Remembering Pearl Harbor In 2014

Although it has been 73 years since the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, the memories endure for those few remaining veterans who survived this attack.

The following article tells the story of one of those men:

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92-YEAR-OLD WORLD WAR II VET RECALLS SURVIVING PEARL HARBOR

Fresno Bee

By BoNhia Lee

December 5, 2014

via Military.com 

Joe Quercia was talking to a buddy and staring out a porthole of the USS Medusa in Pearl Harbor when gunfire rang out and an explosion rocked the Hawaiian naval base on Dec. 7, 1941.

"I watched all these planes coming over and (heard) the Arizona get blown up," Quercia, 92, of Fresno, said of the attack on the battleship as it was berthed in Oahu. "When it exploded, you could sure feel that."

The attack by Japanese pilots continued for about an hour and a half, turning what was supposed to be the start of a day off at the beach into the beginning of the United States' involvement in World War II.

"We lost about 2,500 service men and how many million tons of iron was sunk?" said Quercia, whose recollection of that day remains sharp. "Eight battleships were hurt. We had 20-something ships that got injured."

Quercia, who served as a naval chief petty officer, is one of the central San Joaquin Valley's few remaining Pearl Harbor survivors. The Valley once had 150 veterans who were stationed at the base when the Japanese attacked, but those numbers have dwindled, leaving only a few to continue sharing their experiences.

On Sunday, Quercia will join a handful of other survivors at the annual Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day ceremony. This year it will be at the Clovis Veterans Memorial District.

The event was moved from Fresno, where it was held last year at the Legion of Valor Museum in the Veterans Memorial Auditorium. Before that, the ceremony was conducted at the Fresno veterans hospital for years.

Quercia believes there could be as many as 10 remaining local survivors, but only four have attended the ceremony in the last couple years, he said. "We're all in our 90s now," he said.

The northeast Fresno resident grew up in west Fresno and enlisted in the Navy when he was 18. Quercia was stationed on a repair ship, with no guns, about a block away from the USS Arizona when it was hit. He served in the Navy for six years.

"I gave them six years and that was enough for me," Quercia said. "The water is so big and you get tired staying on the ocean."

Tim Springer, who is organizing Sunday's event with the help of the Veterans of Foreign Affairs Post 3225 and other veterans service organizations, continues to hold the ceremony to honor the living veterans and those who have passed.

The motto of the Pearl Harbor Survivors Association, whose local branch disbanded in 2011, is to "remember Pearl Harbor, keep America alert," Springer said.

"We want to honor these guys, them and their friends who made the ultimate sacrifice on Dec. 7, 1941 so they are not forgotten."

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The lessons from Pearl Harbor include the need for a strong military, how important intelligence-gathering is, and the requirement that we never assume that the worst possible scenario won't happen tomorrow.

Charles M. Grist

www.MyLastWar.com

Remembering Pearl Harbor: The Greatest Generation's 9-11

For the members of my generation, the day of infamy is September 11, 2001, when terrorists attacked America, killing some 3,000 of our citizens.

For the members of my parents' generation, that day of infamy will remain December 7, 1941, when the Japanese attacked America's naval fleet in Hawaii, also killing thousands.

The members of the Greatest Generation are fast fading from the scene, but I hope each of you will take the time today to pray for the victims of the 1941 attack and their families. For some of these veterans, the memories are as real today as they were then.

Those of us who are veterans of other wars can understand that...

Charles M. Grist
Author of the award-winning book My Last War: A Vietnam Veteran's Tour in Iraq

Legendary WWII Cartoonist Bill Mauldin Honored With Stamp

This article was forwarded to me by a friend:

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Bill Mauldin stamp honors grunts' hero

The post office gets a lot of criticism. Always has, always will. And with the renewed push to get rid of Saturday mail delivery, expect complaints to intensify.

But the United States Postal Service deserves a standing ovation for something that's going to happen this month: Bill Mauldin is getting his own postage stamp.

Mauldin died at age 81 in the early days of 2003. The end of his life had been rugged. He had been scalded in a bathtub, which led to terrible injuries and infections; Alzheimer's disease was inflicting its cruelties. Unable to care for himself after the scalding, he became a resident of a California nursing home, his health and spirits in rapid decline.

He was not forgotten, though. Mauldin, and his work, meant so much to the millions of Americans who fought in World War II, and to those who had waited for them to come home. He was a kid cartoonist for Stars and Stripes, the military newspaper; Mauldin's drawings of his muddy, exhausted, whisker-stubbled infantrymen Willie and Joe were the voice of truth about what it was like on the front lines.

Mauldin was an enlisted man just like the soldiers he drew for; his gripes were their gripes, his laughs were their laughs, his heartaches were their heartaches. He was one of them. They loved him.

He never held back. Sometimes, when his cartoons cut too close for comfort, his superior officers tried to tone him down. In one memorable incident, he enraged Gen. George S. Patton, and Patton informed Mauldin he wanted the pointed cartoons -- celebrating the fighting men, lampooning the high-ranking officers -- to stop. Now.

The news passed from soldier to soldier. How was Sgt. Bill Mauldin going to stand up to Gen. Patton? It seemed impossible.

Not quite. Mauldin, it turned out, had an ardent fan: Five-star Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, supreme commander of the Allied forces in Europe. Ike put out the word: Mauldin draws what Mauldin wants. Mauldin won. Patton lost.

If, in your line of work, you've ever considered yourself a young hotshot, or if you've ever known anyone who has felt that way about himself or herself, the story of Mauldin's young manhood will humble you. Here is what, by the time he was 23 years old, Mauldin had accomplished:

He won the Pulitzer Prize. He was featured on the cover of Time magazine. His book "Up Front" was the No. 1 best-seller in the United States.

All of that at 23. Yet when he returned to civilian life and he grew older, he never lost that boyish Mauldin grin, he never outgrew his excitement about doing his job, he never big-shotted or high-hatted the people with whom he worked every day.

I was lucky enough to be one of them; Mauldin roamed the hallways of the Chicago Sun-Times in the late 1960s and early 1970s with no more officiousness or air of haughtiness than if he was a copyboy. That impish look on his face remained.

He had achieved so much. He had won a second Pulitzer Prize, and he should have won a third, for what may be the single greatest editorial cartoon in the history of the craft: his deadline rendering, on the day President John F. Kennedy was assassinated, of the statue at the Lincoln Memorial slumped in grief, its head cradled in its hands. But he never acted as if he was better than the people he met. He was still Mauldin the enlisted man.

During the late summer of 2002, as Mauldin lay in that California nursing home, some of the old World War II infantry guys caught wind of it. They didn't want Mauldin to go out that way. They thought he should know that he was still their hero.

Gordon Dillow, a columnist for the Orange County Register, put out the call in Southern California for people in the area to send their best wishes to Mauldin; I joined Dillow in the effort, helping to spread the appeal nationally so that Bill would not feel so alone. Soon more than 10,000 letters and cards had arrived at Mauldin's bedside.

Even better than that, the old soldiers began to show up just to sit with Mauldin, to let him know that they were there for him, as he, long ago, had been there for them. So many volunteered to visit Bill that there was a waiting list. Here is how Todd DePastino, in the first paragraph of his wonderful biography of Mauldin, described it:

"Almost every day in the summer and fall of 2002 they came to Park Superior nursing home in Newport Beach, California, to honor Army Sergeant, Technician Third Grade, Bill Mauldin. They came bearing relics of their youth: medals, insignia, photographs, and carefully folded newspaper clippings. Some wore old garrison caps. Others arrived resplendent in uniforms over a half century old. Almost all of them wept as they filed down the corridor like pilgrims fulfilling some long-neglected obligation."

One of the veterans explained to me why it was so important:

"You would have to be part of a combat infantry unit to appreciate what moments of relief Bill gave us. You had to be reading a soaking wet Stars and Stripes in a water-filled foxhole and then see one of his cartoons."

Mauldin is buried in Arlington National Cemetery. This month, the kid cartoonist makes it onto a first-class postage stamp. It's an honor that most generals and admirals never receive.

What Mauldin would have loved most, I believe, is the sight of the two guys who are keeping him company on that stamp.

Take a look at it.

There's Willie. There's Joe.

And there, to the side, drawing them and smiling that shy, quietly observant smile, is Mauldin himself. With his buddies, right where he belongs. Forever.

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Thanks to Bill Mauldin and to the members of the Greatest Generation who saved the world for the rest of us.

Charles M. Grist
www.MyLastWar.com

Remembering D-Day: June 6, 1944

The members of my parent’s generation always remember where they were on the day that the Allies began the fight to re-take Europe from the Nazis (as we will always remember where we were on 9-11).

Gathering off the coast of France were the Allied forces which consisted of some 3,000 landing craft, 2,500 other types of ships and some 500 naval vessels. According to the history.com website, the warships included seven battleships and eighteen coastal cruisers.

Some Americans were going about their routines here in the States and worrying about their friends and relatives who were fighting the war around the world. Many of those friends and relatives were fighting their way onto the beaches of Normandy simply trying to stay alive, but determined to deny the Nazis their dream of world conquest.

The invasion would take place at five key beaches, codenamed Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno and Sword. The heaviest resistance was at Omaha and Utah beaches. Casualties were heavy, but the beachhead was eventually established at great cost.

For a detailed timeline of this invasion, go to this page at www.history.com. The above photo shows General Eisenhower meeting with troops of the 101st Airborne Division before the invasion began.

On this day, please take time to remember the brave warriors of the Greatest Generation who served during the greatest invasion in history. Remember also those who gave their lives that day.

The next time you see an older gentleman wearing a hat that says “World War II Veteran”, thank him and buy him lunch.

SFC Chuck Grist
www.AmericanRanger.blogspot.com