Military Stories you will feel compelled to read

These outstanding short stories will change every so often and new ones will appear SO TUNE IN OFTEN

 

1

"Merry Christmas, My Friend"

 


 

 

By Lance Corporal James M. Schmidt

Twas the night before Christmas, he lived all alone,
In a one bedroom house made of plaster & stone.
I had come down the chimney, with presents to give,
And to see just who in this home did live.

As I looked all about, a strange sight I did see,
No tinsel, no presents, not even a tree.
No stocking by the fire, just boots filled with sand,
On the wall hung pictures of a far distant land.

With medals and badges, awards of all kind,
A sobering thought soon came to my mind.
For this house was different, unlike any I'd seen,
This was the home of a U.S. Marine.

I'd heard stories about them, I had to see more,
So I walked down the hall and pushed open the door.
And there he lay sleeping, silent, alone,
Curled up on the floor in his one-bedroom home.

He seemed so gentle, his face so serene,
Not how I pictured a U.S. Marine.
Was this the hero, of whom I'd just read,
Curled up in his poncho, a floor for his bed?

His head was clean-shaven, his weathered face tan,
I soon understood, this was more than a man.
For I realized the families that I saw that night,
Owed their lives to these men, who were willing to fight.

Soon around the Nation, the children would play,
And grown-ups would celebrate on a bright Christmas day.
They all enjoyed freedom, each month and all year,
Because of Marines like this one lying here.

 

 

I couldn't help wonder how many lay alone,
On a cold Christmas Eve, in a land far from home.
Just the very thought brought a tear to my eye,
I dropped to my knees and I started to cry.

He must have awoken, for I heard a rough voice,
"Santa, don't cry, this life is my choice.
I fight for freedom, I don't ask for more,
My life is my God, my country, my Corps."

With that he rolled over, drifted off into sleep,
I couldn't control it, I continued to weep.
I watched him for hours, so silent and still,
I noticed he shivered from the cold night's chill.

So I took off my jacket, the one made of red,
And covered this Marine from his toes to his head.
Then I put on his T-shirt of scarlet and gold,
With eagle, globe and anchor emblazoned so bold.

Although it barely fit me, I began to swell with pride,
And for one shining moment, I was Marine Corps deep inside.
I didn't want to leave him so quiet in the night,
This guardian of honor so willing to fight.

But half asleep he rolled over, and in a voice clean and pure,
Said "Carry on, Santa, it's Christmas Day, all's secure."
One look at my watch and I knew he was right,
Merry Christmas, my friend, Semper Fi and goodnight.

James M. Schmidt wrote this poem back in 1986 while a Lance Corporal  stationed in Washington, D.C., serving as Battalion Counter Sniper at the Marine Barracks 8th & I under Commandant P.X. Kelly and Battalion    Commander D.J. Myers [in 1986].

 

2

PIGGY BACK HERO

 

by Ralph Kenney Bennett

Tomorrow they will lay the remains of Glenn Rojohn to rest in the Peace Lutheran Cemetery in the little town of Greenock, PA , just southeast of Pittsburgh . He was 81, and had been in the air conditioning and plumbing business in nearby McKeesport .  If you had seen him on the street he would probably have looked to you like so many other graying, bespectacled old World War II veterans whose names appear so often now on obituary pages.

But like so many of them, though, he seldom talked about it.  He could have told you one hell of a story.  He won the Air Medal, the Distinguished Flying Cross and the Purple Heart, all in one fell swoop in the skies over Germany on December 31, 1944.  Fell swoop indeed.

Capt. Glenn Rojohn of the 8th Air Force's 100th Bomb Group was flying his B-17G Flying Fortress bomber on a raid over Hamburg.  His formation had braved heavy flak to drop their bombs, then turned 180 degrees to head out over the North Sea They had finally turned northwest, heading back to  England, when they were jumped by German fighters at 22,000 feet.  The Messerschmitt Me-109s pressed their attack so closely that Capt. Rojohn could see the faces of the German pilots.  He and other pilots fought to remain in formation so they could use each other's guns to defend the group.
Rojohn saw a B-17 ahead of him burst into flames and slide sickeningly toward the earth.  He gunned his ship forward to fill in the gap.  He felt a huge impact.  The big bomber shuddered, felt suddenly very heavy and began losing altitude.  Rojohn grasped almost immediately that he had collided with another plane.  A B-17 below him, piloted by Lt. William G. McNab, had slammed the top of its fuselage into the bottom of Rojohn's.  The top turret gun of McNab's plane was now locked in the belly of Rojohn's plane and the ball turret in the belly of Rojohn's had smashed through the top of McNab's.  The two bombers were almost perfectly aligned -- the tail of the lower plane was slightly to the left of Rojohn's tail section.  They were stuck together, as a crewman later recalled, 'like mating dragon flies.'

Three of the engines on the bottom plane were still running, as were all four of Rojohn's.  The fourth engine on the lower bomber was on fire and the flames were spreading to the rest of the aircraft.  The two were losing altitude quickly.  Rojohn tried several times to gun his engines and break free of the other plane.  The two were inextricably locked together.  Fearing a fire, Rojohn cut his engines and rang the bailout bell.  For his crew to have any chance of parachuting, he had to keep the plane under control somehow...

The ball turret, hanging below the belly of the B-17, was considered by many to be a death trap -- the worst station on the bomber. In this case, both ball turrets figured in a swift and terrible drama of life and death.  Staff Sgt. Edward L. Woodall, Jr., in the ball turret of the lower bomber had felt the impact of the collision above him and saw shards of metal drop past him.  Worse, he realized both electrical and hydraulic power was gone.

Remembering escape drills, he grabbed the hand crank, released the clutch and cranked the turret and its guns until they were straight down, then turned and climbed out the back of the turret up into the fuselage.  Once inside the plane's belly Woodall saw a chilling sight, the ball turret of the other bomber protruding through the top of the fuselage.  In that turret, hopelessly trapped, was Staff Sgt. Joseph Russo.  Several crew members of Rojohn's plane tried frantically to crank Russo's turret around so he could escape, but, jammed into the fuselage of the lower plane, it refused to budge.  Perhaps unaware that his voice was going out over the intercom of his plane, Sgt. Russo began reciting his Hail Marys.

 

 

 

 

Up in the cockpit, Capt. Rojohn and his co-pilot, 2nd Lt. William G. Leek, Jr., had propped their feet against the instrument panel so they could pull back on their controls with all their strength, trying to prevent their plane from going into a spinning dive that would prevent the crew from jumping out.  Capt. Rojohn motioned left and the two managed to wheel the huge, collision-born hybrid of a plane back toward the German coast.  Leek felt like he was intruding on Sgt. Russo as his prayers crackled over the radio, so he pulled off his flying helmet with its earphones.
Rojohn, immediately grasping that the crew could not exit from the bottom of his plane, ordered his top turret gunner and his radio operator, Tech Sgts. Orville Elkin and Edward G. Neuhaus, to make their way to the back of the fuselage and out the waist door on the left behind the wing.  Then he got his navigator, 2nd Lt. Robert Washington, and his bombardier, Sgt. James Shirley, to follow them.  As Rojohn and Leek somehow held the plane steady, these four men, as well as waist gunner, Sgt. Roy Little, and tail gunner, Staff Sgt. Francis Chase, were able to bail out.

Now the plane locked below them was aflame.  Fire poured over Rojohn's left wing.  He could feel the heat from the plane below and hear the sound of 50 cal. machine gun ammunition 'cooking off' in the flames.  Capt. Rojohn ordered Lt. Leek to bail out.  Leek knew that without him helping keep the controls back, the plane would drop in a flaming spiral and the centrifugal force would prevent Rojohn from bailing.  He refused the order.

Meanwhile, German soldiers and civilians on the ground that afternoon looked up in wonder.  Some of them thought they were seeing a new Allied secret weapon -- a strange eight-engined double bomber.  But anti-aircraft gunners on the North Sea coastal  island of Wangerooge had seen the collision.  A German battery captain wrote in his logbook at 12:47 p.m.:
'Two fortresses collided in a formation in the NE.  The planes flew hooked together and flew 20 miles south.  The two planes were unable to fight anymore.  The crash could be awaited so I stopped the firing at these two planes.'

Suspended in his parachute in the cold December sky, Bob Washington watched with deadly fascination as the mated bombers, trailing black smoke, fell to earth about three miles away, their downward trip ending in an ugly boiling blossom of fire.

In the cockpit Rojohn and Leek held grimly to the controls trying to ride a falling rock.  Leek tersely recalled, 'The ground came up faster and faster.  Praying was allowed.  We gave it one last effort and slammed into the ground.'  The McNab plane on the bottom exploded, vaulting the other B-17 upward and forward.  It slammed back to the ground, sliding along until its left wing slammed through a wooden building and the smoldering mess came to a stop.  Rojohn and Leek were still seated in their cockpit.  The nose of the plane was relatively intact, but everything from the B-17 massive wings back was destroyed.  They looked at each other incredulously.  Neither was badly injured.

Movies have nothing on reality.  Still perhaps in shock, Leek crawled out through a huge hole behind the cockpit, felt for the familiar pack in his uniform pocket pulled out a cigarette.  He placed it in his mouth and was about to light it.  Then he noticed a young German soldier pointing a rifle at him.  The soldier looked scared and annoyed.  He grabbed the cigarette out of Leak's mouth and pointed down to the gasoline pouring out over the wing from a ruptured fuel tank.

Two of the six men who parachuted from Rojohn's plane did not survive the jump.  But the other four and, amazingly, four men from the other bomber, including ball turret gunner Woodall, survived.  All were taken prisoner.  Several of them were interrogated at length by the Germans until they were satisfied that what had crashed was not a new American secret weapon .

Rojohn, typically, didn't talk much about his Distinguished Flying Cross...  Of Leek, he said, 'in all fairness to my co-pilot, he's the reason I'm alive today.'


Like so many veterans, Rojohn got unsentimentally back to life after the war, marrying and raising a son and daughter.  For many years, though, he tried to link back up with Leek, going through government records to try to track him down.  It took him 40 years, but in 1986, he found the number of Leeks' mother, in  Washington  State . Yes, her son Bill was visiting from California.  Would Rojohn like to speak with him?  Some things are better left unsaid.  One can imagine that first conversation between the two men who had shared that wild ride in the cockpit of a B-17.  A year later, the two were re-united at a reunion of the 100th Bomb Group in Long Beach, Calif.   Bill Leek died the following year..

Glenn Rojohn was the last survivor of the remarkable piggyback flight.  He was like thousands upon thousands of men, soda jerks and lumberjacks, teachers and dentists, students and lawyers and service station attendants and store clerks and farm boys, who in the prime of their lives went to war.

He died last Saturday after a long siege of sickness.  But he apparently faced that final battle with the same grim aplomb he displayed on that remarkable day over Germany so long ago.  

Let us be thankful for such men.

 ( written in 2003)

 

3

VETERANS

 

 

From: Cheers --- Czar  Peter 

When a Veteran leaves the 'job' and goes on to another life of work, many are jealous, some are pleased, and others, who may have already retired, wonder if he knows what he is leaving behind, because we already know.

 

1. We know, for example, that after all of the camaraderie that few experience, it will remain as a longing for those past times.

 2. We know in the Military life there is a fellowship which lasts long after the uniforms are hung up in the back of the closet.

 3. We know even if he throws his uniforms away, they will be on him with every step and breath that remains in his life. We also know how the very bearing of the man speaks of what he was and in his heart still is.

These are the burdens of the job. You will still look at people suspiciously, still see what others do not see or choose to ignore and always will look at the rest of the Military world with a respect for what they do; only grown in a lifetime of knowing.

Never think for one moment you are escaping from that life. You are only escaping the 'job' and merely being allowed to leave 'active' duty.

So what I wish for you is that whenever you ease into retirement, in your heart you never forget for one moment that you are still a member of the greatest fraternity the world has ever known.

 

NOW! Civilian Friends vs. Veteran Friends Comparisons

 

CIVILIAN FRIENDS: Get upset if you're too busy to talk to them for a week.

VETERAN FRIENDS: Are glad to see you after years, and will happily carry on the same conversation you were having the last time you met.

 

 

CIVILIAN FRIENDS: Have never seen you cry.

VETERAN FRIENDS: Have cried with you.

 

 

 

 

CIVILIAN FRIENDS: Know a few things about you.

VETERAN FRIENDS: Could write a book with direct quotes from you.

 

 

CIVILIAN FRIENDS: Will leave you behind if that's what the crowd is doing.

VETERAN FRIENDS: Will stand by you no matter what the crowd does.

 

 

CIVILIAN FRIENDS: Are for a while.

VETERAN FRIENDS: Are for life.

 

 

CIVILIAN FRIENDS: Have shared a few experiences...

VETERAN FRIENDS: Have shared a lifetime of experiences no citizen could ever dream of...

 

 

CIVILIAN FRIENDS: Will take your drink away when they think you've had enough.

VETERAN FRIENDS: Will look at you stumbling all over the place and say, 'You better drink the rest of that before you spill it!' Then carry you home safely and put you to bed...

 

 

CIVILIAN FRIENDS: Will ignore this.

VETERAN FRIENDS: Will forward this.

 

 

A veteran - whether active duty, retired, served one hitch, or reserve - is someone who, at one point in their life, wrote a blank check made payable to 'The Government of the United States of America ' for an amount of 'up to and including my life'.

 

From one Veteran to another, it's an honor to be in your company.

 

 

 

 

 

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