thedrifter
12-15-07, 07:03 AM
Purple Heart unites trio of ex-Marines
By Michael N. Graff
Staff writer
HOPE MILLS — Conversations flow faster than the coffee during breakfast at the Trade Street Cafe just off Main Street.
It’s Saturday morning, and you have your pick of topics and experts. There’s the police chief, chatting up the fire chief, chatting up a popular minister.
But the wildest story spills from the two old guys and their doctor — all ex-Marines — sitting there looking unremarkable with their holiday-themed coffee mugs.
Their talk covers a course far removed from local politics or griping neighbors. Their story covers six decades and two continents.
“Hell, what do you have, a month or two to listen to it?” one of the old guys asks sharply.
Really, they need only a couple of hours, with several pauses for wisecracking.
Before the lunch rush, they finish their tale of two Marine riflemen who met in a bloody war hospital in the Pacific in 1944, then lived very separate lives over the next 63 years, then stumbled into each other by pure accident in a doctor’s office in southeastern North Carolina in 2007, and finally joined forces again for one last mission — to get one of them his long overdue Purple Heart.
Rene Bouillot was 22 in April 1944. His mother, back home in New York, worried endlessly about his safety.
Both of Bouillot’s parents were immigrants from France. Between them, they lost four siblings in World War I, all dying as members of the French army.
After arriving in the United States, they married, moved to New York and had their only son. Bouillot signed up to fight for the United States in World II just after his 18th birthday.
By 1944, his parents had good reason to worry. Things were ugly in the Pacific. Japanese soldiers weren’t taking prisoners. They were killing them first.
“They committed a few atrocities,” Bouillot says. “They were beheading soldiers. They mutilated their bodies.”
Three years after he joined the service, Bouillot was part of the 3rd Marine Division when it made landfall in Guam in April of that year.
He was running in shallow water toward a beach when a mortar round fell on his unit. Shards of shrapnel shot into his right leg.
He was lucky.
“The guy on my right got killed; the guy on my left got his guts ripped open, and there was another fella behind me who got killed, too.”
After tending to his fellow Marines the best he could, Bouillot dragged himself to a medical tent on land.
Waiting to see the doctor, he met another Marine, Don Burtis, who had a very direct first question.
“What the hell kind of name is Rene?” Burtis asked.
“Well, it’s French,” Bouillot responded.
Don Burtis never gave his dad a chance. Growing up in Syracuse, N.Y., he insisted on joining the Marines when he was 16.
“I was so close to the Canadian border, I told my dad if he didn’t sign up for me, I’d go into the Canadian army,” Don says.
Burtis spent his 17th birthday in the Battle of Guadalcanal in 1942.
In April of ’44, he had been moved to the 4th Marine Regiment and also had engaged in the campaign on Guam.
Burtis lost his left ring finger in combat there. He still doesn’t like to give details, hiding them behind a joke: “I was trying to surrender and they shot it off.”
Regardless, Burtis wound up in the same medical tent as Bouillot.
“They gave you a girl’s name,” Burtis told his new friend. “I’m gonna call you Frenchie instead.”
Both were treated and returned to their units with physical battle souvenirs — Bouillot had gained some shrapnel, Burtis had lost a ring finger.
They certainly didn’t promise to keep in touch. Not in that war. They simply went back to fight, never to see each other again, they believed.
Both were told they’d receive Purple Hearts for being injured in combat.
Neither cared at the time.
“Medals?” Bouillot says he was always taught to think. “That’s your job. You do what you’re doing and you don’t need medals.”
Says Burtis: “As far as I’m concerned, the real heroes are only known to their buddies.”
They survived the war and then lived their own lives.
Both were married and divorced.
Each has buried a son.
Bouillot left the service and built a career working for Purolator. In 1982, he took a promotion within the company and moved to Fayetteville. He traveled the country setting up warehouses, and he married his current wife.
Burtis, meanwhile, left the Marines after the war. He worked for a phone company in New York for a few years, decided civilian life wasn’t for him, and enlisted in the Army. He retired as a Special Forces soldier in 1977. But in his heart, even now at 82, he’s still a Marine.
“Once a Marine,” he says, “always a Marine.”
Burtis, who also fought in Vietnam with the Army, has at least four Purple Hearts that he claims, including the one he received for losing his finger in Guam.
Bouillot is still waiting for one.
Robert Ferguson, the third figure in this unlikely trio, is a decorated former Marine Corps pilot who flew and fought in Vietnam. He later moved to the Air Force and retired as a captain. He and his wife have two sons and a daughter, all of whom are officers in the military.
After he retired from service, Ferguson earned his medical degree and now owns three urgent-care centers in Cumberland County.
Still, he says, there are times he wrestles with the question, “What have I really done with my life?”
That was on his mind three years ago when Ferguson started treating a Marine veteran named Bouillot.
During an exam, Ferguson noticed the shrapnel still lodged in the former platoon sergeant’s leg. Bouillot, well into his 80s by then, had forgotten he was living with it.
Always up for a good military story, Ferguson asked questions. Bouillot obliged and told him everything — mortar, dead company-men and all.
“But there’s one thing: they never gave me my Purple Heart,” Bouillot told his doctor. “They said they would, but they didn’t.”
Suddenly, Ferguson had a new focus. He wanted that medal for his patient.
“He was wounded in service of our country,” Ferguson says. “He deserves his medal.”
Ferguson wrote the Marines, he wrote to congressmen, he wrote everybody he could.
The response he received was a cold blow.
Bouillot could have his Purple Heart — but he needed a witness.
Only about 10 of the 55 soldiers in Bouillot’s original platoon even survived the war. There was no way they’d find a witness, he and the doctor figured.
“Thanks for trying,” Bouillot told Ferguson.
Earlier this year, Ferguson started treating Burtis. And three months ago, Ferguson looked into his office lobby and saw Bouillot and Burtis sitting next to each other. Their appointments overlapped. They were telling old war stories.
“Hey, Doc, I remember him,” Burtis told Ferguson. “He had a girl’s name. I called him Frenchie.”
“That’s the wonderful thing about life — it’s absurd,” Ferguson says, sitting in his Saturday morning seat, directly across from the two old soldiers. “What are the chances of this happening?”
With Burtis as the sworn witness, they sent off paperwork for Bouillot’s Purple Heart about a month ago. They’re still waiting to hear back.
Ferguson is getting anxious. He’s written everybody he can think of — including U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Dole and the president — trying to expedite the process.
“Before he’s done, I want to see him get it,” the doctor says. “He’s 86 years old.”
Bouillot insists it’s not a pressing issue.
“I’m going to exist until 100,” he says, laughing.
For now, they’ll keep waiting and meeting Saturday mornings at their bustling little hangout, ready to eat, trade war stories and toss barbs at one another.
When the bill arrives, the two old guys put up little fight when the doctor offers to spring for breakfast.
Ever-impatient and always on a tight schedule, Burtis is the first to rise. He grabs his cane and pulls on his coat.
“Behave yourself, wouldya?” Bouillot tells him. “You’ll get a halo on your head.”
“Why?” Burtis asks back. “I’m an ex-Marine. I can always say I served my time in hell.”
That’s the tie, they say, that will forever bind them. No Purple Hearts needed.
Then there’s an awkward pause, before the good doctor closes the morning in their universal language.
“Semper fi, sir,” he says.
Burtis throws his hand to his head in salute, before responding.
“All the way.”
Staff writer Michael N. Graff can be reached at graffm@fayobserver.com or 486-3591.
Ellie
By Michael N. Graff
Staff writer
HOPE MILLS — Conversations flow faster than the coffee during breakfast at the Trade Street Cafe just off Main Street.
It’s Saturday morning, and you have your pick of topics and experts. There’s the police chief, chatting up the fire chief, chatting up a popular minister.
But the wildest story spills from the two old guys and their doctor — all ex-Marines — sitting there looking unremarkable with their holiday-themed coffee mugs.
Their talk covers a course far removed from local politics or griping neighbors. Their story covers six decades and two continents.
“Hell, what do you have, a month or two to listen to it?” one of the old guys asks sharply.
Really, they need only a couple of hours, with several pauses for wisecracking.
Before the lunch rush, they finish their tale of two Marine riflemen who met in a bloody war hospital in the Pacific in 1944, then lived very separate lives over the next 63 years, then stumbled into each other by pure accident in a doctor’s office in southeastern North Carolina in 2007, and finally joined forces again for one last mission — to get one of them his long overdue Purple Heart.
Rene Bouillot was 22 in April 1944. His mother, back home in New York, worried endlessly about his safety.
Both of Bouillot’s parents were immigrants from France. Between them, they lost four siblings in World War I, all dying as members of the French army.
After arriving in the United States, they married, moved to New York and had their only son. Bouillot signed up to fight for the United States in World II just after his 18th birthday.
By 1944, his parents had good reason to worry. Things were ugly in the Pacific. Japanese soldiers weren’t taking prisoners. They were killing them first.
“They committed a few atrocities,” Bouillot says. “They were beheading soldiers. They mutilated their bodies.”
Three years after he joined the service, Bouillot was part of the 3rd Marine Division when it made landfall in Guam in April of that year.
He was running in shallow water toward a beach when a mortar round fell on his unit. Shards of shrapnel shot into his right leg.
He was lucky.
“The guy on my right got killed; the guy on my left got his guts ripped open, and there was another fella behind me who got killed, too.”
After tending to his fellow Marines the best he could, Bouillot dragged himself to a medical tent on land.
Waiting to see the doctor, he met another Marine, Don Burtis, who had a very direct first question.
“What the hell kind of name is Rene?” Burtis asked.
“Well, it’s French,” Bouillot responded.
Don Burtis never gave his dad a chance. Growing up in Syracuse, N.Y., he insisted on joining the Marines when he was 16.
“I was so close to the Canadian border, I told my dad if he didn’t sign up for me, I’d go into the Canadian army,” Don says.
Burtis spent his 17th birthday in the Battle of Guadalcanal in 1942.
In April of ’44, he had been moved to the 4th Marine Regiment and also had engaged in the campaign on Guam.
Burtis lost his left ring finger in combat there. He still doesn’t like to give details, hiding them behind a joke: “I was trying to surrender and they shot it off.”
Regardless, Burtis wound up in the same medical tent as Bouillot.
“They gave you a girl’s name,” Burtis told his new friend. “I’m gonna call you Frenchie instead.”
Both were treated and returned to their units with physical battle souvenirs — Bouillot had gained some shrapnel, Burtis had lost a ring finger.
They certainly didn’t promise to keep in touch. Not in that war. They simply went back to fight, never to see each other again, they believed.
Both were told they’d receive Purple Hearts for being injured in combat.
Neither cared at the time.
“Medals?” Bouillot says he was always taught to think. “That’s your job. You do what you’re doing and you don’t need medals.”
Says Burtis: “As far as I’m concerned, the real heroes are only known to their buddies.”
They survived the war and then lived their own lives.
Both were married and divorced.
Each has buried a son.
Bouillot left the service and built a career working for Purolator. In 1982, he took a promotion within the company and moved to Fayetteville. He traveled the country setting up warehouses, and he married his current wife.
Burtis, meanwhile, left the Marines after the war. He worked for a phone company in New York for a few years, decided civilian life wasn’t for him, and enlisted in the Army. He retired as a Special Forces soldier in 1977. But in his heart, even now at 82, he’s still a Marine.
“Once a Marine,” he says, “always a Marine.”
Burtis, who also fought in Vietnam with the Army, has at least four Purple Hearts that he claims, including the one he received for losing his finger in Guam.
Bouillot is still waiting for one.
Robert Ferguson, the third figure in this unlikely trio, is a decorated former Marine Corps pilot who flew and fought in Vietnam. He later moved to the Air Force and retired as a captain. He and his wife have two sons and a daughter, all of whom are officers in the military.
After he retired from service, Ferguson earned his medical degree and now owns three urgent-care centers in Cumberland County.
Still, he says, there are times he wrestles with the question, “What have I really done with my life?”
That was on his mind three years ago when Ferguson started treating a Marine veteran named Bouillot.
During an exam, Ferguson noticed the shrapnel still lodged in the former platoon sergeant’s leg. Bouillot, well into his 80s by then, had forgotten he was living with it.
Always up for a good military story, Ferguson asked questions. Bouillot obliged and told him everything — mortar, dead company-men and all.
“But there’s one thing: they never gave me my Purple Heart,” Bouillot told his doctor. “They said they would, but they didn’t.”
Suddenly, Ferguson had a new focus. He wanted that medal for his patient.
“He was wounded in service of our country,” Ferguson says. “He deserves his medal.”
Ferguson wrote the Marines, he wrote to congressmen, he wrote everybody he could.
The response he received was a cold blow.
Bouillot could have his Purple Heart — but he needed a witness.
Only about 10 of the 55 soldiers in Bouillot’s original platoon even survived the war. There was no way they’d find a witness, he and the doctor figured.
“Thanks for trying,” Bouillot told Ferguson.
Earlier this year, Ferguson started treating Burtis. And three months ago, Ferguson looked into his office lobby and saw Bouillot and Burtis sitting next to each other. Their appointments overlapped. They were telling old war stories.
“Hey, Doc, I remember him,” Burtis told Ferguson. “He had a girl’s name. I called him Frenchie.”
“That’s the wonderful thing about life — it’s absurd,” Ferguson says, sitting in his Saturday morning seat, directly across from the two old soldiers. “What are the chances of this happening?”
With Burtis as the sworn witness, they sent off paperwork for Bouillot’s Purple Heart about a month ago. They’re still waiting to hear back.
Ferguson is getting anxious. He’s written everybody he can think of — including U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Dole and the president — trying to expedite the process.
“Before he’s done, I want to see him get it,” the doctor says. “He’s 86 years old.”
Bouillot insists it’s not a pressing issue.
“I’m going to exist until 100,” he says, laughing.
For now, they’ll keep waiting and meeting Saturday mornings at their bustling little hangout, ready to eat, trade war stories and toss barbs at one another.
When the bill arrives, the two old guys put up little fight when the doctor offers to spring for breakfast.
Ever-impatient and always on a tight schedule, Burtis is the first to rise. He grabs his cane and pulls on his coat.
“Behave yourself, wouldya?” Bouillot tells him. “You’ll get a halo on your head.”
“Why?” Burtis asks back. “I’m an ex-Marine. I can always say I served my time in hell.”
That’s the tie, they say, that will forever bind them. No Purple Hearts needed.
Then there’s an awkward pause, before the good doctor closes the morning in their universal language.
“Semper fi, sir,” he says.
Burtis throws his hand to his head in salute, before responding.
“All the way.”
Staff writer Michael N. Graff can be reached at graffm@fayobserver.com or 486-3591.
Ellie