I want you to take the time to link into an incredible story of a Veteran's Hospital physician in San Antonio, Texas, Capt. Steven Ellison, who is keenly aware of the many men and women of WW2 who are leaving us an an ever increasing and expoential rate.
Some say the men and women who grew up during the depression and served in WW2 are anywhere from 75 to 90 years of age and leaving this time and space dimension at the rate of nearly 1,500 a day... that's over 10,000 a week
We need to realize what is happening. I remember when there were still Civil War Veterans and Spanish American War Veterans. All the WW1's are gone and this generation is the next. I want to thank my niece, Christine Shaw, who lives in Flagstaff, AZ for sending this simple, sincere, and moving website.
Click the first link below to read and listen to a moving story and photographs that this Doctor has put together. Then click the second link that will allow you to listen to some excellent radio excerpts from WW2.
Below is an excellent story by Ronnie Thomas, a reporter for the Decatur Daily, Decatur Alabama. It's about "one of those special people we are losing. The story was written for last fall's Veteran's Day.
Wallace Willingham was 65 years old before he began to say much about his experiences in World War II. And then it was only at the prodding of his children. As youngsters, they tore apart their father's book about the Army's 87th Infantry Division, hoping to learn at least something of what their dad endured, after he balked at their questions.
"Were you ever shot at?" they would ask.
"Sometimes," he'd say.
So that his grandchildren and great-grandchildren also would know what he did in the war, he gathered a cache of old material, including maps, newspaper clippings, letters and photographs from storage to show them. The framed documents now occupy a place of honor on a den wall of his Betty Street Southwest home. As American soldiers battle insurgents in Iraq, the retired minister prays for them, and he honors them. He bonds with them, too, and he believes they are as much of a "greatest generation" as he was.
And he realizes that some toss "hero" about loosely. "A hero is one who does what needs to be done, when it needs to be done, regardless of the consequences," he said. "Our men and women in Iraq are heroes."
The Army drafted Willingham, now 78, out of Jacksonville High School in 1944 as an 11th-grader. He said he could have gotten a deferment because of farming, but he was ready to go.
"Anyway, who could have imagined a Depression-era Alabama farm boy getting a ride on the Queen Mary?" he said.
The luxury ship that the Allies transformed to a troop carrier docked in Scotland. In January 1945, Willingham crossed the English Channel to Le Havre, France. His unit pushed into Belgium, where fierce fighting continued in the aftermath of the major German offensive at Bastogne, known as the Battle of the Bulge.
While holding a position on a hillside in Saint-Hubert, west of Bastogne, Willingham watched famed Gen. George S. Patton Jr. riding in a jeep, reviewing the troops. Later, as Willingham's unit prepared to join the attack on the Siegfried Line — Adolph Hitler's fortification along the French and German border — Patton came for a speech to the commanders of several divisions of his 3rd Army, to "tell them what we were going to be facing." Willingham said Patton noted, "We're going to Berlin and raise the American flag, but there will be some dog tags brought back."
Willingham recounted a somewhat humorous incident that occurred near the Mosel River when he and fellow scout John Sherrer of Queens, N.Y., and four others went on patrol to nab a German soldier to interrogate about troop movements.
"It was dark, and we came upon an older fellow dressed in a uniform," he said. "We returned to camp with a local firefighter. A newspaper account ran the headline, '87th captures fire department.' But our officers told us not to fret, that he was as good as an SS trooper in giving us what we needed. We took him back, thanked him and released him."
On another patrol, Willingham and another soldier walked down a road when an 88 mm shell dropped between them. "We would have been gone for sure, but luckily, it was a dud," he said. "All I could think of at the moment was that mother had me on a prayer list at church. And I pressed the little Gideon Bible that I carried in my jacket pocket closer."
Nicknamed "Tuffy" by the men in his platoon, the scrappy Willingham crossed the Rhine River near Rheims, Germany, on March 25, 1945, his 19th birthday.
"As we fought to hold our ground, and it became more desperate for the Germans the tougher the war became," he said, "we faced five counterattacks, at times the enemy coming at us with fixed bayonets that involved some hand-to-hand combat."
Willingham's outfit drove south of Berlin and pushed to the Czechoslovakian border, where they met Russian soldiers. The war in Europe ended in May 1945, and after a 30-day leave, Willingham prepared to be a part of the force that would invade Japan. But atomic bombs dropped on two Japanese cities in early August forced surrender the next month.
Only after he felt that his mission was complete did Willingham seek help for frostbite, which he suffered in one of his legs fighting during the bitter winter. He spent the last months of 1945 in a hospital at Camp Atterberry, Ind., near Indianapolis, where the Army discharged him.
Among his medals is the Bronze Star, which he received "for meritorious achievement in ground combat against an armed enemy."
Returning home, Willingham sought to continue service to others and became a Church of God of Prophecy minister in 1949. A year later, while preaching at a revival in Decatur, he met his future wife, the former Bennie Lumpkin. They have been married 53 years. Mr. Willingham, and all the other men and women like him..... THANKS from a grateful American living free in 2005.
