Veterans Draw on WWII Bonds After Hit and Run

By Clarence Williams
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, February 20, 2008; B02


Sixty-three years ago, the three soldiers survived the Battle of Iwo Jima, avoiding enemy fire as they drove amphibious vehicles, filled with vital munitions for the Marines, from ship to shore.

"On the beach you could see a lot of body parts; the water was red with blood," recalled Joseph Mills, 82, of Feb. 19, 1945, the day of the landing. "I know one thing. Everybody was scared."

Mills and his friends survived one of the bloodiest campaigns of the war, as well as years of service in which they felt they sometimes were treated as outcasts. The military segregated them both as black soldiers and as members of an Army supply unit attached to a Marine force, they recalled. They remained loyal to one another for decades -- and now they are steeling themselves for another battle.

Mills was struck Jan. 24 by a hit-and-run driver and is at National Rehabilitation Hospital with a cracked rib, collapsed lung and broken knee and shoulder. Yesterday, his friends -- Frederick Douglass Gray, 82, and Arthur Peterson, 94 -- stopped by to offer encouragement and help make sure D.C. police investigate the case and he gets medical benefits.

The accident took place just after Mills left his apartment building for an afternoon walk to a corner market. He made the trek every day to pick up a newspaper. With his four-pronged cane, which he started using after a stroke in 1990 weakened the left side of his body, Mills was in a crosswalk when he was hit at 13th and Taylor streets NW. The vehicle was going south on 13th and making a left turn onto Taylor.

"Sometimes it really gets to you, man," Mills said, his speech slurred from the stroke. "I know this hospital, and this place is going to cost a whole lot of money."

Mills was in his hospital wheelchair, his left leg in a full-length cast, his arm in a sling. The anniversary of the Iwo Jima battle led Gray and Peterson to reminisce about their military days, a diversion from the hospital room routine.

Mills and Gray were born three weeks apart -- Mills in Charlottesville and Gray in Calvert -- and were 18 when they were drafted in 1943. Early on, they met Peterson. The men recalled enduring segregated facilities throughout training in Virginia, Florida and Louisiana before they shipped out to the tiny Pacific island. Although they were subjected to unequal treatment on the home front and away from battle, in combat that wasn't the case, they said. In the fighting at Mount Suribachi, their race didn't matter.

"On the battlefield, everybody is friends," Gray said.

The men stayed at Iwo Jima until the war's conclusion six months later. Afterward, they remained friends through marriages, child-rearing and retirement, all in the Washington area. Mills worked 35 years as a Metropolitan Club waiter. Gray, of Columbia, was a National Park Service construction official for three decades. And Peterson, of Forestville, handled insurance sales for D.C. taxicabs.

"We were friends in the military, because we were from the same area," said Peterson, their first sergeant on Iwo Jima, who winked and said, "I was good to them."

Like many black World War II veterans, the men thought they deserved considerably more recognition for their achievements -- a view shared by those who fought beside them and others familiar with their stories. Decades later, they finally got it.

In April 1979, at a ceremony held at the Iwo Jima memorial in Arlington, the 476th Amphibious Truck Company was honored for its work driving land-sea "Duck" trucks filled with supplies; the vehicles are similar to those that now carry tourists on Washington streets and along the waterfront.

Yesterday, the men said that they intend to push D.C. police to do more to find the hit-and-run driver -- not only for the sake of justice but also to find someone who could be held accountable for the medical bills. Gray said he also planned a trip to Veterans Affairs to see what help that agency can provide.

Mills said he hadn't been contacted by D.C. police since the day of the accident. Yesterday, a police official said the report on his case was misfiled at the 4th Police District, which includes the intersection of 13th and Taylor streets, delaying the investigation. The report was located after The Washington Post made inquiries, and officers will contact Mills, police said.

Ellie