SPECIAL DAY: What Veterans Day would be complete without a word
from our favorite World War II soldier, Elmer DeLucia?
The former corporal writes, “We honor all veterans of the Armed
Forces today. Those on D-Day, June 6, 1944, and the men who never
even made it to the beach at Omaha. The price they paid was so we
can have the freedom we have today. Yes, they are the real
heroes.”
“I will never forget the talk Gen. Eisenhower gave on the eve of
D-Day, the invasion. I did not know then I would spend 313 days in
combat and 60 straight days on the line with our 4.2 mortars. Some
of my best friends were killed in Normandy. Through rain, mud, snow
– same clothes on for 60 days, no shower. Always in foxholes,
burned-out towns. You can imagine the sanitary conditions. We had
very little sleep. For a while K-rations. We ate onions from the
field.
“I will never forget the day our former chief of police Bob
Zimmerman came over to me, gave me first aid when a German tank
fired a shell at us. Bob was a medic from another company. Our
seven-man crew knocked out that tank. We fired two shells. One hit
the track, the other shell hit the top. The tank caught on fire. I
never was so scared. If we missed, I might not be here today.
“In our three companies, 41 men were killed in combat. In my own
family, three brothers, four Purple Hearts. I support the troops
over in combat zones.”
AND ALSO: From another war, Denny Ordiway of Emporium writes: “A
couple of highlights during my four years in America’s Air Force
was Christmas Day 1968 when Bob Hope’s USO show came to Phu Cat Air
Base, Vietnam. A month later, I had six days R&R (rest and
relaxation) in Sydney, Australia.”
“The peak U.S. troop strength in Vietnam was 543,000 in April
1969, which just happened to be when I finished my tour of duty. A
total of 295,000 airmen went to Vietnam, and some paid the ultimate
sacrifice.
“The most shocking article I read in the Stars and Stripes
newspaper during my year in Vietnam was the Christmas Eve 1968
crash of Allegheny Airlines trying to land at Bradford-McKean
Airport.” A few days later, of course, was the second Allegheny
crash at Pine Acres.
