Heroes

[Ruth, Gun's Mom]

My husband wrote this to me from work. It made me cry...

___ sent me a story about the author who wrote Flag of our Fathers. He spoke to a group of kids at the Iwo Jima memorial and told the story of each of the flag raisers. Here is what I sent back to her.

　

I've read the book and it is emotional and a honor of those who were there. I've been to the memorial with a group of WW2 vets on a honor flight. The vet that I was a guardian for was a Marine at Iwo Jima. All the Iwo Jima vets there would only say, it was bad. They all had tears in their eyes as they remembered and talked of their buddies who died there, as if was yesterday.

My Dad turned down three Purple hearts from his being wounded. He was a First Lieutenant in a armored tank division in the invasion of North Africa, Sicily, Anzio, Naples, Rome, and Monte Cassino. He had malaria so bad at Monte Cassino that they put him in a shallow shell hole grave, because they thought he was going to die and they figured with the shelling going on they wouldn't have time to dig one if he died. He also was in Korea and fought against the hoards of Chinese that piled up four high dead in front of him. It took him twenty years to talk about the experiences of two wars. When he worked here at the Arsenal they were going to send him to the forward fire bases in Vietnam as a weapons Tech. He couldn't go because the malaria, (it stays with you for life).

He also said 'I want you always to remember that the heroes of WW2 are the guys who did not come back. I took that trip with those guys on the honor flight to honor him as well as the plane load of other heroes. He died in 2002 before they even finished the WW2 memorial or thought of sending the survivors of WW2 for free. I did know he sat next to me the entire trip.