PDA

View Full Version : Retired Marine receives honors



thedrifter
10-24-07, 10:18 AM
Posted on Wed, Oct. 24, 2007
Retired Marine receives honors
Spam accomplishments earn 93-year-old a spot in history
By Jan A. Igoe
The Sun News

http://media.myrtlebeachonline.com/smedia/2007/10/23/23/617-bw1024yezierski.embedded.prod_affiliate.78.JPG

Janet Blackmon Morgan/The Sun News
Retired Marine Corps Lt. Col. Peter Yezierski as a 17-year-old captain's orderly aboard the U.S.S. Tulsa. Yezierski said he remembers seeing a Marine's uniform and the red stripe enticed him. So as a 15-year-old, he lied about his age and enlisted in Springfield, Mass.


Peter Paul Yezierski loved being a Marine from the time he lied about his age to enlist at 15 to his retirement as a lieutenant colonel in 1966.

One of the few remaining China Marines, Yezierski can rattle off Chinese cities like he's still patrolling the Yangtze River aboard the U.S.S. Tulsa during World War II.

Now 93 and under hospice care, the longtime Myrtle Beach resident was recently honored for his lifetime accomplishments at Marine Base Quantico, Va.

Known to friends as Ski, he spent much of his career performing miracles with Spam and C rations in combat zones across the globe.

Yezierski became the first commissioned officer in USMC Food Services in Corps history, said retired ceremonial Marine Jim Donovan, who arranged the event.

"He's what they call a Mustang - an enlisted man who becomes an officer," Donovan said. "He also is a legend in the Marine Corps in his own right."

During the invasion at Guadalcanal, Yezierski found a way to make fresh doughnuts on the front lines, teaching troops how to fry them in their helmets.

He dispatched runners with specially mixed bags of dry ingredients and oil to the front.

"Voila. Fresh doughnuts," Donovan said. "You're seeing your friends get killed and maimed. Your life could be over in a matter of minutes. You're thinking of a girlfriend, your mother, your family ... and somebody says, 'Take a break; have a doughnut.' It means a lot."

Roger Pilcher, 72, who also retired as a lieutenant colonel, knew Yezierski from Camp Lejeune, N.C., long before they moved to Myrtle Beach and ended up as neighbors by sheer chance.

"He was a hard Marine, a disciplinarian kind of guy ... and he was inventive. He came up with different ways to do things for the troops. He'd ask, 'Why can't I have a big old cookout for 2,000 people?'" Pilcher said.

"Everybody remembers in the field today, he'd requested to put out a smorgasbord meal. No one had ever tried it before. People in the food services still call him the Smorgasbord King."

Yezierski, who was born on the Fourth of July, said he had to be creative because there was so little to work with.

"We still had C rations from World War I. You had to smash the crackers with a hammer. There was nothing but Spam and Vienna sausage. I made Spam sauce, hamburgers and meatloaf - all that out of Spam for the boys," he said.

"For breakfast, we had powdered stuff: powdered eggs, milk, everything. I doctored it up. Did everything I could think of to make soft scrambled eggs."

If there was a way to get fresh food to the troops, Yezierski was known to bend a few rules to do it.

"Back in the old days of the Corps, they got the scraps from the Army. Each service branch controlled their own food, weapons and equipment. The Marines were always last," Donovan said. "You didn't have the supplies you needed. In combat zones, they did what they could to survive."

On Wallis Island in the South Pacific, where Marines awaited deployment, Yezierski spotted fresh produce and meats in a beachfront staging area.

He secured a set of bars and donned an officer's uniform to get past the Army sentry, where he loaded up six trucks to make sure his troops got their share, Donovan said. "It was a redeployment of Army field rations by a Marine mess sergeant."

During his 34 years in the Corps, Yezierski met his late wife, Muriel, in Australia.

He survived malaria and elephantitis, accompanied Hollywood stars on war bond tours and spent time in the reserves. He trained at the Waldorf=Astoria and Schrafts Candy and went on to train hundreds of future chefs and food service personnel at Camp Lejeune.

He has received accolades from generals and made friends with a "Who's Who" of Corps big shots such as the late Lt. Gen. Lewis "Chesty" Puller, who pinned his bars on. But Yezierski still misses "feeding his boys."

His daughter, Julie Lovett, 62, will care for him until the time comes for his final trip to Arlington National Cemetery. He will bring Muriel's ashes with him, Pilcher said.

"It's a funny thing with Marines. When an enlisted man talks to an officer, you always say 'Sir,'" Donovan said. "You always respect the rank. But sometimes you respect the rank and the man."

Contact JAN A. IGOE at jigoe@thesunnews.com or 626-0366.

http://media.myrtlebeachonline.com/smedia/2007/10/23/23/189-c1024yezierski.standalone.prod_affiliate.78.JPG

http://media.myrtlebeachonline.com/smedia/2007/10/23/23/136-ebw1024yezierski.standalone.prod_affiliate.78.JPG

Ellie