I have produced a number of comic strips related to Veteran’s Day. Especially in latter years, I have tried to emphasize the universal experience of having served in the U.S. Armed Forces. Although they all placed themselves at Uncle Sam’s disposal, a large majority of veterans never experienced combat, but they almost all remember their time in the military as a unique and indelible experience. They all have their memories and their stories, and they are proud. On Veteran’s Day, we acknowledge all who served us. Having said that, I always think of my father on this day. Please indulge me. What’s the point of having a blog if you can’t brag on your old man?
My father came ashore on Omaha Beach in 1944, a member of the 1st Army’s 3rd Armored Division. It was two weeks after D-Day, but the battle for Normandy had only begun. For almost a year, Daddy and his fellow soldiers fought across northern Europe. By the time World War II was over, the division had accrued five battle stars: Normandy, Northern France, the Ardennes, the Rhineland and Central Germany. Known as the Third Herd when it arrived in France, the division soon was to be rechristened the Spearhead Division. My father was a member of a combat engineering battalion. The photo is of tanks and troops breaching the Siegfried Line, the first Americans to do so. Daddy and his buddies would have dynamited those “dragon’s teeth” and bulldozed the roads. When the going became particularly tough, they fought as infantry.
Daniel Bolger, a military historian and a retired lieutenant general, writes that there were 16 armored divisions in the U.S. Army in World War II. All fought in Western Europe. He ranks them by contributions they were able to make to the ultimate outcome. Coming in at No. 2 was the Hell on Wheels Division, the centerpiece of George Patton’s 3rd Army. Then, Bolger writes, there was one better:
“The division didn’t seek publicity; they had a war to fight. And fight they did. That’s why the 3rd Armored Division was the best in the west.”
Most of this stuff I learned from the internet years after my father had died. He didn’t talk about it much. He came home and worked as a machinist in a textile mill until he retired. Well, here’s a little publicity for you, Daddy.
10 responses to “Spearhead”
Hear, Hear!
My old man was the same. Came ashore in Normandy and went all the way through to Rhineland. A month before he passed he brought out a box that I had never seen. In it were some papers, all of my school report cards and at the bottom were boxes of WW2 medals including the Bronze Star and the Combat Medics Badge. I was stunned to say the least. When I asked about the Bronze Star he just said he had done something stupid. All in all I had him and six other uncles serve in combat arms in WW2 and they were the men that raised me. I give thanks for and miss them daily. He never spoke with me of his experiences although when he was talking with my uncles I’d occasionally catch a reference. I knew he was in Bastogne with one who married my mother’s sister. I requested his military records after he died but they had been destroyed by fire in the fifties. Those guys will be in my heart till I go myself.
Without meaning any disrespect to your dad, Jimmy – or to mine (Korea, but Stateside) and his 5 brothers (#1 at Pearl Harbor, #2 Army, ETO, #3&4 Marines, PTO, #5 Army, boot camp on VJ Day), I have to agree with Kurt Vonnegut.
He said that when he was a boy, it was Armistice Day, celebrating the end of The War To End All Wars; meant to remind us to never do something that stupid again, and it was sacred.
Then they changed to to Veteran’s Day, which is not sacred, just another day to celebrate militarism.
I will add that your dad & my uncles (and Kurt) deserve more, as they fought one of the US’s 3 major deployments (out of 250-300; even the government doesn’t know for sure) that actually had a defensive component.
They were the original Antifa, and today I celebrate them (and the guys who sacrificed to save the country 1812-14 and 1861-65).
I also regret the loss of Armistice Day and its meaning. I don’t disagree about the overemphasis of militarism. That is one reason I try on Veterans Day to emphasize the varied experiences of veterans in general.
Perhaps I am unaware of what Veterans Day has become, but those whom I know and I have never viewed the day as being about militarism. It’s about honoring those had served, especially those who were in combat.
As a Vet and daily Arlo and Janis reader I know your Dad would appreciate the honor you give him with this story. Thank you on behalf of all Vets.
I am not a vet, but DO appreciate those who were. My family had few military people, probably a matter of the small number of sons and the timing of their births.
On my dad’s side, one uncle was a chaplain in the ETO and attained the rank of Lt. Col. A cousin, still living, retired as a Vice-Admiral.
On mom’s side, an uncle (by marriage) served in the dispensary of a hospital ship in the SW Pacific; with his degree in food chemistry, I suppose the higher-ups figured he could measure out dosages accurately. He left a boatload of papers relating to his WWII time to the library in Rochester, NY.
A great uncle fought, died, and was buried in the famous “Flanders Fields” during WWI. He was German, not that he had any choice in the matter.
My wife’s ancestors include a few military men from the Civil War, Spanish-American War, probably WWI, and definitely WWII (in which one of them died in a plane). Her family had a lot of sons….
My wife’s dad served in WWII as a cartographer. Not a glitzy job, but one that made the GIs jobs easier. He said drawing maps from aerial photos was challenging, but useful.
After the war he helped design dams for the Columbia River. I saw a few of them during my trucking days.
Maps thoroughly entrance me! Having relationships laid out for easy reference is so much easier and more reliable than mere memory. That’s true whether one might be trying to analyze, medically, a set of physical symptoms or the shortest driving time between two points. In my own field of chemistry, it’d be analogous to planning a synthesis of one particular molecule: from what can it be made? From what can those chemicals be made? It continues thus until one recognizes chemicals generally available.
As a kid and even to this date, I browse(d) atlases just for fun.
Dragon’s teeth. Thank you, Mr. Johnson, for introducing them to me! Now I know. Force, because someone wants to be in charge and force others to do things their way. Solomon has been reckoned as the wisest leader, but even he messed up, and, in Dante’s poem, Solomon was a bit of a puzzle: Where would he end up in the poem? But these leaders who simply want power, even when they have little or no insight as to how to take good care of others–it’s an old, old story . .