Post by Galvin on Jul 25, 2008 4:22:33 GMT -7
My mother's maiden name was Ward.
She had two brothers, one whose name I share and the other was my uncle George. George graduated from Yale (Maybe not Summa Cum Laud like his brother and my namesake David Ward but a Yalie nonetheless) and joined the Marine Reserve prior to WWII.
He was a weapons instructor at the time. He was also photogenic enough to appear on some of the Marine recruiting posters that were displayed in U.S. Post offices during WWII.
After being stuck stateside for much of the war while rising to the exalted rank of Lieutenant he was finally shipped out to a bleak little lump of black volcanic sand and rock with the Fourth Marine Division as part of a government real estate acquisition project.
Iwo Jima was the name of that lump.
He commanded a unit of those ton and a half International trucks fitted with racks on the back that held artillery rockets. The name of the game was to drive to an area within range of the target, set up, find the target and lay the rockets on it as fast as possible, then pack up and drive like hell out of the immediate vicinity before the counter battery fire arrived.
Some of the defining pictures of the Iwo Jima battle are of those rocket firing trucks in one of the first uses of this type of artillery on land by U. S. forces.
After surviving Iwo Jima he was called up again and I remember vivdly my aunt coming apart as we saw him off to Korea at El Toro. He was always one of my favorite relatives for his quiet sense of humor, a trait I found quite appealing.
When Clint Eastwood did the research for his "Flags of Our Fathers" and "Letters from Iwo Jima" movies he tried to track down as many of those on both sides who had been involved. In the process he found that uncle George was indeed the last survivor of that entire rocket battalion on Iwo.
He then tracked down George, who was living with my aunt Betty in Aptos on the northern shore of Monterey Bay, and invited him down to his place to see the movie and to give him an award. My uncle obligingly drove down to the southern shore of the bay, couldn't find Eastwood's place in Carmel, said "to hell with this", and drove back home.
For anyone here who has put on the uniform adorned with the same globe and anchor that George Ward wore on Iwo and that my own father wore on Okinawa, pause a moment and reflect that one more piece of the U. S. Marine Corps' living tradition has become part of the ages.
After being felled by two strokes but hanging on until his 91st birthday, Major George Ward, USMC (Ret'd.) died yesterday. He is survived by his wife Betty and his son Greg, who is a federal judge. My cousin Jean, his daughter, died earlier this year.
Semper Fi
She had two brothers, one whose name I share and the other was my uncle George. George graduated from Yale (Maybe not Summa Cum Laud like his brother and my namesake David Ward but a Yalie nonetheless) and joined the Marine Reserve prior to WWII.
He was a weapons instructor at the time. He was also photogenic enough to appear on some of the Marine recruiting posters that were displayed in U.S. Post offices during WWII.
After being stuck stateside for much of the war while rising to the exalted rank of Lieutenant he was finally shipped out to a bleak little lump of black volcanic sand and rock with the Fourth Marine Division as part of a government real estate acquisition project.
Iwo Jima was the name of that lump.
He commanded a unit of those ton and a half International trucks fitted with racks on the back that held artillery rockets. The name of the game was to drive to an area within range of the target, set up, find the target and lay the rockets on it as fast as possible, then pack up and drive like hell out of the immediate vicinity before the counter battery fire arrived.
Some of the defining pictures of the Iwo Jima battle are of those rocket firing trucks in one of the first uses of this type of artillery on land by U. S. forces.
After surviving Iwo Jima he was called up again and I remember vivdly my aunt coming apart as we saw him off to Korea at El Toro. He was always one of my favorite relatives for his quiet sense of humor, a trait I found quite appealing.
When Clint Eastwood did the research for his "Flags of Our Fathers" and "Letters from Iwo Jima" movies he tried to track down as many of those on both sides who had been involved. In the process he found that uncle George was indeed the last survivor of that entire rocket battalion on Iwo.
He then tracked down George, who was living with my aunt Betty in Aptos on the northern shore of Monterey Bay, and invited him down to his place to see the movie and to give him an award. My uncle obligingly drove down to the southern shore of the bay, couldn't find Eastwood's place in Carmel, said "to hell with this", and drove back home.
For anyone here who has put on the uniform adorned with the same globe and anchor that George Ward wore on Iwo and that my own father wore on Okinawa, pause a moment and reflect that one more piece of the U. S. Marine Corps' living tradition has become part of the ages.
After being felled by two strokes but hanging on until his 91st birthday, Major George Ward, USMC (Ret'd.) died yesterday. He is survived by his wife Betty and his son Greg, who is a federal judge. My cousin Jean, his daughter, died earlier this year.
Semper Fi