New insights on the legendary Chesty Puller

 

NOAH: Chesty was my Commanding Officer

during World War II and the Korean War

Remembering the family man behind the legend

Puller is a heroic figure in Marine lore but his legacy to his family went far beyond the Corps, says his son-in-law, Brig. Gen. Mike Downs (ret.). (Courtesy of Brig. Gen. Mike Downs)

The Navy's newest ship will bear the name of one of the Marine Corps' most revered, and decorated, heroes.

The sea service held a keel-laying ceremony Nov. 5 in San Diego for the USNS mobile landing platform Lewis B. Puller, named for Lt. Gen. "Chesty" Puller, recipient of five Navy crosses and arguably the most famous Marine of all time.

Virtually every Marine knows about the towering warrior who took on guerrillas in Haiti and Nicaragua and fought valiantly in some of the bloodiest battles of World War II and Korea, but what was he really like? Marine Corps Times spoke with retired Brig. Gen. Mike Downs, Puller's son-in-law, about the man behind the legend.

A Silver Star recipient and Vietnam veteran who retired in 1992, Downs said he first met Puller in 1965; Chesty had been retired almost a decade and Downs was a fast-rising first lieutenant.

Drill instructors were already teaching Marines to recite "goodnight Chesty Puller, wherever you are" when he joined the Corps, Downs said. He met the Pullers when he was stationed in Yorktown, Va., shortly before he was promoted to captain. During a visit to their home, he was introduced to their daughter, Martha, who was home from school. They took a liking to each other.

Over the next few years, Puller and Downs got to know each other better. When Puller's son Lewis, Martha's twin brother, was severely wounded in Vietnam in 1968, Downs, who was nearing the end of his Vietnam deployment, was the first one to his side and the one to report back to the family on his condition. Lewis first ventured out of the hospital to attend Downs and Martha's wedding.

Downs said he asked Puller for Martha's hand in the old-fashioned, traditional way, and though he asked that Puller's favorable response not be printed because it represented a private moment between the two men, he still remembered every word.

Puller died in 1971 at the age of 73.

Though Puller's family is very proud of his Marine Corps reputation - they attended the dedication of an 8-foot bronze statue of the highly decorated Marine at Semper Fidelis Memorial Park near Quantico, Va., last year - Puller's legacy to his family extends far beyond his time in the Marine Corps.

"My wife is obviously exceedingly proud of her father, as she is of her mother," Downs said. 

"She would always be quick to point out that who she is proud of is Lewis B. Puller, the man, her father. She understands his reputation in the Marine Corps. Her relationship is not with the Marines, her relationship is with her father."

One day in 1966, after he and Puller had known each other for awhile, Downs asked the legend to autograph a photo of himself from a deployment to Korea. The inscription, he recalled, read "To Capt. Michael P. Downs, 1966. My friend and an excellent Marine who I predict will go far."

"I was really proud of that picture," he said. It hung in his office until after he married Martha in 1969.

Puller wasn't one to talk about himself, Downs said, and they didn't discuss his growing fame among young Marines.

But he thinks Puller might be surprised at the way his name has come to represent the "old Corps," as when Marines - young and old - indicate their disapproval of change by saying "Chesty's rolling over in his grave."

"He lived through huge change in the Marine Corps himself," Downs said. "There was a whole lot of difference between the Marine Corps of the '20s and '30s and the post-World War II Marine Corps, for sure. He certainly never lost his pride in the Marine Corps and his relationship to it ... he wouldn't endorse anything that he perceived to be going soft, but he would adjust. He adjusted to his time in the Marine Corps, so he would adjust to it today."

Of one thing Downs is sure: Puller would be proud of Marines' performance in Iraq and Afghanistan, and of today's Corps.

Marine Corps Times
~Hope Hodge Seck

America’s annual Thanksgiving Day

28 November 2013

 

The 87th anniversary Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade returns to kick-off the Holidays with its giant helium balloons, floats of fancy, marching bands, celerities, performance groups and the one-and-only Santa Claus.

From new giant characters helium balloons including Paul Frank's iconic monkey Julius and Sonic the Hedgehog, to out-of this world floats including ZHU-NIVERSE! and Frozen Fall Fun, the magic begins at the sound of Let's Have A Parade! This iconic phrase has catapulted gaggles of clowns, exciting performance groups, pulse-pounding marching bands, celebrities and the one-and-only Santa Claus down the streets of Manhattan for 87 years of unrivaled wonder.

The Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade will step-off at 77th Street and Central Park West. The procession will travel down to Columbus Circle, turn onto Central Park South and march down a new path via 6th Avenue/Avenue of the Americas to 34th Street. At 34th Street, the Parade will make its final turn west and end at 7th Avenue in front of Macy's Herald Square. This incredible cavalcade will make its way down 6th Avenue, a broader, more accessible path that marks only the seventh time the Parade has changed its route.

 

The Pilgrims left Plymouth, England, on September 6, 1620. Their destination? The New World. Although filled with uncertainty and peril, it offered both civil and religious liberty. For over two months, the 102 passengers braved the harsh elements of a vast storm-tossed sea. Finally, with firm purpose and a reliance on Divine Providence, the cry of "Land!" was heard. Arriving in Massachusetts in late November, the Pilgrims sought a suitable landing place. On December 11, just before disembarking at Plymouth Rock, they signed the "Mayflower Compact" America's first document of civil government and the first to introduce self-government.  After a prayer service, the Pilgrims began building hasty shelters. However, unprepared for the starvation and sickness of a harsh New England winter, nearly half died before spring. Yet, persevering in prayer, and assisted by helpful Indians, they reaped a bountiful harvest the following summer. The grateful Pilgrims then declared a three-day feast, starting on December 13, 1621, to thank God and to celebrate with their Indian friends. While this was not the first Thanksgiving in America (thanksgiving services were held in Virginia as early as 1607), it was America’s first Thanksgiving Festival. Pilgrim Edward Winslow described the Pilgrims’ Thanksgiving in these words: “Our harvest being gotten in, our Governor sent four men on fowling [bird hunting] so that we might, after a special manner, rejoice together after we had gathered the fruit of our labors. They four in one day killed as much fowl as- served the company almost a week. Many of the Indians [came] amongst us and their greatest King, Massasoit, with some ninety men, whom for three days we entertained and feasted; and they went out and killed five deer, which they brought. And although it be not always so plentiful as it was at this time with us, yet BY THE GOODNESS OF GOD WE ARE FAR FROM WANT. In 1789, following a proclamation issued by President George Washington, America celebrated its first Day of Thanksgiving to God under its new constitution. That same year, the Protestant Episcopal Church, of which President Washington was a member, announced that the first Thursday in November would become its regular day for giving thanks, "unless another day be appointed by the civil authorities." Yet, despite these early national proclamations, official Thanksgiving observances usually occurred only at the State level. Much of the credit for the adoption of a later ANNUAL national Thanksgiving Day may be attributed to Mrs. Sarah Joseph Hale, the editor of Godey’s Lady’s Book. For thirty years, she promoted the idea of a national Thanksgiving Day, contacting President after President until President Abraham Lincoln responded in 1863 by setting aside the last Thursday of November as a national Day of Thanksgiving. Over the next seventy-five years, Presidents followed Lincoln’s precedent, annually declaring a national Thanksgiving Day. Then, in 1941, Congress permanently established the fourth Thursday of each November as a national holiday. Lincoln’s original 1863 Thanksgiving Proclamation came "spiritually speaking" at a pivotal point in his life. During the first week of July of that year, the Battle of Gettysburg occurred, resulting in the loss of some 60,000 American lives. Four months later in November, Lincoln delivered his famous "Gettysburg Address." It was while Lincoln was walking among the thousands of graves there at Gettysburg that he committed his life to Christ. As he explained to a friend: When I left Springfield [to assume the Presidency], I asked the people to pray for me. I was not a Christian. When I buried my son, the severest trial of my life, I was not a Christian. But when I went to Gettysburg and saw the graves of thousands of our soldiers, I then and there consecrated myself to Christ. As Americans celebrate Thanksgiving each year, we hope they will retain the original gratefulness to God displayed by the Pilgrims and many other founding fathers, and remember that it is to those early and courageous Pilgrims that they owe not only the traditional Thanksgiving holiday but also the concepts of self-government, the "hard-work" ethic, self-reliant communities, and devout religious faith.

Veterans Day 

  

This holiday is observed on November 11, regardless of what day of the week on which it falls. The restoration of the observance of Veterans Day to November 11 not only preserves the historical significance of the date, but helps focus attention on the important purpose of Veterans Day: 

"A celebration to honor America's veterans for their patriotism, love of country, and willingness to serve and sacrifice for the common good."

A POEM ABOUT A MILITARY VETERAN

Author unknown

My Cousin Ruth in Athens, Texas, sent this to me. Thanks, Ruth for sharing it.

He was getting old and paunchy

And his hair was falling fast,

And he sat around the Legion,

Telling stories of the past.

Of a war that he once fought in

And the deeds that he had done,

In his exploits with his buddies;

They were heroes, every one.

And 'tho sometimes to his neighbors

His tales became a joke,

All his buddies listened quietly

For they knew where of he spoke.

But we'll hear his tales no longer,

For ol' Joe has passed away,

And the world's a little poorer

For a Veteran died today.

He won't be mourned by many,

Just his children and his wife.

For he lived an ordinary,

Very quiet sort of life.

He held a job and raised a amily,

Going quietly on his way;

And the world won't note his passing ,

'Tho a Veteran died today.

When politicians leave this earth,

Their bodies lie in state,

While thousands note their passing,

And proclaim that they were great.

Papers tell of their life stories

From the time that they were young,

But the passing of a Veteran

Goes unnoticed, and unsung.

Is the greatest contribution

To the welfare of our land,

Some jerk who breaks his promise

And cons his fellow man?

Or the ordinary fellow

Who in times of war and strife,

Goes off to serve his country

And offers up his life?

The politician's stipend

And the style in which he lives,

Are often disproportionate,

To the service that he gives.

While the ordinary Veteran,

Who offered up his all,

Is paid off with a medal

And perhaps a pension, small.

It is not the politicians

With their compromise and ploys,

Who won for us the freedom

That our country now enjoys.

Should you find yourself in danger,

With your enemies at hand,

Would you really want some cop-out,

With his ever-waffling stand?

Or would you want a Veteran

His home, his country, his kin,

Just a common Veteran,

Who would fight until the end.

He was just a common Veteran,

And his ranks are growing thin,

But his presence should remind us

We may need his likes again.

For when countries are in conflict,

We find the Veteran's part,

Is to clean up all the troubles

That the politicians start.

If we cannot do him honor

While he's here to hear the praise,

Then at least let's give him homage

At the ending of his days.

Perhaps just a simple headline

In the paper that might say:

"OUR COUNTRY IS IN MOURNING,

A VETERAN DIED TODAY."

Ernie Pyle

NOTE: My 1st Marine Division was fighting the Japanese military on the island of Okinawa near where Ernie was killed. His luck ran out before he could see the Marines fighting and winning. ~NOAH

Ernest Taylor Pyle (August 3, 1900 - April 18, 1945) was an American journalist who was known for his columns as a roving correspondent from 1935 for the Scripps Howard newspaper chain, especially during World War II, when he reported both from Europe and the Pacific, until his death in combat on a Pacific island. He won the Pulitzer Prize in 1944.

His travel articles, about the out-of-the-way places he visited and the people who lived there, were written in a folksy style, much like a personal letter to a friend; many were collected in Home Country (1947). By the war, he enjoyed a following in some 300 newspapers and was among the best-known American war correspondents in Europe.

Early life and World War I

Pyle was born to William Clyde Pyle and Maria Taylor near Dana, Indiana on August 3, 1900. After attending local schools, he joined the United States Navy Reserve at age 17. Pyle served three months active duty before World War I ended; he finished his reserve service with the rank of Seaman Third Class.

After the war, Pyle attended Indiana University, traveled to the Orient with his fraternity brothers of Sigma Alpha Epsilon, and edited the student newspaper. He did not graduate; with only a semester left at Indiana, he accepted a job at a paper in LaPorte, Indiana.

He worked there for three months before moving to Washington, D.., where he worked for the tabloid newspaper, The Washington Daily News  as a reporter. All the editors were young, including Editor-in-Chief John M. Gleissner (one of Warren G. Harding's drinking buddies); Lee G. Miller (later author of An Ernie Pyle Album ? Indiana to Ie Shima); Charles M. Egan, Willis "June" Thornton; and Paul McCrea. Pyle was named managing editor of the Washington Daily News and served in the post for three years, all the while fretting that he was unable to do any writing.

Marriage and family

In Washington, he met Geraldine "Jerry" Siebolds and they married in 1925. He described her later as his "fearful and troubled wife." They had a tempestuous relationship. Jerry suffered from intermittent bouts of mental illness and alcoholism. Pyle described her as "desperate within herself since the day she was born".

American road trip and columns

In 1926, Pyle tired of working at a desk and quit his job. He and his wife headed out on the road to see America in a Ford roadster. The Pyles traveled more than 9,000 miles before Ernie returned to his job with the Daily News. In 1928, he became the country's first aviation columnist, a position he served for four years. The famed aviatrix Amelia Earhart summed it up: "Any aviator who didn't know Pyle was a nobody."

In 1932 Pyle became managing editor of the Daily News. Two years later, he spent time on a leisurely trip to California to recuperate from a severe bout of flu. Upon his return, the paper's journalists suggested that he write some columns about his trip to fill in for the vacationing syndicated columnist Heywood Broun. The series of eleven columns was a hit.

G.B. ("Deac") Parker, editor-in-chief of the Scripps-Howard newspaper chain, said he had found in Pyle's vacation articles "a Mark Twain quality that knocked my eye out". In 1935, the Scripps-Howard Alliance offered the chance to write a national column, and he gave up his tasks as managing editor. He wandered around the country and the Americas in his car, writing columns about the unusual places and people he met in his ramblings. Select columns were collected and published posthumously in Home Country (1947).

Never satisfied with his writing, Pyle suffered from bouts of deep depression. He continued writing the daily column until 1942, after the United States' entry into World War II

World War II

European theater

Pyle became a war correspondent and applied his intimate style to war reporting. Instead of recounting the movements of armies or the activities of generals, Pyle generally wrote from the perspective of the common soldier. This approach gained him additional popularity and the Pulitzer Prize for journalism. Among his most widely read and reprinted columns is "The Death of Captain Waskow." His wartime writings are preserved in four books: Ernie Pyle In England, Here Is Your War, Brave Men, and Last Chapter.

After his return to the United States for a vacation, he wrote to his college roommate, Paige Cavanaugh: "Geraldine was drunk the afternoon I got home. From there she went on down. Went completely screwball. One night she tried the gas. Had to have a doctor." The two were divorced on April 14, 1942. They remarried by proxy while Pyle was in Africa on March 10, 1943.

In 1944, Pyle wrote a column urging that soldiers in combat get "fight pay" just as airmen were paid "flight pay." Congress passed a law authorizing $10 a month extra pay for combat infantrymen. The legislation was called "The Ernie Pyle bill."

He reported from the United States, Europe, Africa, and the Pacific. He witnessed the liberation of Paris in August 1944.

He interrupted his reporting several times by leaves to return home to care for his wife Jerry while they were still married. He also had to recuperate from the stresses of combat; he was nearly killed in the accidental bombing by the Army Air Forces at the onset of Operation Cobra near Saint-Lф in Normandy in July 1944. Pyle publicly apologized to his readers in a column on September 5, 1944, that he had "lost track of the point of the war", and that another two weeks of coverage would have seen him hospitalized with war neurosis. He hoped that a rest at his home in New Mexico would restore his vigor to go "warhorsing around the Pacific".

Pacific theater

In planning to cover the US activities in the Pacific, Pyle butted heads with the U.S. Navy; it had a policy forbidding the use of the names of sailors in reporting. He won an unsatisfying partial victory as the ban was lifted exclusively for him. His first cruise was aboard the aircraft carrier USS Cabot. He thought the crew had an "easy life" in comparison to that of the infantry in Europe and he wrote several unflattering portraits of the Navy.

Fellow correspondents, newspaper editorials, and G.I.s criticized Pyle for giving apparent short shrift to the difficulties of the naval war in the Pacific. During the tiff, he admitted that his heart was with the infantrymen in Europe, but he persevered to report on the Navy's efforts during the invasion of Okinawa. He was noted for having premonitions of his own death; he predicted before landing that he would not be alive a year hence.

Death and burial

On April 18, 1945, Pyle died on Iejima (then known as Ie Shima), an island northwest of Okinawa Island, after being hit by Japanese machine-gun fire. He was traveling in a jeep with Lieutenant Colonel Joseph B. Coolidge (commanding officer of the 305th Infantry Regiment, 77th Infantry Division) and three other men. The road, which ran parallel to the beach two or three hundred yards inland, had been cleared of mines, and hundreds of vehicles had driven over it. As the vehicle reached a road junction, Japanese troops began firing a machine gun located on a coral ridge about a third of a mile away. The men stopped their vehicle and jumped into a ditch. Pyle and Coolidge raised their heads to look around for the others; when they spotted them, Pyle smiled and asked Coolidge, "Are you all right?" Those were his last words. The machine gun began shooting again, and Pyle was struck in the left temple (the Ernie Pyle State Historic Site in Dana, Indiana, contains a telegram from the Government to Pyle's father stating Pyle was killed by a sniper). The colonel called for a medic, but none was present. It made no difference as Pyle had been killed instantly. Eleanor Roosevelt, who frequently quoted Pyle in her newspaper column, My Day, took note of his death.

He was buried with his helmet on, in a long row of graves among other soldiers, with an infantry private on one side and a combat engineer on the other. At the ten-minute service, the Army, Navy, and Marine Corps were all represented. Americans erected a monument to him at the site. When Okinawa was returned to Japanese control after the war, the Ernie Pyle monument was one of three American memorials they allowed to remain in place.

Pyle's remains were later reinterred at the Army cemetery on Okinawa. Lastly, they were reinterred at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific located in Honolulu. Pyle was among the few American civilians killed during the war to be awarded the Purple Heart, which is noted on his gravestone.

Legacy and honors

• In 2007 the Ernie Pyle House/Library was designated as a National Historic Landmark.
• At Indiana University, the School of Journalism is housed in "Ernie Pyle Hall." Scholarships, established soon after his death, are given to students with a military service record, an ability in journalism, and promise of future success.
• The producers of the film, The Story of G.I. Joe, which starred Burgess Meredith as Pyle, donated a major portion of the proceeds to the scholarships at Indiana.
• In 1947, Pyle's last home in Albuquerque, New Mexico was adapted as the first branch library of the Albuquerque/Bernalillo County Library System, named in his honor. The Ernie Pyle Library holds a small collection of adult and children's books, as well as Pyle memorabilia and archives.
• His papers and archives are held chiefly by the Lilly Library at Indiana University; the Ernie Pyle State Historic Site at Dana, Indiana; and the Wisconsin State Historical Society.
• The Ernie Pyle State Historic Site in Dana includes Pyle's boyhood farmhouse, fully restored. The site also features a World War II-era Quonset hut containing many of Pyle's army artifacts (including his Purple Heart), plus items donated by the people of the community.
•  
• Pyle is buried at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific at Punchbowl on the island of Oahu, Hawaii. In 1970, a plaque was presented to the people of Hawaii to honor Pyle, by his nephew Bruce L. Johnson, Grand Master.
• A stone monument was erected on Ie Shima at the site where Pyle was killed. The monument has the form of a truncated pyramid, related to the insignia of the "Statue of Liberty" Division, with engraved text below: "At this spot the 77th Infantry Division lost a buddy, Ernie Pyle, 18 April 1945."
• In 1971, Pyle was depicted on a 16-cent United States postage stamp issued in his honor.
• Elementary schools near Pyle's hometown of Dana, Indiana, in Indianapolis, Indiana, and in Bellflower and Fresno, California, are named for him in addition to a middle school in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
• US 36 in Indiana from Danville, IN to the Indiana/Illinois border is known as the Ernie Pyle Memorial Highway. There is also a memorial rest park on US 36 just southeast of Dana named in Pyle's honor.

B-29 Superfortress -The Ernie Pyle
 
The employees of Boeing-Wichita, through the 7th War Loan Drive, paid for and built a Boeing B-29 Superfortress, Serial Number 44-70118, and dedicated it on 1 May 1945 as The Ernie Pyle. The Ernie Pyle was ferried to the Pacific War Theater by a crew commanded by Lieutenant Howard F. Lippincott (USAF Lt. Colonel, ret, dec) and Lieutenant Robert H. Silver (dec). Initially assigned to the Second Air Force, Kearney Air Force Base, it was sent to the Twentieth Air Force, Pacific Theater of Operations on 27 May 1945. The nose art was removed when the aircraft reached its intended operations base in the Pacific, as the base commander thought it would become a prime target of the Japanese. The Ernie Pyle survived the war and was returned to the United States on 22 October 1945. It was stored at Pyote AAF TX and disposed as surplus on 25 March 1953.