bombs that had been dropped a few days earlier, for the boys in Europe it was D-day plus 434, but for the men in the pacific all that mattered was the Empire of Japan had sent to President Truman their unconditional surrender.  It had just been four and a half short years since that calm Sunday morning in 1941 when the peace was broken by the unprovoked attack on Pearl Harbor.  

 

While the American government was negotiating with the Empire of Japan for a lasting peace between our two nations the naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan began a march towards Oahu.  That march would have only one outcome, WAR!  While American forces in Hawaii were enjoying a calm Sunday morning the peace would be broken by fighters from Japanese carriers.  After this surprised and unprovoked attack the pacific fleet would be decimated.  Four battleships and many smaller war ships would be sunk, 2402 men would be killed and another 1247 men would be wounded. Aside from the destruction this attack caused, it brought the United States into the largest global conflict our world would ever know.  It would be enough to bring a man crippled by polio to his feet to say:

"No matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated invasion, the American people in their righteous might will win through to absolute victory."

~~FDR December 8, 1941 in an addressed to a joint session of congress

The attack on Pearl Harbor was the catalyst that would finally bring the United States out of the Great Depression.  In the aftermath of this attack the American industrial machine would be brought to life, Admiral Yamamoto stated correctly after the attack on Pearl Harbor:

"I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant."  With this new found resolve the American military scrambled to find a way to show that we had not been defeated by this attack.  A "young" Lieutenant Colonel James Doolittle came up with the idea for launching Army heavy bombers off of the deck of a US naval carrier.  Over the next few weeks Army pilots would be taught how to fly there B-25B Mitchell Bombers like fighters, and most importantly teach them how to take off in 467 feet.  On April 2, 1945 from the deck of the USS Hornet (CV-8) 16 B-25 made the first attack on Tokyo.  Of the men who went on this daring raid 11 would never make it back to the United States.  Three were killed in the action and the other eight were taken as POW's where they died in captivity. Of the 16 aircraft, 15 were destroyed, either in the engagement or by US forces to prevent their capture.  The Doolittle Raid was a pin prick compared to the bombing of Pearl Harbor, but it struck to the heart of the Japanese, it was an attack on their capital and it showed that the United States was not a country of weak individuals that relied on other countries to fight their wars.

Nearly six years before the war began, in 1935, the Philippines voted that they wanted their independence from the United States, they had been a commonwealth of the United States since the Spanish American War.  As part of the ten year agreement to full independence, in 1937 General Douglas MacArthur (Mac) retired from Active Duty and went to the Philippines to be the Commander of the New Philippines Army.  While he was there Mac used his vast knowledge for Army practices and trained the new Army.  But as fate would have it. And due to the Japanese aggressive movements in the region Mac was reactivated in the summer of 1941.  Just a few short hours after the attack on Pearl Harbor the Japanese attacked the Philippines.  The battle for the Philippines lasted until May of 1942, when the US troops and Philippines Army, exhausted with no sign of reinforcements and with no remaining supplies, surrendered to the Imperial Army.  Under the rules of war men who surrendered are to be treated with humanity… in the pacific theater this was not the case.  The American and Pilipino forces were forced to walk from Bataan over 80 Miles in three days, the Japanese forces gave them no food, no water and would randomly stab them men with their bayonets or beat them when they would fall behind, this was known as the Bataan Death March.  These men would undergo some of the worst atrocities of the war but I am sure that had it not been for men like Robert Preston Taylor, he served as a chaplain during World War II, himself a Prisoner of War and survivor of the Bataan Death March, that many more men would have died.  Another brave defender of the Philippines was General Edward Postell King Jr., he was leading the defense of the Bataan Peninsula when the Japanese invasion of the Philippines at the beginning of World War II.  Before General King joined the US Army I am proud to say that while at the University of Georgia, he was a member of the Phi Delta Theta fraternity. Thank you Brother King!  As the war continued in other parts of the South Pacific it would take many years but on October 20, 1944 Mac would utter the words he had waited since his departure in March 1942 to say, “I have returned!” 

About the same time as the fall of the Philippines, less than six months after the surprise attack on Oahu.  The first carrier engagement would happen in the south pacific.  The battle of Coral Sea would forever change naval warfare.  Coral Sea would be the first naval battle where ships engaged in battle would never see each other.  This battle showed the value of Naval Aviation, as the dominate power in warfare.  Where ships no longer volleyed "cannon fire" at each other, now aircraft would be launched from flat tops miles from each other and those aircraft would engage the opposing naval forces.  Although the battle of Coral Sea is known for the loss of the USS Lexington (CV-2), 25% of the naval carrier force in the Pacific.  It would be an important step to a battle that would change the course of the war in the Pacific.

Prior to the battle at the Midway Islands, Japan held a tactical superiority to the US in naval air power. But due to the battle of Coral Sea a month earlier the Japanese resources were stretched thin across the pacific.  Although the US forces were outnumbered, the Japanese had more carriers and battleships as opposed to the US having fewer carriers and only cruisers, no battleships, in the area. This would be the first major victory for allied forces in the Pacific.  After the smoke cleared from three days of naval battle four Japanese carriers would be sunk and the United States and our allies would now become the dominate naval force in the world.  Unfortunately the waters near the Midway Islands would become the final resting place of the first aircraft carrier USS Yorktown (CV-5).

With the victory of the Allied forces at Midway, the Allies would start the offensive war against Japan, that battle would take place in the Solomon Islands a place called Guadalcanal. Over the 6 months from August 1942 until February 1943 over 60,000 Allied men would fight and ultimately win victory over the Japanese forces and this would bring about the possession of Henderson Field in the South Pacific, an important air field where bombers would launch from for the remainder of the war.  This victory was not just one of military might but also for the moral of Allied forces in the South Pacific.  The Allies had beaten some of the best forces that the Imperial Army and Navy.  Prior to this Battle the Japanese were viewed as a military juggernaut that could not be beaten, after Guadalcanal, that all changed.  Allied forces no longer viewed the Japanese military in the same way. In addition, the Allies now truly believed that victory over Japan would be theirs.

“Guadalcanal is no longer merely a name of an island in Japanese military history. It is the name of the graveyard of the Japanese army.”

            ~~Major General Kiyotake Kawaguchi, IJA

Chichi Jima and Iwo Jima are two islands of the Japanese Empire that served as transit points for Japanese forces moving into the South Pacific.  A relative of Mine, Admiral J.J. Clark ordered the planes of his fast carrier task force to bomb the islands so much that the men in his unit nicknamed the islands “Jocko’s Jima’s”  I have heard stories that Jocko actually had “titles” made up and signed them as they were given to his men as a gag gifts.  If this is true or not I don’t know but it makes for a great story!  During the bombings of Chichi Jima in September of 1944, a young Lieutenant Junior Grade from New England, flew his TBM Avenger off of the USS San Jacinto (CV-30), named after the famous battle which liberated his future homeland, his plane was hit and he and his crew had to bail out, unfortunately only the Aviator survived.  He would be picked up by the USS Finback (SS-230) which he stayed with until he return to the San Jacinto, about a month later, to fight another day.  That young Aviator would survive the war and become the 41^st President of the United States.

After the bombing runs on Iwo Jima the marines planed for their assault of the sulfur island. In that month long engagement the United States Marines fought one of the toughest battles in Human history, and they won.  Forever that battle would be known by an iconic photo of Five Marines and a Navy Corpsman raising old glory on top of Mount Suribachi, unfortunately of those six men three would never leave the island.  During the time on Iwo Jima 27 men would be presented with the Medal of Honor.

            “Uncommon valor was a common virtue.”

              ~~ Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, March 16, 1945 on the men at Iwo Jima

After the years of island hopping, the Allies were approaching Japan, they had taken the Japanese island of Iwo Jima and now had a small airbase that was within striking distance of the Japanese Islands.  But the island of Okinawa, only 340 mi away from mainland Japan, made a great place to serve as a base for operations on what the allies saw as the upcoming invasion of Japanese mainland.  Like Iwo Jima Okinawa was Japanese soil, but unlike Iwo, Okinawa was inhabited.  This made for a much different type of warfare then most of the previous engagement. On the island of Okinawa there would be civilian casualties as the fighting was not for some deserted beach or dense jungle but fighting was in cities and populated areas. It was estimated that over 100,000 civilians were killed during the 82 day engagement.  After the battle was won ninety percent of the buildings on the island were destroyed.  But the military value of Okinawa was more than the Allied Command could have hoped for. Okinawa provided a base of operations for the Navy, a large scale troop staging area, and multiple airfields that could launch attacks on Japan.

After the capture of Okinawa the only thing left was taking the four main islands of Japan.  The Army Air Corps had started to bomb Tokyo and the other major industrial areas of Japan.  But the Military knew that taking Japan would cost the US military hundreds of thousands of lives.  The men in Europe that did not have the points to go home had started training to go fight in the Pacific.  Knowing that the loss of life would be grave President Truman approved the use of a new type of weapon, one that he was told would help bring the war to an end very quickly.  In the early morning hours of August 6, 1945 Col. Paul Tibbets and his crew in the Enola Gay dropped "little boy" on the Japanese city of Hiroshima.  Then Three days later on August 9, 1945 Major Charles W. Sweeney flying his B-29 Superfortress Bockscar, dropped "Fat man" on the Japanese city of Nagasaki. This was the second and last time that an atomic weapon was used in war. Five days later Emperor Hirohito sent word to President Truman of the unconditional surrender of all Japanese forces.  A peace treaty would be signed onboard the USS Missouri (BB-63) on September 2, 1945.

We know of many of the famous men of the Second World War but there are a few not so well known men who changed the course of the war. 

Possibly one of the most known Marines of the Second World War was John Basilone, he received the Medal of Honor for his actions at the Battle of Guadalcanal.  He had served three years in the United States Army with duty in the Philippines before joining the Marine Corps in 1940. He fought in the Solomon Islands and it was in Guadalcanal where he held off 3,000 Japanese troops after his 15-member unit was reduced to himself and two other men. He burned his hands and arms so bad holding the machine gun He was killed in action on the first day of the Battle of Iwo Jima, after which he was posthumously honored with the Navy Cross.  His wife SGT. Lena M. Basilone USMC, also a World War Two Vet,  died June 11, 1999, at the age of 86 and was buried at Riverside National Cemetery.  Lena's obituary notes that she never remarried, and she was buried still wearing his wedding ring.

One of the best stories I have heard about from Pearl Harbor is that of Mess Attendant Third Class Dorie Miller.  On the morning of December 7^th Miller had been performing his duties on board the USS West Virginia (BB-48) as he usually did when all hell broke loose.  Miller reported to his Battle station to find that it had been destroyed by the attack.  Miller then proceeded to the bridge to assist with moving the ship's Captain Mervyn Bennion, who had been injured in the initial attack on the ship. Miller, unable to remove the Captain from the bridge, carried him to a sheltered spot behind the conning tower. The Captain refused to leave his post and questioned his officers about the condition of the ship, giving orders. The Captain remained on the bridge until his death.  As the battle continued Lieutenant Frederic H. White ordered Miller to help him and Ensign Victor Delano load two unmanned Browning .50 caliber anti-aircraft machine guns aft of the conning tower. Miller wasn't familiar with the machine gun, but White and Delano told him what to do. Once he was given instructions Miller defended his ship and his shipmates from the continued attack.  Miller Stayed on board the West Virginia until she could no longer stay afloat and sunk to the bottom of the harbor.  For his actions that day Miller was the first black man to be awarded the Navy Cross.  Unfortunately Dorie would be killed in action when his ship USS Liscome Bay (CVE-56) was sunk at the Gilbert Islands less than two years later.

In my years I have started noticing a few things and when I see a man wearing a World War Two Veteran hat I will stop what I am doing, walk up to him and thank him for his service.  One of the first times I have the pleasure to do this was in the summer of 2006 when I was in DC.  I was at the World War Two memorial and this man had a confused look on his face.  Being the guy that I am I walked up to him and asked if I could help, the man broke down and cried, I had no words, I just stood there with this stranger and he told me about his friends and his experiences in the Pacific Theater, he told me about places I had never heard of, like Tarawa and Peleiu, that he had fought and watched his friends die on more than 30 years before I would be born.  To this day I will never forget the smile on that man’s face when I thanked him for his service.

Another experience I had just a few months ago, I was at work and I saw this man walking with his son at the airport.  I walked up to him and I shook his hand and said thank you, he and I talked for a minute and I gave him directions to his gate and we joked as we were walking.  He had told me about all of his adventures since the war and all of the things he had gotten to do.  I look at this man in his 90’s and see him running around like I do when I am in DC and have 100 different places that I want to go to at the same time.  And the sad part is I think this man walking around the airport could probably out walk me when I am in one of my mad dash sightseeing trips, and if you have ever been with me on one of those trips, I just want to say I’m sorry.   

I know that there are many more battles to the pacific war, and I know that thousands of brave men participated in them.  I only touched on these few here but we can never forget places like New Guinea, Buna, Tarawa, Kwajalein, Attu, Saipan, Tinian, Guam, Peleliu, Leyte Gulf, Luzon and all of the other places where men would go and never again would they know the world without war.

About a year and a half ago a good friend of mine let me read a letter that her grandfather had sent to her grandmother from some undisclosed hell in the south pacific.  He told of his men and some of the goings on of the day but getting to read that typed letter, a letter that had travelled from a man so far away, surrounded by death, going back to his loved ones in the States with the message of “I love you” and “I will see you soon” brought this whole war to a firsthand account. The war was no longer a “washed” version in a history book, or a one of the few stories from my grandfather who served in the south pacific, told me about this was the words of a man for fought and lived through that hell of the Second World War.  I have a few of the items my grandfather had brought home with him but this letter was different this letter was the first time I held something in my hands that was from a Marine, who I have never met, to his family, un edited and as true as any fact of the war can be.  This is where all of this work over the past year or so comes from… Thanks…

The war’s end

“Today the guns are silent. A great tragedy has ended. A great victory has been won. The skies no longer rain death – the seas bear only commerce – men everywhere walk upright in the sunlight. The entire world is quietly at peace.”

           ~~General Douglas MacArthur

Gettysburg

We are engaged in a great civil war…

A hundred and fifty years ago, in a field outside of a town in Pennsylvania that most people had never heard of before the fate of a nation would be decided.  Over the past few months General Robert E. Lee and his Army of Northern Virginia, would be making advances into the Northern Territory, through Maryland and into Pennsylvania.  There near the town of Gettysburg Lee's Army would clash with General George Meade and the Army of the Potomac.

From these three days we would learn of leaders like Pickett, Chamberlin, Sickles, Sykes, Longstreet, and Ewell. We would also learn about places like Cemetery Ridge, Culp's Hill, the Peach Orchard and Little Round Top. These three days would make, or in some cases break, the careers of military leaders and they would be the ultimate turning point in the American Civil War.

 

I first set foot on this hallowed ground in the summer of 2009, I was ill prepared for the experience that I would have over the next few hours.  I had been to other battle grounds in the past, I had learned about Gettysburg in school, I had seen movies about, and referencing, this battle but none of this would prepare me nor compare to my being here.

Before the fighting broke out, the Union forces were holding the town as General Lee was advancing the Army of Northern Virginia into the heart of Union territory.  After his defeat at the battle of Sharpsburg/Antietam, Lee had regrouped and was continued his tactics of skirmishes into the north and then pulling back to the south, a tactic that he had utilized up to this point.  Lee was now advancing past Maryland and into Pennsylvania.  As his forces moved up and surrounded the town of Gettysburg, General Meade was reinforcing the Union position with his Army of the Potomac.

Prior to the battle Lee was already in a position of disadvantage with the loss of his Lt. General Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson about two months prior, thus leaving most of his forces under the command of two of his new "green" Generals, although they were good men and generals combined they were no Stonewall Jackson, The lack of senior leadership and the long distance his supply lines would have to cover would ultimately lead to his defeat.

As the first day progressed into battle, it was little more than skirmishes amongst union forces here and confederate forces there.  With union and confederate units fighting each other around and through the town of Gettysburg.  This would lead Meade to bring his forces back to the high ground of cemetery ridge running south of town ending at round top, creating the formation of the "fish hook", the one thing that would be the saving grace of the Union army.

On the morning of the second day of fighting General Sickles, unhappy with his position on little round top, and thinking that there was high ground with the land at the peach orchard, against orders moved his units down the hillside to the peach orchard.  This move left the 20th Maine, a unit of volunteer soldiers under the command of LTC. Chamberlin defending the side of little round top, a position that would soon have them surrounded if not for the forward thinking of General George Sykes who lead his men to little round top to aide in the defense of that position. After a day of being constantly attacked and ordered to hold their ground on two separate occasions Colonel Chamberlin knew his men were growing restless and short of ammunition.  When the confederates stated their third attempt to take little round top the order was given to fix bayonets, and after the intense fighting Colonel Chamberlin gave the order to attack the confederate forces that were seeking cover in "Devil's Den."  The Men of Maine who had held the line under intense fighting and prevented the Union Army from being routed by confederates now stormed the field of battle.  The story of the 20th Maine is one of heroic sacrifice that would be told for the next 150 years.

On the last day of fighting perhaps the most known action of the battle of Gettysburg would take place, all morning the confederate and union forces would line up their artillery on seminary ridge and cemetery ridge respectively.  About one in the afternoon the two armies would begin firing at each other over a distance of about a mile.  For the next two hours canon fire filled the air until about three PM the smoke was so thick that the armies could not even see the enemy at which they were aiming.  General Meade had his forces stop firing and the confederates believed that they had taken out the Union canons, had 12,500 soldiers step out of the security of the ridge line and began advancing the 3/4 mile distance to the union lines. Once the confederate forces were near General Hancock opened up his second corps and decimated the southern forces as they advanced.  Many of the South’s great leaders were killed in these three days of fierce fighting and General Lee would order a full retreat back down into Virginia, never again advancing his forces into Pennsylvania.

These three days would be one of the most studied battles of the American Civil War, and in fact all of American history, one that showed old families from Virginia battling old families from New York and Maine, little is known about the young men who consecrated that hallowed ground in those three days, but I have had the pleasure to learn of a man, an immigrant from Bavaria, who at the age of 19 left his home in Europe and came to make a new life for himself in Ohio.  His name was Daniel Young, a private in the 107th Ohio infantry, he fought and was wounded at Gettysburg, but he survived he married, had a family.  In the years that followed his first grandson would be named after him, Daniel Young Carman, my great grandfather.  When I learned this about two years ago I knew that the battle of Gettysburg was not some action that had taken place 150 years ago that had no bearing on my life, but instead it was a major conflict in American history that I know that my family, and all of our families, have played a role in.

 

“The world will little note… but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced.”

~~Abraham Lincoln 1863

 

Wars over Happy V-E Day

May 8, 1945 V-E Day

"Wars over!!!"

It was D-Day plus 336, Hitler had been dead for just over a week, and the ink on the instruments of surrender was beginning to dry... It was a day that would bring an end to the suffering much of the Europe had felt since the unprovoked invasion of Poland in 1939. The number of dead would be in the millions with more displaced through the upheaval of Europe through a totalitarian regime that was bent on ruling the world. After the invasion of Poland many believed that giving a little to the Nazi machine would allow Europe to remain in relative peace but one man from England put it so well...

"Appeasement is like feeding the crocodile in hopes that it will eat you last."~~ Sir Winston Churchill
As history has shown time and time again if you give a bully an inch they will try and take a mile. After much of Europe had been overrun by Nazi forces, and an unprovoked attack on the island of Oahu the United States joined the war effort.

When war broke out the United States was not ready to be engaged in a great world conflict, but as Americans have always stepped up an accepted a challenge, this challenge would bring America from the depths of the Great Depression to being the dominate world power. At once the American military machine began to work. As well as assisting in defending Britain from the onslaught of the German air force, the Luftwaffe. General George S. Patton Jr. brought the war to General Erwin Rommel, the Desert Fox, in North Africa. And over the next few years slowly the Nazi forces would be pushed back from Africa, and the daily assault on Britain would come to an end. Under the leadership of Eisenhower the allies would begin to turn the tide of war against the Axis powers. Patton would lead his men as he pushed on and he would liberate Italy.

By the spring of 1944 Ike would have devised a plan that would be the start of the end of the Nazi's conquest of Europe. An operation know by the code word OVERLORD. Many in the German military thought that General Patton would be the one to lead such an invasion of Europe. It was decided that early June would be D-Day. After weather setbacks finally the planes taking the 82nd, 101st, and the British 1st airport would leave England for France. Finally the Allies would bring the war to mainland Europe.

 

On June 6, 1944, D-Day, the largest amphibious assault in human history occurred on the Cherbourg peninsula. At least 12,000 men would be lost in the intense fighting as the beaches were stormed. If it had not been for men like Lt. Richard Winters, Easy co. 506 PIR, who lead his men in the assault on Brecourt Manor, where they destroyed the four 105mm cannons were raining shells onto Utah beach, many more men would be lost before the beaches would be secured. After more than a month in France the allies would have control of a deep water port that they could bring in heavy tanks and equipment. The allies would keep advancing and on more than one occasion General Patton would over run drop zones in France. Until finally Paris was freed.

In the fall of 1944 the allies would next liberate Holland, this would be under the command of British Field Marshall Montgomery. The plan would be to drop thousands of airborne soldiers from Eindhoven to Arnhem, all the while running armor up "Hell's Highway" to support the airborne. Although the initial operation was a failure and hundreds of British airborne were captured by the Nazi forces in Arnhem, Holland would be freed.

Right before Christmas 1944 Hitler knew that the war was going bad for Germany so he massed his forces near the Luxembourg and Belgium border in the Ardennes Forest. Ike sent the 101 into the area to defend the town of Bastogne. With little prep time the men of the 101st loaded up into trucks and drove to the front line, Ill prepared and under supplied the men began to move into position to defend the town, Lt George Rice, 10th armored division, hearing that the 101st was entering without much ammo and supplies, jumped into a jeep and he began making runs from an ammo dump to the line until every man had all he could carry. The actions of Lt. Rice and the men he "recruited" for these ammo runs would make the difference in the 101st defense of Bastogne. On Christmas Eve the Germans had surrounded the town of Bastogne. The German commander sent a message to General Anthony McAuliffe calling for the surrender of the American forces. General McAuliffe responded with the greatest answer in American military history, a one word response the puzzled the German commander, "NUTS!" The 101st stayed in Bastogne and fought off everything the Germans threw at them, they stayed and fought, from time to time they would be resupplied by an air drop from the Army Air Corps. Some have said that General Patton rescued the 101st, but no member of the 101st has ever stated they needed rescuing, all Patton did was reopen ground supply lines, thus freeing up the Army Air Corps for other missions.

While the ground forces were fighting in Italy, France and Holland, the Army Air Corps were busy with a fight of their own. The bombers during the Second World War were equipped with gunners but for the most part they were still sitting ducks for the German fighters, which were smaller faster and much more maneuverable. It was up to the fighter escorts to defend the bombers so they could safely fly into and return home from bombing runs over Germany. These men, some of whom were not even 20 years old, were flying airplanes when they did not even have a car back home to drive. For these men the fighting in the air was just as dangerous as the action the men on the ground faced. World War Two also saw the first Africa American fighter squadrons, commonly known as the Red Tails, aside from a spectacular record for defending bombers as they flew missions over Europe they were given countless awards for their bravery and heroism. These men would take the first steps and start paving the way for the desegregation of the United States military, and ultimately the rest of the country.

The soldiers on the ground also came across the greatest horror of the 20th century, the holocaust. The Nazi party came up with the "final solution" to what they saw as problems within the Third Reich. Mostly the Jews of Europe but also the ethnic minorities and Catholics in Germany and other occupied areas of Europe. They also sent anyone who spoke against the Nazi party to these concentration camps. This scar the Nazi party put on the Earth will never be erased, but thank God for the men who helped to end it.

Come the end of April and beginning of May 1945 these men would go from a fighting force to an army of occupation. From the 506th occupation of Berchtesgaden to the American and Russian soldiers shaking hands in Berlin. The war in Europe was over. Millions of men from all over the United States would be returning back home on countless victory ships, while others would start preparing to join the Navy and Marines in the Pacific, fortunately a journey most would never have to take but that is another story. But on that spring day in 1945 Europe would once again be at peace.

In my travels I have met many World War Two vets, I am always honored to meet those men. I always stop what I am doing to shake their hand and say welcome home, or just a quick thank you. I am honed that both of my grandfathers served in the European theater, one as a combat engineer in Simpson's Ninth Army, the other as a Chief Petty Officer, CMM, on a ship from England to Russia before he transferred to the submarine service and finished the war in the pacific. In my fraternity I have met men who left the safety of the college campus to answer the call and volunteer to our great nation, I once told one that he was my hero, he told me he was not a hero; he said the men who never came home were the heroes... I sit back and I know that he is being the humble man that the war made him, but I realized that he is a hero, so is every man and woman who put on a uniform, from the Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Marines who fought, some living and some left buried on the shores of a place they never knew existed before they arrived, to the USO girl handing out coffee and smiling, giving those boys one dance before they left for the hell that awaited them. They are all heroes, and let us never forget the ones who gave of themselves, "the ones who never got to enjoy a world without war."

There's nothing stronger than the heart of a volunteer.

~~Lt. Col. Jimmy Doolittle

NASA

Ever since I was a small child, five or six, I have done what countless billions of our ancestors have done and looked up into space and wondered what is up there.  I have spent countless nights looking to the Moon and wondering what mysteries lay in the deep shadows that cross its pitted face…  Looked at the rings of Saturn or the moons of Jupiter and I instantly knew that there is a God and that he has created some of the most awe inspiring and beautiful things man has ever looked upon.  In my years I have had the opportunity to meet many of the men, and women who are a part of a very select club, the men and women of NASA who have taken that first step; the step that almost every child dreams of, the step into the final frontier that is space.

I have always loved the thought of space travel and I remember as a child I would wake up early and watch many launches from my parent’s living room in Houston. From my earliest memories I remember watching the Space Shuttle launch and dreamed about being one of those brave men to sit on top of millions of gallons of rocket fuel and a machine with about a billion moving parts built by the lowest bidder...  I joke only because of the respect that I have for those men, and a bit of envy that I will never being a part of their exclusive club...  As a child in Elementary School I remember when a couple of Astronauts came and spoke to us about their trip into space, they were giants among men.  I have said it before and I will say it again, I really don’t have a big hero worship for athletes or actors, to me real heroes are men with ribbons on their chest, Heroes are men and women who wear helmets.  Astronauts meet both of these definitions.  

Almost immediately after the end of World War Two a new global contest was begun and that was the space race.  Both the USA and the USSR were racing to be the leaders, not only here on Earth but also in Space.  In September of 1962 President John F. Kennedy, Speaking at Rice University, about 25 miles from where I sit tonight writing this, stated “The exploration of space will go ahead, whether we join in it or not… …We mean to be a part of it - we mean to lead it.”  Those words launched the greatest technological triumphs in human history, many of the things we use every day came out of the new ideas and inventions of the 1960’s all brought forth by the most ancient of dreams, the dream to reach the moon.

In less than a month we will celebrate the 50^th anniversary of the end of the Mercury project, Where the US planned to send 7 men into space.  After six successful flights the Mercury program ended with Gordo Cooper being the last American to fly in space alone.  That would bring us to the Gemini Project where we would send a two man spacecraft into space, and look at how much more we accomplished, Ed White became the first American to do an EVA, to walk in space hanging above the earth and just looking down on all of us with a joy that I don’t think many can express or even understand.  We sent not one but two rockets into space at the same time and then had them link up in space, not because it was an easy task but one that we would have to do in order to move our program forward, forward to the moon.

The final tasking that Kennedy envisioned in that hot September day was the Apollo program.  Where three men would take the perilous journey 240,000 miles to that large grey ball that has inspired us since we first looked up into the sky.  The Apollo program led us through some of our greatest triumphs and through some of our darkest days as a nation.  The program almost never got off the ground, literally.  In January of 1967 Gus Grissom, Ed White and Roger Chaffee were participating in a test of the Apollo command module when a fire rushed through the command module and killed all three men. 

If it had not been for the hard work and dedication of many great men like Frank Borman the Apollo Program might have died there on Launch Pad 34. But like the Greek God that the Program was named after Apollo would rise again and in just under 18 months Neil Armstrong would take that “one small step.”  I have had the joy of seeing and touching that ship that made the journey carrying Neil, Buzz and Michael over the abyss of space, the module is named Columbia, this would not be the first time the US has had a ship Columbia, and I know she would not be the last.

After a nearly flawless landing and return on the next trip led by Pete Conrad showed Americans that going to the moon was a tasking that we were up to and that America would win the Space Race.  Then came Lucky number 13, Jim Lovell, on his fourth trip into space, and his second trip to the moon, uttered those words which will forever haunt NASA, “Houston… We have a problem.”  But again just as Kennedy had predicted Americans rose to the occasion and Apollo 13 became the successful failure and where Gene Kranz coined the phrase “failure is not an option.” The rest of the Apollo program ended without a hitch and 12 men would walk on her surface and would return with countless samples of lunar geology.

After the end of the moon shot NASA took some time and developed the Sky Lab program where we had a temporary home in space, that program started a dream, a dream of an permanent structure in space, a space station that would be brought to life in NASA’s next generation of spacecraft, Thirty-two years ago the Space Shuttle Columbia, I knew that name would come up again, launched on the first trip into space of a reusable Spacecraft. Through 30 years of service the space shuttles would expand our understanding of not only of our world, and solar system but of the cosmos. They built our international Space Station and placed the Hubble Telescope into orbit.

This thirty year odyssey around our home planet was not without its own stumbling blocks, but it also had its fair share of victories. The original name for the first orbiter was to be the Constitution, but because of a very famous science fiction television program from the late 1960’s the craft was renamed the Enterprise.  Although the Enterprise never went into space she was used for testing and she was launched from the top of a 747 and landed on her own.  I have seen the Enterprise a few time, she had a special place in the Smithsonian until 2012 when she was rolled out and moved to her new home in New York.  A year ago when I was in DC I got to see her sitting on the tarmac at Dulles Airport waiting for the weather to clear and she would take her last flight.  Looking up at her white frame and tiles she is an impressive piece of engineering that reminds you what man can accomplish when he sets his mind to a goal.  

Through some of my travels, and my job I have had the honor to meet many of the men and women who have gotten to ride on the five Space Shuttles a few of them are Mike Fossum, Daniel M. Tani, Dr. Mae Jemison, Chiaki Mukai, Jon McBride, who I got to have dinner with in the summer of 2010 at the Kennedy Space Center, and F. Story Musgrave, the only man to ride into space on all five space shuttles, these last two men just happen to be fraternity brothers of mine…

Although Columbia and her sister ship Challenger would not see the end of this program the legacy left to us by these ships will fill scientific volumes for years, but more important will fill the dreams of children for all time. Thank you NASA for this and for the dreams of all children to ride a rocket into space and to touch the face of God.  It is my hope, and dream that the next project is one that will do the same thing for generations of children to come. And I hope that we will never forget those words uttered as an inspiration to all Americans…

“We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard… …because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win.” 

~~John F. Kennedy September 12, 1962

Vietnam--

As a child born three months after the fall of Saigon I never understood what happened in Southeast Asia in the 1960's and 70's. I thought it was a place my G. I. Joes went for training. I knew nothing of the French occupation, or the fall of Dien Bien Phu, Ia Drang valley and the four day hell that Hal Moore and his men experienced there. The gulf of Tonkin was a footnote in the back of my history book that we almost never got to in school.

As I grew up I heard stories about how bad Vietnam was, but nothing about the men who served and the reasons they went, for a time all I learned was the evil that came from that war, with Agent Orange, friendly fire on civilians and the atrocities American Soldiers committed in Southeast Asia. None of the stories about how men saved their units through sacrifice, defended the people from the encroachment of those who wished to be their slave masters, and men who did their best to live up to the pledge made to leave no man behind.

 

My first understanding came, as it usually does, years after I learned the lesson. Again I was in Washington, D.C. My junior year in high school, crazy how much of my life was defined by that week, I was visiting the memorial with my teacher, a Vietnam vet who, despite being polar opposites when it comes to all things political, is one of the men I respect the most in this world. Well as we walk through the most hallowed ground on the mall, I noticed him pause at the wall. He stood there for a moment then he moved on. Being 16 I did not know if it was he had something in his eye, he was adjusting his backpack, or he walked past the names of his friends who are etched in enteral honor on that black wall. Coach took a few pictures and then we continued on our trip around DC. As a typical 16 year old, after we moved on the thought slipped from my mind and I really paid no more attention to it. But that memory stayed, not in the forefront of my mind but would return 20 years later, but we will get to that...

In 2005 I started my annual trips to DC. I go at least once a year and I always stop by a few spots, and the wall is one. As an adult I see the wall not as a collection of unknown names, but in fact the opposite, each name is someone's son, father, a friend, or a brother, by blood or in arms. Each name represents a family that has paid the ultimate sacrifice upon the alter of freedom. Each name is that of a family that will never again be whole. Some of those family members will be able to think back to shared Christmases, Thanksgiving dinners, and many many other important family events, while family members of many of them would know only know him through pictures and stories told by those who shared a part of his life, a life that would forever be cut short by the ugly face of war.  Each name is a family that would never again enjoy the world without the scar of war.

Each time I visit the wall I walked around and looked at the people, families, vets, and others like myself who knew no one on the wall, I have seen school trips much like the one I was on the first time I ever saw the memorial, Boy Scout troops, but the thing that sticks out the most is when I see strong men break down, the lucky ones were with their families that could help them through the experience at the wall, men who normally nothing phased them had to be helped up that black stone walkway because of the memories that hit them harder than anything man has ever made. Men who served, men who had protected me before I was even born, Men who were never given the respect they earned as patriots, as national heroes.

 

 

I never had any of these experiences at the wall other than standing by helplessly watching strangers, until last summer. I was in DC for work and we went out on the usual day’s exploration of the mall. We had a great day, we toured the Capitol walked about the mall and then we came to the wall, we removed our hats; we stopped acting like the overgrown 12 year old on their first field trip without their parents, like we had been doing at the Smithsonian, and walked into that sacred ground as we walked one of my co-workers started to shake and pause. I looked over at him and I saw the tears running down his face. I had no words.  I just placed my hand on his shoulder and he smiled at me. I told him to take his time, he walked to the wall and placed his hand on it, he stood there for a moment then he turned around, full tears running down his face, he looked at me with a half-smile and said thank you. I looked at him and said welcome home. He smiled and we rejoined our group and continued on our tour.
I have been back to the wall since then and it has a very different feel to me. I don’t know exactly where on the wall we stopped, but now when I visit the wall and I get about halfway down the walk way I am overtaken by a rush of emotions, I have that feeling that I have 58,000+ men looking at me and watching me.  I know that they are in heaven smiling down and they hear me when I pray and say thank you.

I now stop, not just at the wall but anywhere I am, if I see a Vietnam Veteran hat, I pause walk up to him give him my hand and I always say “Welcome home!” I only wish I could have been there forty years ago to say that to him when he was a young man returning home to a country that he has proudly served.
As I think about Vietnam the only thing that stays forever in my mind is that Heroes don't wear numbers on their back, they wear ribbons on their chest.