thedrifter
08-27-06, 07:18 AM
Fighting 4th: 'It really is a band of brothers'
By JACK WILKINSON
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 08/27/06
For the old Marines of the Fighting 4th, Memorial Day comes twice a year. This year, it came here in Atlanta, on a gray August morning both tender and sad.
"Alfonso Adamz ... Samuel Ananian," said John Stone, speaking deliberately into a microphone, pausing between each name. "Walter Antin ..." And so began the final muster, the roll call of names of the men of the Fighting 4th who'd died in the past year.
Since the 4th Marine Division fought and triumphed on the sands of Iwo Jima near the end of World War II, their fighting prowess in the Pacific has been as celebrated as their nickname. After the war ended, there were nearly 42,000 members in the 4th Marine Division Association. Those numbers — but not the veterans' fervor for the Corps— have been greatly diminished.
"William Bach," Stone said Friday in a large, hushed meeting room at the Atlanta Airport Marriott during a memorial service at the 4th's 59th annual reunion. When Stone later called out the name Travis Helpenstell, George Mazarakos of Chicago whispered, "He was a good guy."
As Stone and Norb Kirsch alternately read the names of the dead, eight bells sounded solemnly. Once the U.S. Marine Forces Reserve Band from New Orleans had played "Abide With Me," "Echo Taps" and "Auld Lang Syne," and everyone sang along to "The Marine's Hymn," it was over.
"It's difficult," Stone sighed in reply when asked what it's like to return and reminisce each year, only to learn that more of your old comrades, your buddies, are gone. "We are the Marines. It really is a band of brothers. There's a real tightness among the Corps.
"But now, I have listed in my rolls only 2,500 names," said Stone, 83, who lost his right leg on the beach at Iwo Jima. "We had about 165 die this year. It's not going to be very long
before ..."
Before the last of the 4th, among the last vestiges of "The Greatest Generation" of WWII veterans, is gone. Nearly all are in their 80s. Many aren't in the best of health.
"We're going to be like Caesar's 4th Roman Legion," said Stone, who lives in Venice, Fla., and serves as the association's executive secretary. "Over the years, they were very powerful. Now, we're disappearing in the mist."
For Saturday night's banquet, just 168 members were registered. Including spouses and other relatives (as well as several widows of 4th veterans), 361 people were expected for the banquet. Who knows how many will attend next year's 60th reunion in Louisville?
"The ranks are thinning every year," said Mazarakos, 81, a retired high school principal and a past president of the 4th Association.
"We'll, we've got to go sometime," said Dale Cook, the organization's second vice president, from Brentwood, Calif. "I always think each day we had after combat is a bonus. I've had some serious operations, sure, but I always knew I'd come through."
Nearly all the Marines in the 4th Division were teenagers who enlisted after Pearl Harbor was bombed by the Japanese on Dec. 7, 1941. The 4th Marine Division began forming in Camp Pendleton, Calif., in August 1943. Many of the Marines fought in four major campaigns in the Pacific from 1944-45: Roi-Namur, Saipan, Tinian and the decisive, bloody battle on Iwo Jima.
"On Saipan, I helped evacuate people who were wounded, and delivered three babies," said Clair "Doc" Chaffin of Archer, Fla., who succeeded Roy Earle as the national association's president at Saturday's banquet. "Amputated an arm. A doctor in a foxhole said, 'Just follow what I do.' I did a tracheotomy, too. First one I ever did."
They all have stories, and told them all week:
Victor Varanay, 86, was a kid from New Jersey who enlisted and was wounded twice on Saipan. On July 9, 1944, he was sighting his rifle when a Japanese bullet went into, then through, his right hand. Forced to wear a cast for two months, Varanay couldn't write home to his girlfriend. So a buddy wrote love letters for him. "And she said the letters were more flowery," Victor said, laughing.
"I knew he didn't write them," said Dorothy Varanay, who'll nevertheless celebrate their 58th anniversary on Sept. 26th.
Now 81 and a widower, Elmer Dapron of Warrenton, Mo., marvels at the long, lasting marriages of many veterans of the Fighting 4th. "What you'll see here with these people is gentleness, kindness, unselfishness — and these are cold-hearted killers," he said. "And why have nearly all of them been married so long? They have nothing more to prove. If these men are laid-back, and willing to go along with the program, they are not compromising their masculinity. They know tenderness, show tenderness."
Men like Thomas McGraham, 82, who was holding the hand of his wife, Doris, when she died two months ago after 37 years of marriage. "It's hard," said McGraham, who brought with him an American flag that adorned Doris' coffin.
Men like Archie Trundle of Hapeville, the secretary of the Georgia chapter of the 4th Division Association, which planned this week's well-received reunion. "There's no way of telling you or anyone else what a slaughterhouse it was over there," Trundle, 82, said of Iwo Jima. "It was like fighting a mad dog. Kill or be killed. If the Japanese captured one of ours, they'd torture him, hoping to lure you out to help him. I can't forget it."
Men like Mazarakos, 81, who dropped out of high school at 17 to enlist in the Marines. He fought at Roi-Namur, Saipan and Tinian, but not Iwo Jima after being injured on Tinian. Mazarakos has never visited Iwo Jima — not even for an anniversary — out of respect for the men who served there. "I won't go. I didn't fight there," said Mazarakos, who returned to Chicago and went to work as a carpenter, got his GED, then enrolled at DePaul University. It took him 9 1/2 years to earn a degree in classical languages.
"The Marines taught me that it was better to be an officer than an enlisted man," Mazarakos said, smiling. "And the difference in that was an education."
For the men of the Fighting 4th, there remains nothing better in life than to have been a Marine. The Rev. Charles Goe, 86, a Baptist minister from Stone Mountain and the local and national chaplain for the 4th, was hit by shrapnel from a Japanese artillery shell in the right arm while he was eating a K-ration breakfast. It tore through his right biceps, left a bone protruding and blood pouring out; then it hit his buddy Stu Cates, sitting beside Goe, in the neck. "Blood was streaming from his jugular," Goe said. Cates died 15 minutes later.
"I don't think most Americans realize what we went through," said Goe, who gave the invocation and benediction at Friday's memorial service. "They should. But even our children and grandchildren don't understand it because they don't take the time to go back."
David Gamache did. His father, Joe, served in the Fighting 4th, came home, became a house painter and got married in 1947. Joe died in 1994, but his widow, Gloria, attended the reunion to accompany her son David, a dentist in New Jersey.
"My father never really talked about the four battles they had with the Japanese, but I sensed he wanted to talk about the war," Gamache said. Father and son never had that talk. Four years ago, Gamache went into the Marine Reserves, joining the 14th Company at Fort Dix, N.J. He was later deployed to the Middle East in the spring of 2003, as a dentist for Marines in Kuwait. He's been attending reunions of the 4th Division since 2003.
"I wonder what was it like for my father? His fears? His accomplishments?" Gamache said. "These were conversations I had with these men that I didn't have with my father. It gives me peace of mind."
While all of the men of the 4th Division are supportive of U.S. troops in Iraq, they're not all necessarily supportive of the war itself or the way it's being waged. "I'm totally opposed to it," Dapron said. "I was opposed to it before it started. I sensed there was a determination to go to war when there was still a chance for diplomacy."
Said Trundle, "I do believe if we weren't over there, they [terrorists] would be over here. I don't enjoy seeing anybody being killed, but it's important to stop them."
Gen. Lawrence Snowden, of Tallahassee, feels that U.S. troops must stay and fight in the Middle East. He wants to reinstitute the draft, too. "Absolutely. We need it now, to enlarge our forces. We're sending guys over there three or four times. Today, the burden of war is being carried by too few families."
But this week, Snowden is here to see his men. The Marines of the Fighting 4th. Just days after the death of Joe Rosenthal, the photographer who took the famous photo of Marines raising the American flag on Mount Suribachi on Iwo Jima, a general has returned to give thanks to ordinary men who once did extraordinary things.
"I owe them. They're the reason I came," Snowden said. "I know who made me a general. It wasn't the generals. It was these guys. They carried the load."
Ellie
By JACK WILKINSON
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 08/27/06
For the old Marines of the Fighting 4th, Memorial Day comes twice a year. This year, it came here in Atlanta, on a gray August morning both tender and sad.
"Alfonso Adamz ... Samuel Ananian," said John Stone, speaking deliberately into a microphone, pausing between each name. "Walter Antin ..." And so began the final muster, the roll call of names of the men of the Fighting 4th who'd died in the past year.
Since the 4th Marine Division fought and triumphed on the sands of Iwo Jima near the end of World War II, their fighting prowess in the Pacific has been as celebrated as their nickname. After the war ended, there were nearly 42,000 members in the 4th Marine Division Association. Those numbers — but not the veterans' fervor for the Corps— have been greatly diminished.
"William Bach," Stone said Friday in a large, hushed meeting room at the Atlanta Airport Marriott during a memorial service at the 4th's 59th annual reunion. When Stone later called out the name Travis Helpenstell, George Mazarakos of Chicago whispered, "He was a good guy."
As Stone and Norb Kirsch alternately read the names of the dead, eight bells sounded solemnly. Once the U.S. Marine Forces Reserve Band from New Orleans had played "Abide With Me," "Echo Taps" and "Auld Lang Syne," and everyone sang along to "The Marine's Hymn," it was over.
"It's difficult," Stone sighed in reply when asked what it's like to return and reminisce each year, only to learn that more of your old comrades, your buddies, are gone. "We are the Marines. It really is a band of brothers. There's a real tightness among the Corps.
"But now, I have listed in my rolls only 2,500 names," said Stone, 83, who lost his right leg on the beach at Iwo Jima. "We had about 165 die this year. It's not going to be very long
before ..."
Before the last of the 4th, among the last vestiges of "The Greatest Generation" of WWII veterans, is gone. Nearly all are in their 80s. Many aren't in the best of health.
"We're going to be like Caesar's 4th Roman Legion," said Stone, who lives in Venice, Fla., and serves as the association's executive secretary. "Over the years, they were very powerful. Now, we're disappearing in the mist."
For Saturday night's banquet, just 168 members were registered. Including spouses and other relatives (as well as several widows of 4th veterans), 361 people were expected for the banquet. Who knows how many will attend next year's 60th reunion in Louisville?
"The ranks are thinning every year," said Mazarakos, 81, a retired high school principal and a past president of the 4th Association.
"We'll, we've got to go sometime," said Dale Cook, the organization's second vice president, from Brentwood, Calif. "I always think each day we had after combat is a bonus. I've had some serious operations, sure, but I always knew I'd come through."
Nearly all the Marines in the 4th Division were teenagers who enlisted after Pearl Harbor was bombed by the Japanese on Dec. 7, 1941. The 4th Marine Division began forming in Camp Pendleton, Calif., in August 1943. Many of the Marines fought in four major campaigns in the Pacific from 1944-45: Roi-Namur, Saipan, Tinian and the decisive, bloody battle on Iwo Jima.
"On Saipan, I helped evacuate people who were wounded, and delivered three babies," said Clair "Doc" Chaffin of Archer, Fla., who succeeded Roy Earle as the national association's president at Saturday's banquet. "Amputated an arm. A doctor in a foxhole said, 'Just follow what I do.' I did a tracheotomy, too. First one I ever did."
They all have stories, and told them all week:
Victor Varanay, 86, was a kid from New Jersey who enlisted and was wounded twice on Saipan. On July 9, 1944, he was sighting his rifle when a Japanese bullet went into, then through, his right hand. Forced to wear a cast for two months, Varanay couldn't write home to his girlfriend. So a buddy wrote love letters for him. "And she said the letters were more flowery," Victor said, laughing.
"I knew he didn't write them," said Dorothy Varanay, who'll nevertheless celebrate their 58th anniversary on Sept. 26th.
Now 81 and a widower, Elmer Dapron of Warrenton, Mo., marvels at the long, lasting marriages of many veterans of the Fighting 4th. "What you'll see here with these people is gentleness, kindness, unselfishness — and these are cold-hearted killers," he said. "And why have nearly all of them been married so long? They have nothing more to prove. If these men are laid-back, and willing to go along with the program, they are not compromising their masculinity. They know tenderness, show tenderness."
Men like Thomas McGraham, 82, who was holding the hand of his wife, Doris, when she died two months ago after 37 years of marriage. "It's hard," said McGraham, who brought with him an American flag that adorned Doris' coffin.
Men like Archie Trundle of Hapeville, the secretary of the Georgia chapter of the 4th Division Association, which planned this week's well-received reunion. "There's no way of telling you or anyone else what a slaughterhouse it was over there," Trundle, 82, said of Iwo Jima. "It was like fighting a mad dog. Kill or be killed. If the Japanese captured one of ours, they'd torture him, hoping to lure you out to help him. I can't forget it."
Men like Mazarakos, 81, who dropped out of high school at 17 to enlist in the Marines. He fought at Roi-Namur, Saipan and Tinian, but not Iwo Jima after being injured on Tinian. Mazarakos has never visited Iwo Jima — not even for an anniversary — out of respect for the men who served there. "I won't go. I didn't fight there," said Mazarakos, who returned to Chicago and went to work as a carpenter, got his GED, then enrolled at DePaul University. It took him 9 1/2 years to earn a degree in classical languages.
"The Marines taught me that it was better to be an officer than an enlisted man," Mazarakos said, smiling. "And the difference in that was an education."
For the men of the Fighting 4th, there remains nothing better in life than to have been a Marine. The Rev. Charles Goe, 86, a Baptist minister from Stone Mountain and the local and national chaplain for the 4th, was hit by shrapnel from a Japanese artillery shell in the right arm while he was eating a K-ration breakfast. It tore through his right biceps, left a bone protruding and blood pouring out; then it hit his buddy Stu Cates, sitting beside Goe, in the neck. "Blood was streaming from his jugular," Goe said. Cates died 15 minutes later.
"I don't think most Americans realize what we went through," said Goe, who gave the invocation and benediction at Friday's memorial service. "They should. But even our children and grandchildren don't understand it because they don't take the time to go back."
David Gamache did. His father, Joe, served in the Fighting 4th, came home, became a house painter and got married in 1947. Joe died in 1994, but his widow, Gloria, attended the reunion to accompany her son David, a dentist in New Jersey.
"My father never really talked about the four battles they had with the Japanese, but I sensed he wanted to talk about the war," Gamache said. Father and son never had that talk. Four years ago, Gamache went into the Marine Reserves, joining the 14th Company at Fort Dix, N.J. He was later deployed to the Middle East in the spring of 2003, as a dentist for Marines in Kuwait. He's been attending reunions of the 4th Division since 2003.
"I wonder what was it like for my father? His fears? His accomplishments?" Gamache said. "These were conversations I had with these men that I didn't have with my father. It gives me peace of mind."
While all of the men of the 4th Division are supportive of U.S. troops in Iraq, they're not all necessarily supportive of the war itself or the way it's being waged. "I'm totally opposed to it," Dapron said. "I was opposed to it before it started. I sensed there was a determination to go to war when there was still a chance for diplomacy."
Said Trundle, "I do believe if we weren't over there, they [terrorists] would be over here. I don't enjoy seeing anybody being killed, but it's important to stop them."
Gen. Lawrence Snowden, of Tallahassee, feels that U.S. troops must stay and fight in the Middle East. He wants to reinstitute the draft, too. "Absolutely. We need it now, to enlarge our forces. We're sending guys over there three or four times. Today, the burden of war is being carried by too few families."
But this week, Snowden is here to see his men. The Marines of the Fighting 4th. Just days after the death of Joe Rosenthal, the photographer who took the famous photo of Marines raising the American flag on Mount Suribachi on Iwo Jima, a general has returned to give thanks to ordinary men who once did extraordinary things.
"I owe them. They're the reason I came," Snowden said. "I know who made me a general. It wasn't the generals. It was these guys. They carried the load."
Ellie