Virginia Veterans Remember; 101

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passersby it's b welcome to this local special virginia veterans remember i really laid during world war two about three hundred thousand virginians enlisted that's one out of every ten virginians and of those who went overseas it's estimated that about eleven thousand of them never returned the bravery and sacrifice of those who served to replace them in a position of honor and now joining us are for virginians to serve the commonwealth and our nation and world war two we begin with russell scott he

was with the army air corps and a p o w in germany he served about two and half years also joining us is sam jackson of the us marine corps who served in the pacific specifically in okinawa and he served about two and half years as well also john burke he was a ranger who landed in normandy on d day and served nearly three years with the service and finally the green mile or who stayed on the home front and working with the us so for a couple of years thank you all for joining us today to start with those of you who were drafted into the service and who volunteer who's drafted here okay but you were drafted but that leaves you you were a volunteer explain why you wanted to join well i a volunteer to keep from then drafted choose a registered nurse laura it which is what you did as well russell you were drafted but then he volunteered a specific service let's write one about

you in the rain what made you want to join others are working with the uss well i had to promise to grow old and my boyfriend and no one is a big motivator know isn't it well i thought that there's something i got me doing an ana work in the caucus in iowa and waves to north carolina and then in virginia doesn't begin with inaugural out and they claim the monsters came in that is that you know when you like to dance and on that when the big names that came in and they said when to help us rethink it would like to help us i hope you will help us do get the usa starting theater an asset if i won i love to add some pointed out of the village and i am so would flatten the wall it was their bed and so we start in the us said it is amazing to see what could only women were doing on the home front to sort of help for a final round let's talk a little bit about the other end of that you were actually a

prisoner of war in germany no morality they explain events leading up to that well i had i was in the service one year one month in one day the data that we shot them will do is a specific torre about the way where we were stationed in corsica and we were bombing the railroad bridge in oh italy then we got over the target and when we got over the target the flexed on the coming out and i had when i was a kid i had noticed they all down and now from norfolk virginia that you could say he's going to one off in cities like puff of smoke and i always thought would've liked both a smoke and tell us all what happened to us when a black poets come up they explode and its mettle of comfort and let's call

flat and not what job so how many of you went down from a plane fly way there were many claims you're the only one who actually was down there was minus explains include nerve fibers then they call we were the only one that got hit too amount in the thing to be shot down how many of you were on the plane and hand it made it to the ground there were six of us on the brian five of us got out and the pollock went down with the play and then from what i can understand he was killed when he had to grant any guesses to why he stayed in that claim i have no idea why he stayed in the plane because there were plenty of parachute on the plane because of made being a new crew mambo i didn't know that i was not supposed to pick up extraneous will shoot when you have extra sheets and so i had picked up shoots any guest gentleman as to why a pilot would stay with the plane as that sort of

code they began to get really doomed it would move in the orphanage for a few well to when you were present and what happened with you in your mates and one of the tell us about the actual imprisonment when you when you're entered into camp well i was taken from a log italy and taken up to a lot of transit camp then from the transit camp i was taken to approve the war camp which was five hundred men in the camp when i got that were not a lamp that was ten thousand all they'll force enlisted man in that camp along ah broke mob that one night at the ground and the parachute and i didn't go didn't have any medical care and i think what they'll a thing

i did get a call lombard cause set to wear a war that fall about a month and then another followed came in all and his then it was worth of mind so i gave him my close to ask you how you were treated by your captors well we whale force and i think there was an agreement between the two rail forces the german and mr icahn that noel ford for the wood work so we did not the work but the food we didn't get into food the mountain so would we be fair to say you were treated poorly as a piano ah and no no no you must have been scared we were we were a dead when we went to take a shower we got to shout was a million but we did have a wife and we can sort of take the buyouts and that was fine we'll talk a little bit about your experience because the ad and then the drama of being a prisoner of

war is something that meant most of us can only relate to through books through film and the same is true of your experience john you were there during the invasion of normandy and at the time did you know that this would be such an historic moment could read sure did you know at the time that this would be such an historic moment is it really didn't give that us commandos fought the historic we just looked at as a you know we had an objective and we have to take it and we went and did it right explain anything about the historic now explain events from from your perspective of the event that though we were told half three days prior to the day rule of hms will pull british ship that we were what our objective was of course we had trained for top possibly two years in class climbing an

amphibious in whatever yeah and then we got on the boat they told us what her actual targets were not only point of openness that failed what we were supposed to do as a secondary mission so the click climbing became your secondary mission of the white vote of those though there could climb in came the primary mission and we were just to sit out there until we got the yellow green flair from our the second battalion which was the first of the law and we know that generally speaking most were sitting ducks in the water or does there was artillery come in and eighty eights machine gun fire mortars so your ability to go to the cliff's same do now that we just a mobilizer could you actually proceed but we couldn't do anything to ship their wait for the flare to come and what does any way with wellesley garbage we got a red flare that means a sales if they get a

yellow green and flair come up if we didn't get that flare we wouldn't go down into omaha beach of their bill stronger and the flare for from the second battalion never came because they were off target themselves because of the current and they were half an hour late going up so we had to move down and going with the twenty nine division hundred and sixtieth infantry and it all was that their village where we went and we ran parallel to the beach and all the time we rarely prowled take a lot of fire we're injured in all of this not not only gay but later once they do receive the purple heart yes what is in your mind what was most significant about that day the slaughter that was taking place it was i mean something that tell you can prepare yourself for

i think about the pictures and i had seen of the marines going into tara was and going into work what a canal in places like that and that ran through my mind and i was experiencing that for the first time yes it was but some a little bit about your involvement in the war as well you did volunteer business post pearl harbor he served in okinawa what was your experience at that time and what parts were going through your mind at the time he decided to the social that their invasion of okinawa maple first year twenty five nineteen forty thirty years when no opposition on a beach watch or the macho over the year japanese had changed her tactics are completely

lived and died in the church that they would could inflict as many casualties is impossibly good holding that this would the disparity honestly from invading in japan the local labor and they are casualties were those the da had told the two hundred and seventy seven girls and kill and eighty three goes home alone they share john's view of this at a he described the day as a bloodbath years there's snow was not on the beach but ours was our only at the mayan line of defense are grossly allen an architect of those about show phil which of orlando and weird to those an example of marine company combat strength is two hundred and forty

men have had to move the you know first they were torrential men standing in that one bottle of first to hit it and they knew it took a good ten days to capture that change plans ten terms do attend lives and for sure most members of a wonk know what goes through a man's mind during an event like that i don't know that you were in the fight rather than your traditional the chilling you're thinking of john's nodding in agreement same thing with you or different what about taking a look at that day and looking at it from a perspective of this number of decades later how does it feel now failed

all the radio desert over and other than that it was a miscarriage or was only eighteen years old of a chimp like a drained there is that this region now free but i agree with all that i think about the us all the sacrifices that were made within reason the pacific or in your pto all and look back on a nice sometimes wonder if it was it all worth it off barra we were asked do something and we get it and you look at the world the day in how would cost countries are supporting us and which countries are supporting us are it confuses me certainly people will be looking back on iraq where this way but let me ask you that question because john brings it up if you

were put in that position would you do it again oh like how would you think you would do it again and i think i would knowing all you know now when and what your family in jordan we've had to go through it all the love that i am i'm actually asking a question about patriotism because i could see all four of you are patriots i'm just wondering if this is something that you would put yourself forget what about you so were true john harwood has a jaded view you we talk about the sacrifices and from the home front perspective what are the sacrifices that you and your family endured during this was everything was so rash and you know and because she would do anything with fat and server issue and they're like that showed up and all the gang coast

gasoline and all that stuff you need all the team and then stealing stuff to be all these up with perils for the wall and that was so limited that it do just you couldn't wait to top things you used to eat because the bottle bills that were too good and a robot on a path of the things you got used to work as we were going in and where i came from it was a big farming we've raised asked the ethanol and oil but when you hear that somebody else was out of that are we just took it you know put in quarantine on what about the workplace and what the workplace what was what was it like to be back when so many men were away but to be back of this terrible and when cats were been killed and goes up from a small town if you heard that and everybody loved their body and that and he just wants the road so many layers and i just found that this dish her what was it at camp meeting and that's where a

lot of the boys came through this time and that's not what they're doing and rubber farmer linus van that you could be invited them down and you go to church you're an errant sailors were invited to dinner and then when this means that we could get out there there says all that last and everything and i got quite popular because it was a home away from home and that's where jeanette bill it would go in an article adapted to an american and not to kill it but they have to do it but that was happening that that we could help some some bowlers that they could've been robert kagan aboard three and you just felt like you had to do those things in after the war i got eleven from those that said they will not forget that it was a home away from on the getaway from on the train and everything that we're going to have a particular affinity for the us so because it was there that my mother and father met my father served in world war two

on the home front and lo and behold he meets my mom so one of the bright spots of their lives and have to say that you play a lot of things wrong and you ran against a new web is it ended up like a bat that i was applying lots of allegiance and then set up in the bank and i used to know all the planes and actress but fine gentlemen let us girls and so schools and families of spectacle of or closely and with fab in the war we had to start going well and you're right that starts in the window of my mom when as a liberal bill because she was so afraid we would get a telegram and she would just send us and would run was we had to muscles does looking back only of them navigate those things

and i'm guessing as a saying just couldn't rat i rode a bicycle to work and the court has an hour about secular realm of girlfriends in the second verse well i suppose that in the wrapper and that is our new show we get women women than what we possibly could at that time and i wasn't a novel for genuine the boyfriend own pearl harbor day and it was just unbelievable and we had been going together and he said i'm not going in are making eight and he said to me so he volunteered for lourdes work and that's wait a minute when some minds and at the pacific was that one way of avoiding being drafted was to volunteer for the reserve yes

yes he wanted to i wanted to let the engineer and now and then he donated now as me what i'm going to listen to harvard and the mountain up the system changed the whole world when i'm gone so and as we saw in them as you say you never spoke of it you know when i was right on some more you know sheet metal and then of course a cinematic the pacific and some of things that i always assumed people took a pattern at least for their girlfriend or their wives was going on they said a suspect in the andes over anywhere not going back to your experiences in any of all share your unique experiences with them or how hobbies changed you as a person let's start with halloween in it being a bmw in germany and having comrades go down changed you well there's a been a lot of

changes because when i come back and they have now way into church and i believe in the church and i do a lot of work for the church also volunteer then it just saying that to be nice to people all the town hall like to use the bay when we went into service everybody would yes sir and no ma'am and find like that when mad at a neo soul i say that things all logged over and anne let's go which you say what about you personally how he changed as a person as a result of the experience well i've had a mature role of the years about florida just for forty years my teenage years during

the whole snowden get a chance to enjoy the birth to have to do that to record it and what i observed tale and what he said that i was just a young kid will win an eighteen years old when you get out you know you've seen a lot new experience a lot not our maturity and but with a bit of sadness i was my brother or you know i lost all my buddies of the only let the guy left in my squad makes you think and appreciate a lot of things and the people that went to war are always people people hold front sacrifice in gave off it it was a

different side and when he pulled together and i've never forget that the people sacrificed on the whole front dyson the women then i re which insures we all work together and so there was it was a very unsteady i think will come only once in many centuries is it a kind of sense of community that you think hasn't been repeated it has not been repeated a lot of vietnam i mean getting killed in vietnam was just says you just as dead and vietnam of europe itself or in france or germany and what the public get to these people there was an inhumane know that it doesn't exist so the pick your opinion the pr around world war two and others' opinion very different very different and yet the same result the issue and father

you're very young many many young men were listed do you think it makes a difference that such impressionable young men were involved in and maybe it would have been easier had they been older or do you think that young men are more resilient the military wants to young people because young people and more fear guilt they charged a borrower and when you get older you i'm sure it will and an aunt in terms of sort of recovering from that kind of trauma the think the young man is just more resilient either you ever recover from its very rich in your brain all the sounds of where all the tragedies there's just a wide mouth there's no way you can what we hear a lot about post traumatic stress syndrome and that's something that didn't necessarily even our surface at the time of world war two people didn't know what posttraumatic stress was do you think that any of you have suffered that as a

result of the war not think i think we have to but we didn't know what it was until it's kmart know well i have three brothers no sisters all for what we're in service to women and one was in the sixth division which was completely capture but he was a liaison pollak got a plane off the ground all for what john battelle until one that was wounded a group of guys i should probably for audience summarize your release from the p o w i can't you were actually one of the folks who who was saved he didn't have to sit try to sneak out of breakdown only candidate morning at obama's promise that approved the wall fell right and i knew that if i tried to get out of that i didn't know how to get but usaid for an event like this seems like it was there a gamble because they're with us today and thank you so much for

sharing your story and i wanna thank all of our guests for joining us today and sharing their stories we appreciate your time and your sacrifice says and if you would like to learn more about virginians who gave their lives not only in world war two but also in korea vietnam and the persian gulf go to virginia war memorial online at the a war memorial dot org and they really for the community idea stations thanks for watching it's b alls the pay