Our departing ‘Greatest Generation’ of WWII vets
Owing to the creative powers of three men, Major Dick Winters became one of our most famous heroes of World War II.
The three who made it happen were Steven Spielberg, Tom Hanks and the late WWII historian Stephen Ambrose. Together, they created the historic epic, “Band of Brothers.”
Before that, Winters’ personal history was little known, even though his small unit leadership on D-Day is still taught at West Point.
In World War II, he was commanding officer of Easy Company, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne, the company immortalized in the book and miniseries of the same name that debuted on HBO, in 2001.
Beating the Nazis and Imperial Japan took an entire “Greatest Generation” and the survivors of Easy Company knew that. We owe that history trivia nickname to newsman author Tom Brokaw, just as I owe this column’s name to the memory of Easy Company veterans.
When I last wrote about this, more WWII veterans were still with us. Writing a year or so later, nearly 99% of vets of World War II have departed. As of the week following Thanksgiving 2022, the Department of Veterans Affairs report 167,000 of the 16 million Americans who served in history’s biggest war remain this side “of that undiscovered country from which no man hath returned.” That’s a Shakespeare quote, as was the “Band of Brothers” reference from Ambrose.
“We few, we happy few, we band of brothers. For he today that shed his blood with me shall be my brother,” from Shakespeare’s Henry V, “the St. Crispin’s Day Speech” before heavily outnumbered English archers rallied to face armored knights of France and beat them at the Battle of Agincourt, in 1415.
Ambrose got that line from the Bard for the title of his book about “Easy Company,” the storied Screaming Eagles paratroopers of WWII. Easy Company and Marines in the companion Spielberg-Hanks series, “The Pacific,” stood for every American who fought the war that had to be won.
Nobody born in recent years, unless they are living through the terrors of Ukraine at the hands of Russia today, can imagine the brutality of conquest and occupation by tyrannical oppressors.
On a personal bucket list, I parachuted at Normandy, this year, with a veteran nonprofit, Liberty Jump Team, making the jump to honor our WWII predecessors. Local great-grandparents waiting on the D-Day Drop Zones turned out with their great-grandchildren to commemorate when Americans and our Allies battled the Nazis out of France, mile by bloody mile from D-Day, June 6, 1944, forward to victory, in 1945.
With my paratrooper buddy Stu Watkins and our wives, Katy and Julia, we visited the Winters and Easy Company monuments. The monuments stood at little crossroads where brave, scared, determined young men bought our freedom with their lives.
I have two local World War II vet buddies. Lou Moore, US Army Air Force, Europe, turned 100, on Oct. 30. Palmer Andrews, 96, served with Marine Corps legend Lewis “Chesty” Puller in the Pacific War.
There were beer salutes at Bravery Brewing for both these survivors, on Lou’s birthday, and the Marine Corps 247th birthday, on Nov. 10.
In a used bookstore treasure hunt over Thanksgiving, my find was a paperback reprint of “Currahee!” by Donald Burgett, the title taken from a 101st Airborne war cry.
Burgett, a paratrooper on D-Day, died five years ago at 91. “Currahee!” was the book I read at age 14 that made me want to be a paratrooper. Luckily, I got to do that, without a scratch or break.
When WWII vets depart as they must — like buddies Henry Ochsner, 101st Airborne, Al Humphrey, 82nd Airborne and Art Ray, US Navy, D-Day veterans all — it is personally saddening. But I am glad to be with the happy few who got to know them.
Dennis Anderson is a licensed clinical social worker at High Desert Medical Group. An Army paratrooper veteran, he deployed with local National Guard troops to cover the war in Iraq for the Antelope Valley Press. He works on veteran issues and community health initiatives.