thedrifter
11-13-08, 10:09 AM
Published: November 12, 2008 04:49 pm
The ultimate sacrifice: Veterans deserve appreciation everyday
By GREG JORDAN
Bluefield Daily Telegraph
Veterans Day 2008 is over, but the veterans are still here. Some are retired and some are on duty at this moment, living with the dangers of the Middle East, serving at bases and ports far from home, flying patrols or sailing rough seas so the United States can remain safe.
Whenever Veterans Day comes along, I can’t help thinking about the incredible stories I’ve heard from veterans of different wars. For instance, I’ve always been fascinated by World War II and I’ve had the privilege of hearing recollections the veterans of that conflict are only now sharing.
One day I was working on a story when an older gentleman came to the newsroom. I was up to my neck in stories already, but naturally I took a moment to see how I could help him. It turned out that he was a U.S. Coast Guard veteran who had helped land Marines on the beach of Iwo Jima. He remembered the artillery barrages the Japanese hurled at the Americans struggling to take the fortified island and the casualties it cost. In one instance, he spoke to a sergeant serving with one outfit; after two days, only a handful of those 100 Marines were either wounded or killed.
I’d hear these veterans sharing their memories and wonder how on earth they survived their ordeals. One Tazewell County man told me about serving as a dive bomber’s radio man. His plane was about to take off from the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Franklin when a Japanese dive bomber suddenly managed to slam a 500-pound bomb into the Franklin’s deck.
The incredible blast literally threw the man’s dive bomber into the air. Somehow the pilot managed to get the plane airborne.
I asked what they did once they realized their carrier had been hit. He said that they proceeded with their mission — attacking Japan’s few remaining naval ships. Despite coming within seconds of death, they still had a job to do.
Toward the end of World War II, American pilots flying over Europe were seeing Germany’s air force, the Luffwaffe, using new aircraft and increasingly desperate tactics. I still remember one bomber veteran who saw what was then an extraordinary sight.
His bomber was on a mission over Europe when he suddenly spotted an unknown aircraft flying alongside. Being the turret gunner, he brought his machine guns to bear and couldn’t quite believe what he was seeing.
“I said, ‘That (profanity) doesn’t have a propeller!’” he told me.
He was likely seeing an Me 262, the first operational jet fighter. The new jet was dangerous, but it had a lot of technical problems and only the very best pilots could fly it. Allied bombers destroyed refineries producing the jet’s special fuel while fighter pilots learned to catch 262s at especially vulnerable times such as take off and landing. The threat arose, but it was met.
Then there was an interview that came about when Bluefield State College put a local high school student in contact with a veteran of D-Day. This veteran, then living in Washington, D.C., was an Army Ranger who was one of the first on Omaha Beach. He was wounded by a German grenade known as a “potato masher” as soon as he reached the cliffs overlooking the beach. For all of a cold night, he had to say under a rock overhang, watch the battle and wonder whether the invasion of Europe was succeeding.
The next morning, he saw German soldiers coming down the beach. For an instant, he thought the invasion had failed and that the Germans were moping up survivors, but then he saw that they had their hands up. These soldiers were hardly more than children, some probably only 15 or 16 years old. When a sailor on a excavation ship said he was going to shoot them, a wounded Ranger officer told him that he would be court martialed if he fired a shot.
The man didn’t fire. “When a Ranger said he was going to do something, he meant it,” the veteran recalled.
These are only a few of the recollections veterans have to share. I haven’t told the stories I’ve heard of the Korean War or Vietnam, or spending some time with sailors aboard the U.S.S. West Virginia, a missile boat — submariners refer to their vessels as boats — who stay at sea for months at a time.
Veterans deserve a special day, but their accomplishments have had a lasting impact that should be remembered every day. What they did in the past is important, and what they are now doing to protect the nation is essential, too.
There is hardly a day that is not somehow a veteran’s day.
Greg Jordan is a reporter for the Daily Telegraph. Contact him at gjordan@bdtonline.com
Ellie
The ultimate sacrifice: Veterans deserve appreciation everyday
By GREG JORDAN
Bluefield Daily Telegraph
Veterans Day 2008 is over, but the veterans are still here. Some are retired and some are on duty at this moment, living with the dangers of the Middle East, serving at bases and ports far from home, flying patrols or sailing rough seas so the United States can remain safe.
Whenever Veterans Day comes along, I can’t help thinking about the incredible stories I’ve heard from veterans of different wars. For instance, I’ve always been fascinated by World War II and I’ve had the privilege of hearing recollections the veterans of that conflict are only now sharing.
One day I was working on a story when an older gentleman came to the newsroom. I was up to my neck in stories already, but naturally I took a moment to see how I could help him. It turned out that he was a U.S. Coast Guard veteran who had helped land Marines on the beach of Iwo Jima. He remembered the artillery barrages the Japanese hurled at the Americans struggling to take the fortified island and the casualties it cost. In one instance, he spoke to a sergeant serving with one outfit; after two days, only a handful of those 100 Marines were either wounded or killed.
I’d hear these veterans sharing their memories and wonder how on earth they survived their ordeals. One Tazewell County man told me about serving as a dive bomber’s radio man. His plane was about to take off from the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Franklin when a Japanese dive bomber suddenly managed to slam a 500-pound bomb into the Franklin’s deck.
The incredible blast literally threw the man’s dive bomber into the air. Somehow the pilot managed to get the plane airborne.
I asked what they did once they realized their carrier had been hit. He said that they proceeded with their mission — attacking Japan’s few remaining naval ships. Despite coming within seconds of death, they still had a job to do.
Toward the end of World War II, American pilots flying over Europe were seeing Germany’s air force, the Luffwaffe, using new aircraft and increasingly desperate tactics. I still remember one bomber veteran who saw what was then an extraordinary sight.
His bomber was on a mission over Europe when he suddenly spotted an unknown aircraft flying alongside. Being the turret gunner, he brought his machine guns to bear and couldn’t quite believe what he was seeing.
“I said, ‘That (profanity) doesn’t have a propeller!’” he told me.
He was likely seeing an Me 262, the first operational jet fighter. The new jet was dangerous, but it had a lot of technical problems and only the very best pilots could fly it. Allied bombers destroyed refineries producing the jet’s special fuel while fighter pilots learned to catch 262s at especially vulnerable times such as take off and landing. The threat arose, but it was met.
Then there was an interview that came about when Bluefield State College put a local high school student in contact with a veteran of D-Day. This veteran, then living in Washington, D.C., was an Army Ranger who was one of the first on Omaha Beach. He was wounded by a German grenade known as a “potato masher” as soon as he reached the cliffs overlooking the beach. For all of a cold night, he had to say under a rock overhang, watch the battle and wonder whether the invasion of Europe was succeeding.
The next morning, he saw German soldiers coming down the beach. For an instant, he thought the invasion had failed and that the Germans were moping up survivors, but then he saw that they had their hands up. These soldiers were hardly more than children, some probably only 15 or 16 years old. When a sailor on a excavation ship said he was going to shoot them, a wounded Ranger officer told him that he would be court martialed if he fired a shot.
The man didn’t fire. “When a Ranger said he was going to do something, he meant it,” the veteran recalled.
These are only a few of the recollections veterans have to share. I haven’t told the stories I’ve heard of the Korean War or Vietnam, or spending some time with sailors aboard the U.S.S. West Virginia, a missile boat — submariners refer to their vessels as boats — who stay at sea for months at a time.
Veterans deserve a special day, but their accomplishments have had a lasting impact that should be remembered every day. What they did in the past is important, and what they are now doing to protect the nation is essential, too.
There is hardly a day that is not somehow a veteran’s day.
Greg Jordan is a reporter for the Daily Telegraph. Contact him at gjordan@bdtonline.com
Ellie