Life’s Journeys

WAR AND PEACE THROUGH MY FATHER’S EYES

When I inherited my father’s Marine Corps WWII Service album, I went quickly through it, thinking to myself how can I possibly keep this pictorial journal of war and death? For the first two years, it was hidden away in a back shelf, but somehow, it kept calling to me.   Finally, after four years, I gave it to a friend three states away for “safekeeping.”  But within two months, for reasons beyond reason, the war album showed up in my mailbox.  So, if it was meant to stay with me, then why?  After considerable and deep thought, it came to me to share these remnants of war as experienced through the eyes of one man—my father.

As the ideas began to form and shape in my mind, it occurred to me that by sharing these snapshots and notes there might be information useful for genealogical searches, for instance.  But, most importantly my generation perhaps can gain better perspective and insight into what our parents memories contained, as we deal with the violence and stripping of our constitutional rights today. This is my way of turning something negative into a positive tool in some way.  If only one person out there finds this information useful in a positve way,  I will feel my own mission accomplished, and perhaps this album will have finally found it’s ultimate purpose.

I am forever proud of my fathers courage—he is a hero to me, but he came away from it knowing that war was not the answer. The men and women who have served this great country did so believing that they would ensure freedom for their families and their descendants. We cannot let them down by allowing our government in ANY generation rewrite our Constitution to their own ends.

Please wake, up, America.

******

I was inside a huge crater with two other guys when the enemy opened fire on us. The first explosion dropped to our left and the second one, to our right. We knew this was a ‘pinning’ strategy. We waited for the third explosion,but it never came; this is when we realized that the .30-caliber water-cooled machine guns we had been aiming at them were jammed! We were helpless. All around us, the crossfire was lighting up the sky, and it was paralyzing.
It was the next day, September 19, 1944, when we were all walking toward our target, Bloody Nose Ridge, when I was hit by fire in the left side. I was down and could not move, but I felt no pain, no pain at all. Then I was hit two times in the left arm, and while the medics were trying to work on me, the bottom of my left foot was split open by shrapnel. I yelled in pain this time; ‘Oh, God! My foot, my foot!’ I heard someone say ‘Damn your foot! Your guts are hanging out!” There must have been a force that very much wanted me to make it through, because everything that should have happened, didn’t happen. With our guns jammed, a third missle would have got us for sure, but it never came. Without exception, the hospital ship moved out to sea at night, but for reasons that could never be explained, that ship came back to shore to get me that night.

In April of 1998, just months before he passed on, my father finally talked about the war.  I am grateful that he passed this account down to me before he left.

“If my soldiers began to think, not one of them would remain in the ranks.”
Frederick the Great

Photos were likely taken by a war photographer–I do not think my father took any of the Peleliu war shots, although he was in the middle of most of the action. Newspaper accounts and notes on photos used terms we might consider unacceptable today.. I have not altered them in any way–it was all part of that era.

FELLOW FRIENDS; FELLOW ENEMIES: 1943-1944
Moments of Innocence.

PELELIU, BLOODY NOSE RIDGE: September 1944
Innocence lost. 
(WARNING: These are not location shots from the movie “Saving Private Ryan.” They are reality and they are graphic in nature.

MARTY’S USMC LOG AND DIARY: 1944-45
Marty was wounded only a few days into the battle so entries are rather sparse. Includes notice to his parents and newspaper draft article (Excerpt from interview: “Shortly after I landed on Peleliu on D-day, I became separated from my outfit and, before I realized it, I was pinned down by a sniper…..”.

HOPE IN THE MIDST OF DESPAIR
Bob Hope USO Tour: I have identified Mr. Hope, Jerry Cologna, and actress Frances Langford (with the help of an aunt). I have not identified the others. Do you know?

ON THE BEACH AT PELELIU: An Inspirational story by Brooking Rouse Gex 
I found this photocopied published story in my Father’s USMC Album. It appeared in `Earth Angel` magazine in 1996 and was authored by a Medic on Peleliu at the time my father was there and wounded. The Medic`s name was Brooking Rouse Gex. I will never know if my dad was one of the men on a stretcher attended by medic Brooking Gex, but he did tell me that after he was shot, he had an out-of-body experience and remembered `standing by` to get back into his body.