Currently, Team USA has won 25 medals (seven gold, eight silver, and ten bronze) at the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games. That total matches the number of medals won at the Torino 2006 Winter Games. With one more medal, the United States will set a record for the most medals won at an Olympic Winter Games not held on US soil. I’m writing with the hope that you could share the news to help support Team USA with the readers of Special Forces Gear Blog.

Anyone who registers on Teamusa.org will have access to the latest info and will receive exclusive updates throughout the rest of the games. You can read more, and get Team USA banners here:
http://teamusanews.org

Spread the word so we can all help support our Team USA athletes bring home the gold!

Throughout American history the idea of “never surrender,” even under seemingly insurmountable odds, became ingrained in our national consciousness. It was borne on the battlefield most certainly, and carried forward in our wars. This idea was based partly on the idea that truth, justice, and God were on our side, and partly because we were an independent, freedom-loving people who detested oppression. If the world put forth dictatorships, fascism, Nazism or any sort of totalitarinism, America would fight to make things right, would not forget her friends, and would never surrender.

Never Surrender!

1781: The Battle of Yorktown was the climax of the American Revolutionary War. The combined forces of General Washington, Rochambeau, de Grasse, and Lafayette all converged on the largest grouping of British troops in America. But our best general, Washington, was struggling. He was fighting a losing cause, many said. The British were the greatest force in the history of the world and they had never been stronger than they were in 1781. How could Washington win? How could this surveyor, this tobacco farmer ever have let himself dream that this undeveloped country called America could consolidate its states and have them be different yet still be the same under this thing they called their Constitution? For over six years Washington had been fighting, freezing, sweating and dying with a rag tag group of mostly disgruntled, complaining “patriots.” While Washington fretted on the eve of Yorktown, the British were living it up in New York City, they occupied America’s best port, and ruled its citizens.

But, Washington, on that still night before the battle, got down on his knee and prayed for guidance and a way for America to become, to survive. If this nation was to be a nation, a nation founded under God, and bound toward being free, then this must be the start. Six years or six hundred, it made no difference. Freedom was the point. A country where freedom and democracy, real democracy, could take hold and blossom. A country that would protect those who were less fortunate and help the weak; a place that would be for those who in the future would need an America. Washington knew on that night before Yorktown that something bigger than him, much bigger than him, was at stake. He knew he would not give up because giving up was giving up on America, democracy, and freedom. No, this would be the fight and these men would be the men. He got up, brought his horse about, and led his men to the breech. And on that day in 1781 the Battle of Yorktown was fought and won by America. And as America that day, so was blessed the world.

GETTYSBURG, PENNSYLVANIA, July 2, 1863

Joshua Chamberlain was shocked and afraid because he knew the battle he was in with his men at Gettysburg was more than a battle in a war, it was the battle for the war and the country and all time. His position in that battle was the fulcrum upon which a part of the fate of America rested.

He was facing the seventh charge of a Confederate enemy whose previous six charges had decimated his Union ranks, had killed, maimed and disheartened. His Maine volunteers could not withstand another, he knew, because they had no ammunition, no heart. All was gone. And spirits were broken—or dangling on that last summer wisp of a miracle. The 20^th Maine had to hold the line, moreover, beyond reason, they had to win this battle…Should Chamberlain bring out the white flag? As quickly as it came he dispelled that sickening thought. They could not surrender. There was no alternative but to find a way. There was not another day to win or die on, this was the day. As sure as the powder still stung his nostrils, as sure as wounded still begged at his leggings, this was forever and this was now. With many a Maine brethren gone, the last healthy men, whose wives and children he knew, looked into his eyes for his truth, and he told them what that truth was: they would charge—charge the enemy and they would do it now. It had never been clearer and it had come by itself but it had come altogether from the woods, hollows, hills and heavens around Gettysberg that this had to be done and they had to be the ones to do it.

“Charge! Charge, Men, Charge! Fix bayonets, fix them!” And they did it, they did it with urgency and assuredness, and they did it quickly and courageously, because they knew too.

Behind Chamberlain, they rushed; rushed into the Confederates stronghold, they brought hearts forward and voices high, from Maine for one and for all, and if anyone believed in angels, they saw them that day—leading their way.

It was no matter they lacked shot, they had bayonets, but more than that, they had the truth. And that was the only power that could win that hill. And his men followed, roaring down the line into the shocked enemy’s lair—and as they drove—wildly fighting in a spirit mixing heaven and hell, they beat back the Confederates, won the battle, and saved the nation.

Texas Rangers, Alamo

1914: World War I—some who won combat in our nation’s great history began their wars by thinking they would refuse to fight in one, even when told to do so. One such man was Alvin York, born in the mountains of eastern Tennessee. Young Alvin was known as a hell-raiser and nuisance child—but then after the death of a friend, he swore off liquor and became devoutly religious. He believed in all Christian rules and lived these virtues, friends attest, as much as any man they met. He would hurt no man, touch no liquor, nor turn a card—on that you can hang your hat.

When notices came from Washington D.C., notifying him to report to his draft board, he ignored them, because he knew he might be asked to kill. Four times he tried to say no, but all four times he was told that he had to sign up anyway. Well, soon Alvin York was drafted, because others around him were going and he thought something had to be done. And, some of his friends had already gone, some had died.

Fast forward to the Battle of the Argonne Forest in France—Alvin, now Sergeant York, had been in a trench with his men for months. Bullets and shells had killed many, but dysentery, disease, and a strange gas that blistered the lungs had killed more. Sergeant York was tired and lost. More lost than he’d ever been. This was a no-mans land, how could hell be worse. Rats, filth, decaying limbs, soulless eyes, where all hope was gone. But they lived, awoke, and pushed forward, inches at a time, trying to break the other before they broke all the way. Why didn’t someone give in? Why didn’t some side give up, Alvin thought? They could all just go home. But then what, then what?

Sergeant York was called on that day to take a patrol and capture German machine gun enplacements. He did as he was told but soon found in the course of this mission that he was alone and staring at an entire German machine gun platoon with just a rifle and a pistol. If there was a time to give up, this was it. It was over. He would lay down his arms and give in. It is easy to surrender, he thought, easy to die, either one would work fine right now, he felt, as sick and as lost as he’d been. Death may even be a better way.

But just as quickly as he thought of that he pushed it out of his mind. Everything he had been in the past was knocked out of the way to make him what he had to be at that very instant—an American with a job to do. Instantly, York “took them on,” by himself. He killed six Germans sent to draw him out, then positioned himself at the end of their trench and began shooting them as they stood in line.” Upon taking these men out, he and his patrol came upon a group of officers who promised that if York wouldn’t shoot, they would tell all the machine guns on the top of the hill to surrender. The officer kept his word and that day, 132 Germans surrendered to York and his crew of seven. An entire company of men were captured by York’s patrol. For this, York was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor. And from there the war was won, and America was moved into a world where they would be looked upon by other nations as something special, but also something to fear. As the love of freedom, equality, opportunity and God was a thing not shared by all.

1944: D-Day, The Rangers of the Cliffs

James Rudder and his men were not in a position to surrender on D-Day. They were only in a position to die. And die, many did. They died when their landing craft capsized and their gear pulled them to the bottom of the ocean. They died when they stepped off the craft and German bullets cut them to pieces. They died when mortar rounds exploded under their feet, and they watched as their own entrails tangled behind in the Czech hedgehogs that littered the beach. But Rudder had a job to do and he was going to do it because there was no turning back. The ocean was behind them and guns in front. They had to go up the cliffs. That was their goal. He had told them, his men, they would succeed. So he had to keep going. Up, up the cliffs, and take out the huge artillery pieces that ruled the Western coast of France. Yet everything he saw this day told him that could not be done. Nothing but withering, ceaseless fire was coming down from on top. How could they ever scale to such a place–to even get close to the guns? Already, half of his 3 companies were dead and he was only 20 feet out of the water up the beach. He buried his face in the sand and in a split second he saw more of his men go down. In a split second he knew who they were, knew how they loved their families, saw those families shedding tears, all because they believed him, how he had told them every second they could succeed. How many lives were changed, he sweated, how many died for this impossibility? But he brought his mind back to the focus that had made him the best of the best, the leader of Rudder’s Rangers, and saw around him his men. And, far from slowing down and dying, far from representing defeat, the few men that he had left were speeding ahead. One his men, and one he thought would not lead, was astonishingly already half up the cliff on a too-short ladder, machine gun in each hand, shooting Germans above his head. And others on the ground on each side, sending grappling hooks skyward—shot out of mortar tubes—had their hooks stick in the cliff tops and these men were climbing the ropes. They were doing the impossible. Germans cut lines but not all, and with intense fire still raining, they pushed further into it. And so did Rudder—hand over hand, knot over knot, past the rock, past the shrapnel, past the smoke; he did not feel, he simply climbed, his nails splintered; muscles tore, blood streamed, his helmet was shot from his head—but he kept going.

Tooth, nail, claw, one by one, the Rangers got over the cliff. They rolled into craters, slid under bunker windows, unstrapped weapons, and started giving back what they’d been getting. And now the heavy tide began to turn. Now the Rangers had room, and all they had ever needed was a little room.

They were stronger on top. Where was that pulled from? Some Rangers said the Rangers who died sent their last breaths into the Rangers who lived so they could fight on and clear the machine gun nests on top. And they did clean them up, and drove on to their objective. They found the big guns, perfectly camoulflaged, and dropped the thermite grenades into each of their gears, melting them, destroying them, shutting them down once and for all. Mission accomplished.

In the electric flashes of that day, Rudder looked out over what was left, out over the Pont du hoc. His men had taken the cliffs and then taken the guns. Who could ever had done such a thing? How did they do it? He had trained them all, hand-picked them all, but he couldn’t figure out for sure what it was that carried them, really carried them, to their success.

Years later he felt he knew why—The American personality. The people who came to American came to American for freedom, for a chance to prove themselves. Just give them a chance and they’ll show you what the can do. And boy oh boy, if you ever try to take the American way of life they love away from them, they have a fighting spirit you can’t stop. That is what it is to be American and an American fighting man. That spirit inherent was what Washington prayed for at Valley Forge, what Pioneers braved 80 below winters for, it is what still flows in the blood of babes just born. A never surrender attitude.

1950: “Bill Barber” and the Frozen Chosin

In 1950, Bill Barber saved the lives of 8,000 Marines because of his five-day holding pattern type stand with 220 men against a force of 1,400 murderous Chinese regulars. It is considered one of the greatest holding actions in Marine Corps history. Barber had been told to fall back and withdraw because everyone thought his men were going to all die, outnumbered 10 to 1 and already battle weary—but Barber risked his command to save the 8,000 coming through the pass.

On the 3 day of the fight, and each day was like walking into a propeller—not only was it one of the coldest winters in Korean history, but the Chinese brought great havoc in the tough defensive position the Marines had to hold. Barber was severely wounded in the leg but had men carry him on a stretcher up and down the line while men fought hand to hand against a determined, pathological enemy. At one time the perimeter broke, but Barbers men shored it up in time and killed all the enemy that had infiltrated in, some by knife, some by literally choking the combatants to death.

After 5 days they were able to fall back and make it out of the Chosin reservoir area.

When their time to leave did come, 82 of Barber’s 220 men were able to walk away. Over half were dead or wounded, and 40 were too frostbitten to walk. They had killed 1,000 enemy troops.

Because they never surrendered, 8,000 Marines lived. That war was also called a draw, and America is paying the price for it today with the evil that still lives on the Korean peninsula.

Ia Drang Valley, Viet Nam, 14^th of November, 1965

Viet Nam was a war that America gave up on and that cost us dearly but it cost Southeast Asians more. After we let go the flood gates, and opened the door to the South, the remnants of Ho Chi Minh, the new crew of Pol Pot, Khymer Rouge, and others, killed millions, we repeat, millions of their own in a domino effect across Viet Nam, Laos, and Cambodia. When deaths were done, skulls filled rooms, flowed onto streets, and became gleaming white hills—and “all for the people.” Never let anyone assail the point of why America fought in that land. The reason was made clear when we folded our tent. That’s when the real horrors began—and they still go on today. Freedom costs. That’s why you can never surrender when you are in the right.

That is not to say our people fought in vain. They that fought then for the American ideal never fought in vain and never fought alone. Beside them was always Patrick Henry, George Washington, and those that built our continent.

If ever a man’s story should be told from that war it should be Ed Freeman, from Hattiesburg, Mississippi. He knew as a boy, ever since he watched soldiers parade past his home, that he would be a military man. And he chose flying helicopters as his goal. Helicopters were a part of Viet Nam like Kilroy was part of WWII. And at no time did men praise the arrival of a HUEY as they did when one landed in a hot LZ to get them out.

Ed Freeman knew why, on November 14^th, 1965. That was during the siege of the Ia Drang Valley, outside Plieku. Here you have the story of an American who made a difference in Viet Nam, at least on that day. 200 American infantrymen were pinned down in the Ia Drang valley by 2 battalions, 2,000 or so, Vietnamese regulars.

They were surrounded. They were getting cut to pieces. They still had part of a perimeter, but no helicopter pilot would ever have been expected to fly into it—because it was suicide. No man on the ground expected them to but Ed Freeman heard the call and he went not once, not twice, but 21 times into the withering fire and mortar rounds to bring food, ammo, medical supplies, and rescue wounded. And he did it all unarmed. 14 hours of flying into the breech, into the teeth, into the bullets that had to have your name but for some reason they did not because the one thing Ed Freeman knew was that no matter how bad he might feel about not going to help it couldn’t be worse than what those American boys were going through on the ground—and by the grace of God or by his fury he would not stop till they didn’t need his help.

One, two, three and four times he went in. THe enemy turned his HUEY into Swiss cheese, bullets zinged through his copter and it sounded like a hive of bees, but he did not falter. He couldn’t. They depended on him. And all he prayed for was that the bullets didn’t hit a hydraulic line—the fuel tank he didn’t care about because he knew he had a self-sealing tank. And every time Ed got back to the base with a man who he’d saved, his team would fix what had been broken with spit and baling wire, gassed him up, he’d chew on some c-rats and he was off again. He never shut her down for over 14 hours.

And when the company commander saw him coming in, Ed Freeman, the only chopper pilot in the world who would do such a thing, he silently thanked God as here came the calvary the 1^st was known for. One lone American, without a weapon, into the hottest LZ in the world on that day, and with him came ammo, food, med supplies and the spirit of everything we were as a country. Into that HUEY they loaded dying men who would soon be alive and home because of one old Son of the South who would never leave a fellow troop to die on the field of battle without doing all he could, and even die himself, to save him.

And there the American’s of the 1^st Cav fought, they fought for America and for freedom and they beat the enemy that day. And before the sun sets on the story of that war, the only crime was not winning that war. The men who really fought it did all they could. What happened after is the stuff of sadness and makes the point of never surrender all the more important.

Born:

War: Somalia

Rank: Sergeant First Class, U.S. Army
(Sniper Team Member)

Location of action: Mogadishu, Somalia

Date of action: October 3, 1993

Medal received from: President Bill Clinton, May 1994 (posthumously)

Official Citation:
Sergeant First Class Shughart, United States Army, distinguished himself by actions above and beyond the call of duty on 3 October 1993, while serving as a Sniper Team Member, United States Army Special Operations Command with Task Force Ranger in Mogadishu, Somalia. Sergeant First Class Shughart provided precision sniper fires from the lead helicopter during an assault on a building and at two helicopter crash sites, while subjected to intense automatic weapons and rocket propelled grenade fires. While providing critical suppressive fires at the second crash site, Sergeant First Class Shughart and his team leader learned that ground forces were not immediately available to secure the site.

Sergeant First Class Shughart and his team leader unhesitatingly volunteered to be inserted to protect the four critically wounded personnel, despite being well aware of the growing number of enemy personnel closing in on the site. After their third request to be inserted, Sergeant First Class Shughart and his team leader received permission to perform this volunteer mission. When debris and enemy ground fires at the site caused them to abort the first attempt, Sergeant First Class Shughart and his team leader were inserted one hundred meters south of the crash site.

Equipped with only his sniper rifle and a pistol, Sergeant First Class Shughart and his team leader, while under intense small arms fire from the enemy, fought their way through a dense maze of shanties and shacks to reach the critically injured crew members. Sergeant First Class Shughart pulled the pilot and the other crew members from the aircraft, establishing a perimeter which placed him and his fellow sniper in the most vulnerable position.

Sergeant First Class Shughart used his long range rifle and side arm to kill an undetermined number of attackers while traveling the perimeter, protecting the downed crew. Sergeant First Class Shughart continued his protective fire until he depleted his ammunition and was fatally wounded. His actions saved the pilot’s life. Sergeant First Class Shughart’s extraordinary heroism and devotion to duty were in keeping with the highest standards of military service and reflect great credit upon him, his unit and the United States Army.

Bio:
Randall Shughart was born in Lincoln, Nebraska where his father was stationed at Lincoln Air Force Base. After his father was discharged, the family moved to Newville, Pennsylvania and Shughart grew up on the family’s dairy farm. A graduate of Big Spring High School in Newville, he had a brother and two sisters, and worked hard tending the herd and farming. He enlisted in the Army while still in school, and went to Ranger school at Ft. Lewis in Washington after basic training. After qualifying for Special Forces, he was transferred to Ft. Bragg, North Carolina before being sent to Somalia.

Of Note:
“Without a doubt, I owe my life to these two men and their bravery,” said Mike Durant, whose life was saved by the actions of SFC Shughart and MSG Gary Gordon. “Those guys came in when they had to know it was a losing battle,” Durant said of the two men. “There was nobody else left to back them up. If they had not come in, I wouldn’t have survived.”

A crackle in the brush. That’s the sound the Afghan herder recalls hearing as he walked alone through a pine forest last month. When he looked up, he saw an American commando, his legs and shoulder bloodied. The commando pointed his gun at the Afghan. “Maybe he thought I was a Taliban,” says the shepherd, Gulab. “I remembered hearing that if an American sticks up his thumb, it is a friendly gesture. So that’s what I did.” To make sure the message was clear, Gulab lifted his tunic to show the American he wasn’t hiding a weapon. He then propped up the wounded commando, and together the pair hobbled down the steep mountain trail to Sabari-Minah, a cluster of adobe-and-wood homes–crossing, for the time being, to safety.

What Gulab did not know is that the commando he encountered was part of a team of Navy SEALs that had been missing for four days after being ambushed by Taliban insurgents during a reconnaissance mission in northeastern Afghanistan. An initial search mission to find the missing SEALs ended in disaster on June 28, when a Chinook helicopter carrying 16 service members was shot down over Kunar province, killing everyone aboard, in one of the deadliest attacks so far on U.S. forces in Afghanistan. Since then, the bodies of two of the missing SEALs have been recovered; another is still classified as missing, though the Taliban claims he was captured and beheaded.

One member of the team did survive. Though the military has not released the name of the SEAL (the U.S. military seldom gives out the names of its special-operations personnel), TIME pieced together his story on the basis of briefings with U.S. military officials in Afghanistan plus an exclusive account of how Gulab, an Afghan herdsman, rescued the wounded commando. What emerges is the tale of a courageous U.S. fighter facing impossible odds in unfamiliar terrain, stalked by the enemy and stripped of everything but his gun and his will to survive. But it is also a story of mercy and fraternity, showing that even in the war-scorched landscape of the Afghan mountains, little shoots of humanity sometimes have a chance to grow.

The clashes in Kunar province have highlighted a worrying surge in violence in Afghanistan, where 15,000 U.S. troops are based. Several months ago, U.S. and Afghan officials claimed the Taliban was a spent force. But the Islamist fighters and their al-Qaeda allies have sprung back with fresh recruits, new weaponry and advanced bombmaking skills passed on to them by terrorists in Iraq, officials in Kabul say.

It was in response to signs of a mounting threat from Taliban fighters that the four-man commando team found itself in the Afghan forests of Kunar province on June 28, maneuvering under low clouds and a drenching rain. The mission, code-named Operation Redwing, was to find and engage the enemy. But in late afternoon, the commandos sent back a one-line message to the “Ark,” a coalition-forces operations room in Kabul. Accompanied by a warning chime, it read, “Troops in contact.” Translation: a fire fight was under way.

That was the SEALs’ last message. The tracking devices each carried went dead, possibly because the men ditched their heavy rucksacks so they could move unburdened, a U.S. official says. Within minutes of receiving the message, eight commandos and eight crewmen of the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment piled into an MH-47 Chinook helicopter and sped out to help the trapped men.

According to accounts provided to U.S. commanders by the surviving Navy SEAL, the commando team had come under fierce attack from a large group of Taliban fighters, who pounded their location with rocket-propelled grenades, mortars and a steady hail of small-arms fire. The clatter of the approaching Chinook may or may not have been audible to the SEALs, but the Taliban surely heard it. A second band of fighters turned and took a bead on the chopper, probably with a rocket- propelled grenade, and in what a U.S. official calls “a pretty lucky shot,” knocked it out of the sky.

Now the four SEALs were truly alone. With night falling and the fog settling, they managed to slip through the Taliban fighters. Crawling and scrambling, they headed toward the high ridges, and the Taliban–who had them outnumbered, probably 5 to 1–gave chase.

U.S. officials say the commandos kept up a running fire fight with their pursuers for more than two miles. The known survivor recalls seeing two of his friends shot. At one point he blacked out, possibly from a mortar round landing close by. When he regained consciousness, two of his teammates–Petty Officer 2nd Class Danny Dietz, 25, and Lieutenant Michael Murphy, 29–were dead, and a third had vanished in the darkness and fog. The surviving SEAL dragged himself at least another mile up into the mountains. It was there he was found four days later by Gulab the shepherd.

After taking the SEAL to Sabari-Minah, Gulab called a village council and explained that the American needed protection from Taliban hunters. It was the SEAL’s good fortune that the villagers were Pashtun, who are honor-bound never to refuse sanctuary to a stranger. By then, said Gulab, “the American understood that we were trying to save him, and he relaxed a bit.”

The Taliban was not so agreeable. That night the fighters sent a message to the villagers: “We want this infidel.” A firm reply from the village chief, Shinah, shot back. “The American is our guest, and we won’t give him up as long as there’s a man or a woman left alive in our village.” As a precaution, the villagers moved the injured commando out of Gulab’s house and hid him in a stable overnight, until it was safe for Gulab to make the six-hour trek down to the U.S. base at Asadabad and report that the SEAL–by then the subject of an intense search–was alive. Sometime later, Gulab went back to his village and then returned to Asadabad with the commando, this time reuniting the wounded and weary SEAL with his jubilant comrades.

The relief at recovering the missing commando has been tempered by the heavy loss of American life–and the knowledge that more fighting lies ahead. The Taliban’s offensive shows no sign of waning and is apparently aimed at sabotaging September’s parliamentary elections. U.S. Colonel Don McGraw, director of operations of the Combined Forces Command in Kabul, says that in the chaos of Afghanistan today, it is hard to distinguish among what is the work of the Taliban, drug traffickers and criminal gangs.

It is a testament to the persistent insecurity in Afghanistan that Gulab now fears that his act of compassion may mean his death warrant. After returning the SEAL, he went back to grab his family and flee before the Taliban would come round seeking revenge. In the mountains of Kunar, fear is rising again.

For 62 months, Rowe battled dysentery, beri-beri, fungal diseases, and grueling psychological and physical torment. Each day he faced the undermining realization that he might be executed, or worse, kept alive, but never released. His home was a wooden cage, three feet by four feet by six feet in dimension. His bed was a sleeping mat. In spite of all this, Rowe was a survivor. From the start of his capture, he began looking for ways to resist his captors while he could make plans for his escape. Since he was the S2 or Intelligence Officer for his unit, he had access to all sorts of classified and sensitive information including camp defenses, mine field locations, names of friendlies and unit strengths and locations. All information the viet cong would love to know.

Rowe concocted a cover story that he was a “draftee” engineer who had the mundane job of building schools and other civil affairs projects. As he was not wearing his West Point ring (he had left it home with his parents when he came to Vietnam), Nick claimed he went to a small liberal college and really didn’t know much about the military. The Viet Cong unsure whether to believe Rowe used torture to see if he would break and change his story. As a last resort his interrogators gave him some basic engineering problems which they felt would either validate Rowe’s story or prove that he was lying. Fortunately, as engineering courses were mandatory at West Point, Rowe was able to fool his captors.

Rowe’s cover story was eventually broken but not through any fault of his own. All his efforts were destroyed when an Anti-War Activist Group came to North Vietnam. As part of their visit to North Vietnam, the group asked to see some of the American POW’s so they could tell the American people that POWs were being treated fairly by the North Vietnamese government. Rowe’s name was on the list that they gave their hosts along with the information that he was the intelligence officer for the Special Forces Advisor Unit.

Rowe’s captors were furious that Rowe had fooled them all this time. Even worse was they knew that the valuable information he had at the time of his capture was dated and virtually worthless to them now. Rowe’s captors beat him for hours then stripped him and staked him out naked in a swamp. Now if you have ever had a mosquito bite you you know how much it hurts and itches. That night Rowe’s body was covered with a blanket of mosquitoes that feasted on him for two days. Despite his captors best efforts to torture him, Rowe still would not break to their will or give them the old dated information.

Rowe made several escape attempts, once with another injured POW. They were being pursued by the Viet Cong when the other POW faced the realization that he could not go on and that he was slowing Rowe down and increasing the chance of both men being captured again. He urged Rowe to go on without him. Rowe began doing so until he heard the Viet Cong capture his friend. They began yelling that unless he surrendered to them, they would kill his friend. Although Rowe could have escaped he surrendered to save his friend.

Rowe was scheduled to be executed in late December 1968. His captors had had enough of him – his refusal to accept the communist ideology and his continued escape attempts. While away from the camp in the U Minh forest, Rowe took advantage of a sudden flight of American helicopters. He struck down his guards, and ran into a clearing where the helicopters noticed him and rescued him, still clad in black prisoner pajamas. Among his surprises when he returned to civilization was that he had been promoted to Major during his five years of captivity.

Stanley Sandler says in Cease Resistance: It’s Good for You: A History of U.S. Army Combat Psychological Operations, 1999: “Just before his escape Rowe had noticed that his captors were confused and bewildered because their old sanctuaries were being invaded by what had been dismissed by their cadres as ‘weak’ United States and Government of Vietnam forces. Many of them would have liked to give up the struggle but were afraid of being killed while trying to defect. A leaflet was quickly printed up with a message from Lt. Rowe reassuring his former captors that they would be welcomed and treated decently.”

Eighteen hours after his escape, 100,000 copies of a leaflet in Rowe’s own handwriting were dropped over the U Mihn Combat Zone.

In 1971 Nick published Five Years to Freedom, in which he recounted his ordeal as a Viet Cong prisoner, his eventual escape, and his return home. The book was the result of the diary he wrote while prisoner, writing it in German, Spanish, Chinese, and his own special code in order to deceive his captors. He also wrote Southeast Asia Survival Journal for the United States Department of the Air Force, published in 1971. Upon his return home to McAllen he was presented with lifetime memberships in the American Legion and the Veterans of Foreign Wars.

In 1974 he made the decision to leave the service. He continue to write co-authoring The Washington Connection with Robin Moore, which was published by Conder Press in 1977, and in the same year Little, Brown and Company published his first novel, The Judas Squad.

Meet Tibor “Ted” Rubin, survivor of the Nazi death camps, and an American hero:

Nazi guards made sure Rubin understood despair at the age of 13. A Hungarian Jew, he was forced into the Mauthausen Concentration Camp toward the end of World War II. But Rubin defied odds: He survived. After the war he moved to New York, and as a show of appreciation to his new country, joined the same Army that liberated him from hell on earth.

From the horror of the Holocaust arose a bravery that few can match. Rubin went on to fight in the Korean War and was taken prisoner by the Chinese communists…

Medal of Honor recipient was just doing his duty…

Garden Grove, California’s Tibor Rubin risked his life for fellow POWs in 1950s.

June 2005

GARDEN GROVE – It’s been a hectic time for Tibor Rubin. The 76-year-old traveled to Washington, D.C., last month to pick up the Medal of Honor from President George W. Bush for his bravery during the Korean War.

For the last three weeks, Rubin has been fielding phone calls for invitations to fancy dinners and speaking engagements. He even got an offer to serve as grand marshal for an area parade. On Tuesday, the Garden Grove City Council honored him.

Rubin is the 10th Orange County resident to receive the Medal of Honor, the nation’s highest military medal for valor in combat. Rubin said he doesn’t feel like a hero for saving the lives of dozens of his fellow soldiers while at a prisoner-of-war camp. The Hungarian immigrant and Nazi death-camp survivor said he was just doing his duty.

Q. How did you find out that you were going to receive the award?

A. Someone called my house on July 27. My wife picked up the phone. He said, “I’d like to talk to Mr. Tibor Rubin.” She told him, “He’s sleeping right now, but I can take a message.” He said, “I’d like to talk to him because I am calling from the White House.” She was all shook up. She came in my room and said, “Teddy, wake up. Somebody is calling you from the White House.”

I didn’t know if I was dreaming or what. I said, “Are you kidding me?” She wasn’t. And I talked to a very nice man. He said, “Mr. Rubin, sir, I am assistant to President Bush, and I would like to congratulate you. You’re going to get the Medal of Honor, and we’d like to make a date to present it to you at the White House.” I said, “Whatever date he can make, I’m gonna be there.” It took a couple days to sink in. Did someone pull a joke? We could not figure it out. It didn’t register. It was something we waited 54 years for, so it’s not so easy to believe.

Q. How was your day at the White House?

A. Everyone was so nice to us. They paid for the hotel, flight and the food. They treated me like a king. Guards were dressed up so beautifully and saluted us. Bodyguards took us wherever we liked. We had a tremendous time.

The president was so nice. He gave me a picture and signed it and gave it to my daughter. Then he put his arm around me, and we walked down the red carpet together.

He made a beautiful speech about me. I never heard anything like that. I was in a daze. So many women were giving me kisses that my lips were swelling. I was going to have to put ice on them.

Q. Why did you join the military?

A. The American forces liberated me (from the Nazis). When they found me I was just bones and lice and disease and filth. So they were very nice to me, and they put me in a home for children who lost their parents. So I promised if the Lord helped me – and my dream was to go to America – I was going to join the Army and repay the United States for what the Army did for me.

Q. It’s taken more than 50 years for you to receive the Medal of Honor. Do you feel any animosity that you were overlooked or discriminated against because of your Jewish background?

A. I don’t. It was the climate at the time. There was bigotry and anti-Semitism and prejudice. That’s why Congress created a bill to force them to look over all the veterans who were recommended for a Medal of Honor.

I don’t hate nobody because life is so short. If you feel hate for your fellow man … you’ll only hurt yourself. You hate yourself inside and accomplish nothing. I have nothing against the Germans – they killed 98 percent of my family – or the North Koreans and nothing against the Chinese. Because I do believe in God. He is the only one that’s going to take care of it.

Q. For nearly a month everyone has described you as a hero. Who inspires you, and who are your heroes?

A. Everyone who was nice to me was a hero. Not everyone liked Jews. Anybody who just tolerated us was a hero and a good person.

My father was a hero. My mother, Rosa, was always a hero. She taught me that we are all brothers and sisters. She had so many good qualities. She taught me to treat people the way you want to be treated.

For her it was the most important thing was a mitzvah, which is to do a good deed regardless of religion. Just help your fellow man – and I did that. To me, it’s just a mitzvah what I did.

My little sister Ilonka was in Auschwitz and taken into the gas chamber, and my mother went along. She didn’t have to but she couldn’t leave the little one. I think about what my mother did, and I would have done the same.

BEYOND THE CALL OF DUTY – MORE ON “TEDDY”

WASHINGTON – Tibor Rubin wasn’t a U.S. citizen when he joined the Army and fought in the Korean War. But the man born in Hungary had made a vow when U.S. troops liberated him from the Mauthausen concentration camp in Austria.

And that vow took him to killing fields, frozen mountain ranges, a Chinese prisoner of war camp, and Friday, to the White House.

“When they freed me, I promised that I would join the U.S. Army and try to give back because they saved my life,” Rubin, who lives in Garden Grove, said outside the White House shortly after receiving the nation’s highest military decoration.

Rubin said he always had more guts than brains. It was these guts that helped him survive, and it was for those guts that President George W. Bush presented the 76-year-old with the Medal of Honor more than a half century after he returned from Korea.

Friends, family and fellow soldiers filled the White House’s East Room. Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and first lady Laura Bush were some of the notables who attended the overdue ceremony.

Bush praised the war veteran with simple accounts of Rubin’s combat record. The stories included a description of Rubin’s lone defense of a hill against a North Korean assault to allow his fellow soldiers to retreat. Later in the war, he was captured and stole food from Chinese guards to give to fellow prisoners. He also turned down an offer from the Chinese to return to his native Hungary with the promise of money, food and a good job.

“(The Medal of Honor) is given for acts of valor that no superior could rightly order a soldier to perform,” Bush said. “And that is what we mean by ‘above and beyond the call of duty.’ ”

Congress passed legislation in 2001 requiring the Pentagon to determine if 138 Jewish veterans deserved decorations. Rubin is the first such soldier to receive the Medal of Honor and credited Bush with rectifying the wrong.

“They looked over our papers and realized that it was wrong, and I have lot to thank him for because he signed the bill and without him I wouldn’t be here,” Rubin said. He stood alone on stage with Bush, and, without uttering a word, was the center of attention. He fidgeted as he moved his hands from behind his back into the pockets of his navy blue suit and back, alternately looking at the president and a large group of friendly faces in the audience.

Before placing the blue ribbon and medallion around his neck, Bush turned Rubin to face his family and a gathering of soldiers who had fought with him 50 years ago. In order to watch Rubin receive the medal, the onlookers farthest from the stage strained to see. Soon, the entire audience was on its feet.

Citing affidavits filed by soldiers in Rubin’s unit, Scripps Howard News Service has reported that the recognition came so long after Rubin last wore the uniform because his sergeant was a fierce anti-Semite who refused to recommend the young corporal for commendation and often gave him the most difficult and dangerous assignments.

But despite facing some of the same bigotry that led to his imprisonment as a teenager and prompted the killing of his parents and sister in a Nazi concentration camp, Rubin said he feels no animosity for the Army.

“I’m not angry with the Chinese, I’m not angry with the North Koreans, I’m not angry even with the Germans because I figure the Lord is going to take care of them,” he said. “And if I’m going to be angry and everything, I’m only going to hurt myself.”

Rubin seemed to enjoy his time in the spotlight. He looked disappointed when reporters ran out of questions. But he became visibly emotional and had to pause twice while talking about the debt he felt to the United States for liberating him. When he was asked whether he planned to visit the Holocaust Memorial Museum, he paused. He’d been there on Thursday.

“That was tough. I couldn’t even talk,” he said.

Citation for the Navy Cross:

“For extraordinary heroism in connection with military operations against an armed enemy of the United States; as chief of the Maritime Unit, Office of Strategic Services Detachment, United States Armed Forces, in the Middle East, from September 1943 to March 1944, Lieutenant Jack Taylor, USNR, personally commanded fourteen separate sorties to the Greek and Balkan enemy-occupied coasts. This activity was carried out despite intense enemy efforts to prevent any kind of coastal traffic whatsoever. Lieutenant Taylor, through clandestine operations, deserving of the highest commendation and careful planning and skillful navigation effected numerous evacuations of intelligence agents, doctors, nurses, and downed airmen. Tons of arms, ammunition, explosives, and other military supplies were delivered to Marshal Tito and other resistance forces through the efforts of Lieutenant Taylor. For three months, at all times surrounded by enemy forces, and on three occasions forced to flee from enemy searching parties, Lieutenant Taylor and his intelligence team operated in Central Albania and transmitted by clandestine radio important information regarding enemy troop movements, supply dumps, coastal fortifications, anti-aircraft installations and other military intelligence of great value to the Allied forces. Parachuting into enemy territory on the night of 13 October 1944, with a team of three Austrian deserter-volunteers, he had personally trained and briefed, he began a secret intelligence mission to Austria. Handicapped from the very start by failure to their plane to drop radio equipment, living in constant danger of capture, and the physical and mental strain on his men, the courage and energy of Lieutenant Taylor prevailed and throughout the remainder of October and November, the mission collected target intelligence of the highest value to the Allies. On 30 November, the eve of their departure for Italy, the party was captured by the Gestapo. Through four months of imprisonment in Vienna and one month in Mauthausen prison camp, he was subjected to the customary interrogation methods of the Gestapo. During his capture, Lieutenant Taylor injured his left arm seriously. With this handicap and also being forced to exist on starvation rations and work at hard labor, he resisted all attempts to force him to divulge security……the brilliant results of his operations have been an essential aid to the victory of Allied Arms.”

Mauthausen Survivor

Lt. Jack Taylor, US Navy commando, after his liberation

Mauthausen was the last of the Nazi concentration camps to be liberated, just three days before World War II ended with the German surrender on May 8, 1945. The American liberators were greeted by Lt. Jack Taylor, a commando in the United States Navy, who had been captured after completing a sabotage mission behind enemy lines; he had been a prisoner at Mauthausen since April 1, 1945. He was brought to Mauthausen from a prison in Vienna when the city was evacuated because Russian troops were near.

The photograph above shows Lt. Taylor, taken shortly after his liberation from Mauthausen. He testified in court that he had weighed only 112 pounds when he was liberated. On his jacket, he was required to wear a red triangle, pointing downward, which meant that he was classified as a non-German political prisoner. Lt. Taylor was imprisoned at the main camp at Mauthausen, but this photo appears to have been taken at one of the sub-camps of Mauthausen, located near the mountains in Austria.

Only hours after the liberation of the Mauthausen camp, Lt. Col. George C. Stevens, the famed Hollywood director, arrived to shoot some footage of Lt. Taylor for his film entitled “Nazi Concentration Camps,” which was shown at the Nuremberg IMT. Lt. Taylor was from Hollywood, California and he started off by saying that this was the first time he had ever been in a movie.

Prior to the proceedings at Dachau in the Mauthausen case, Lt. Jack Taylor gave the following testimony at the Nuremberg International Military Tribunal:

“In October ‘44, I was the first Allied officer to drop onto Austria. I was captured December 1st, by the Gestapo, severely beaten, ah, even though I was in uniform, severely beaten, and, and, considered as a non-prisoner of war. I was taken to Vienna prison where I was held for four months. When the Russians neared Vienna, I was taken to this Mauthausen concentration lager [camp], an extermination camp, the worst in Germany, where we have been starving and, and beaten and killed, ah, fortunately, my turn hadn’t come. Ah, two American officers at least have been executed here. Here is the insignia of one, a U.S. naval officer, and here is his dog tag. Here is the army officer, executed by gas in this lager [camp]. Ah…there were…

[Question: "How many ways did they execute them?"]

Five or six ways: by gas, by shooting, by beating, that is beating with clubs, ah, by exposure, that is standing out in the snow, naked, for 48 hours and having cold water put on them, thrown on them in the middle of winter, starvation, dogs, and pushing over a hundred-foot cliff.”

After only 35 days in the notorious Mauthausen camp, Lt. Jack Taylor knew all about the crimes committed there: torture, hangings, shootings, beatings, and the gassing of prisoners twice a day, 120 at a time. Lt. Taylor was the first witness for the prosecution in the Mauthausen case before the American Military Tribunal at Dachau. By now, he was an experienced prosecution witness and he elaborated on his Nuremberg testimony. When asked by prosecutor Lt. Col. William Denson, on direct examination, how many different forms of killing that he had come in contact with in Mauthausen, Lt. Taylor testified as follows:

Gassing, hanging, shooting, beating. There was one particular group of Dutch Jews who were beaten until they jumped over the cliff into the stone quarry. Some that were not killed on the first fall were taken back up and thrown over to be sure. Then there was exposure. Any new transport coming in was forced to stand out in the open, regardless of the time of the year, practically naked. Other forms of killing included clubbing to death with axes or hammers and so forth, tearing to pieces by dogs specially trained for the purpose, injections into the heart and veins with magnesium chloride or benzine, whippings with a cow-tail to tear the flesh away, mashing in a concrete mixer, forcing them to drink a great quantity of water and jumping on the stomach while the prisoner was lying on his back, freezing half-naked in subzero temperatures, buried alive, red-hot poker down the throat. I remember a very prominent Czech general who was held down in the shower room and had a hose forced down his throat. He drowned that way.

The photograph below shows the ledge where SS soldiers at Mauthausen allegedly forced Dutch Jews to leap into the quarry. The narrow ledge is in the center of the photo, a short distance from the top of the quarry.

Lt. Taylor testified in the trial that he had been scheduled to die in the Mauthausen gas chamber on May 6, 1945, but he was miraculously saved when American troops arrived the day before his planned execution. Lt. Taylor was the only American ever to testify for the prosecution in the Dachau trials and his testimony was considered to be more credible than that of the other former prisoners who might have been seeking revenge, more than justice.

In his direct testimony, Lt. Taylor was asked by prosecutor Lt. Col. William Denson to describe the gas chamber. As quoted by Joshua M. Greene in “Justice at Dachau,” Lt. Taylor testified as follows:

Yes, sir. It was rigged up like a shower room with shower nozzles in the ceiling. New prisoners thought they were going in to have their bath. They were stripped and put in this room naked. Then gas came out of the shower nozzles.

The photo below, taken in May 2003, shows one of the shower nozzles, and water pipes coming into the Mauthausen gas chamber. The gas chamber was cleverly disguised as a real shower room with real water pipes, real showerheads and real floor drains. However, Lt. Taylor was wrong about the gas coming through the shower heads. The gas was in the form of pellets, about the size of peas, which had to be heated before the poisonous gas fumes could be released.

According to the testimony of another Mauthausen prisoner, the poison gas flowed through a tube placed low on the wall of the shower room. In his book entitled “The 186 Steps,” Christian Bernadac quoted the testimony of Werner Reinsdorf, a prisoner who came to Mauthausen in 1941 and was assigned Prison Number 535 which had previously been assigned to another man who died. Reinsdorf “took part in the construction of the gas chamber,” according to Bernadac.

The following quote from Bernadac’s book is the words of Werner Reinsdorf:

There was a tube that led into the gas chamber, eighty centimeters above the floor, with its opening turned toward the wall so as to escape notice. The gas flowed through this tube…I, myself, saw Jews being led to the gas chamber….

According to stories told by former inmates at Mauthausen, there was a small metal box, near the floor on the other side of one of the shower room walls. An open can of Zyklon-B gas pellets was put into this box, along with a hot brick which heated the pellets to the proper tempature so that prussic acid could be released. An enameled tube, through which the gas flowed, led from the box into the shower room. Unknown to Lt. Taylor, who expected to be gassed on May 6, 1945, Commandant Franz Ziereis had allegedly removed the box and the tube just before he escaped from the camp on the night of May 2, 1945. The tile in the shower room was replaced, and the wall, where the box had been located, was so skillfully repaired that no evidence of how the gas entered the room can be seen today.

The gas pellets are harmless until heated to a temperature of 78.3 degrees. The Museum displays are in the basement of the former hospital building where the gas chamber is located. Hopefully the temperature in the basement is always kept below the danger point. This type of poison gas was also used in all the concentration camps to disinfect the clothing by killing the body lice which spreads typhus.

After Lt. Jack Taylor arrived at the Mauthausen camp on April 1, 1945, he was put to work “setting tile in the new crematorium,” according to his trial testimony. He testified that the camp administrators “were very anxious to have it completed because all the bodies from hanging and beating had to be cremated to destroy the evidence.” Lt. Tayor testified that “We knew that the only thing that kept the number of violent deaths down was the fact that the crematorium couldn’t take care of any more. And we knew that as soon as we finished, the rate would accelerate tremendously because it was a more efficient oven.” He stated that “the regular procedure for the gas chamber was twice a day, one hundred and twenty at a time. I would say that the new crematorium increased the facilities to two hundred and fifty a day.”

According to Lt. Taylor’s testimony, the new crematorium was first used on Sunday, April 10, 1945. The photograph below, taken in May 2003, shows the new crematorium, which is in the same building as the gas chamber. The flooring in front of the ovens is glazed brick, the same as that used for the floor of the gas chambers at both Mauthausen and Dachau. There is also what looks like floor tile, next to the bricks.

You may actually listen to and view Jack Taylor on the day of his liberation from the Mauthausen extermination camp. This can be done by watching an extraordinary film clip that we have found on the Internet. Go to: http://www.us-israel.org/jsource/Holocaust/mauthfilm.html

The quality of the film as broadcast over the computer is not good, and much of the film has no sound, but be patient and wait for the portion of the film with real-time commentary by the recently liberated Lieutenant Taylor. Note in the film too, and in the still photos we have published in the BLAST, that Lieutenant Taylor is always dressed quite “formally” with tie and jacket (although perhaps a POW jacket). His appearance is remarkably good and belies the weight loss and harsh treatment he experienced at the hands of the German Gestapo.

After returning to the United States, Jack Taylor quickly faded into civilian life, but became very nervous and unsettled as a result of his wartime experiences. Rather than immediately returning to dental practice, he attempted to establish “Taylor Products,” a “Marine Specialties” company and continued exploiting his love of the sea. The business attempt apparently did not work out well for him, and he eventually began to devote full time to a dental practice in Santa Monica, CA.

For a while, he did maintain contact with Dr. Chris Lambertsen who, after the war, returned to the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Lambertsen provided us a copy of a very self-explanatory item of correspondence from Jack Taylor, which is reproduced elsewhere in the BLAST. Like many of the veterans of WWII, life was particularly harsh on the men and women of OSS, whose exploits remained secret for many years after the war, and Jack Taylor was no exception. Sadly, he was to live only 13 more years after his return home.

Dr. Jack Hendrick Taylor at the age of 51 years was killed in a car crash near his home in El Centro, California.

Jack Taylor did it all. Under, on, and from the sea; parachuting from the air; and, operating on land behind enemy lines.

Medal of Honor winner struggles for medical benefits

By Nicholas K. Geranios
Associated Press

SPOKANE, Wash. — Vernon Baker had to wait more than 50 years to receive his Medal of Honor because of racism. Now the World War II veteran is battling the U.S. government for medical care for a brain tumor.

With the help of Idaho politicians, Baker has started receiving some Veterans Administration and Medicare benefits. And residents of the town of St. Maries, Idaho, where Baker lives, are organizing a fund-raiser to pay for thousands of dollars in medical bills he already owes.

The 85-year-old Baker is the epitome of The Greatest Generation, raised in a time of poverty, sacrifice and self-reliance. He hadn’t visited a doctor for decades when he started feeling ill last summer. Despite his Medal of Honor, Baker found himself in the same paperwork maze as thousands of others who maneuver the federal health care system.

“It kind of makes me feel angry,” Baker said in a brief telephone interview. “I’m not able to take care of myself and it hurts me.”

Baker, the only living black Medal of Honor winner from World War II, was diagnosed in September with a brain tumor, and was flown to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle for emergency surgery.

Because he has been so healthy for much of his life, Baker had overlooked the need to enroll for VA and Medicare benefits as he aged. When his medical bills arrived, Baker and his wife were surprised to learn the government did not intend to help pay them.

Patients must enroll with the Veterans Administration to receive benefits, and cannot be reimbursed for costs incurred prior to their enrollment, said Roxanne Sisemore, spokeswoman for the VA in Walla Walla. And while some Medicare coverage kicks in automatically when a person reaches retirement age, coverage to pay doctors’ bills also requires enrollment, said Peter Ashkenaz, a Medicare spokesman in Washington, D.C.

It’s not the first time the federal government has made life hard for Baker.

In 1944, Army Lt. Baker was sent to Italy with the all-black 92nd Infantry. On April 5, Baker and his men were behind enemy lines in the battle for Castle Aghinolfi near Viareggio, Italy, according to Army records.

Their white commanding officer ran when the fighting started, ostensibly to seek reinforcements who never arrived, Baker wrote in his book, “Lasting Valor.”

With German fire decimating the Americans, Baker took charge, moving from one machine gun nest to another, killing the enemy soldiers inside. Then he covered the evacuation of his wounded comrades by taking an exposed position and drawing the enemy’s fire, according to Army records.

The next night, Baker voluntarily led an advance on the castle through enemy mine fields and heavy fire.

In all, Baker and his platoon killed 26 Germans, destroyed 6 machine gun nests, two observer posts and four dugouts. Their heroism enabled the Allies to take the castle shortly thereafter.

Baker was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross, making him the most decorated black soldier in the Mediterranean Theater.

What he did not know was that his Medal of Honor nomination had been blocked by a military establishment that did not want to give the nation’s highest honor to blacks.

In 1993, Army officials contracted Shaw University in Raleigh, North Carolina, to learn if any black soldiers had been improperly denied the Medal of Honor. The university reviewed past citations and recommended 10 soldiers to receive the medal. From that list, Pentagon officials picked seven.

Baker was the only recipient still living and received his award from President Clinton in 1997.

Baker’s battle with insurance and creditors has angered friends.

“Someone held up as a hero all over the world, then he can’t get medical coverage. No one should have to go through that,” said neighbor Marilyn Fletcher, who is organizing the March 19 fund-raiser auction in St. Maries.

Baker appreciates the efforts, and is trying not to let the financial woes get him down.

“I’m hanging in there,” he said Wednesday. “Today I feel pretty good.”

Baker stayed in the Army after the war, and in 1968 retired to St. Maries, a town of 2,400 in the forested Idaho Panhandle, about 70 miles southeast of Spokane.

He married and raised four daughters, mourned the passing of his wife, Fern, and married Heidy, who is German, about 15 years ago. They live in a cabin outside of St. Maries, and he is an enthusiastic outdoorsman.

Baker’s speech began to slur last summer. His wife called Fairchild Air Force Base in Spokane to seek a doctor’s appointment, but was told Vernon wasn’t enrolled in the VA.

In late September, she took Baker to the emergency room at Benewah Medical Center in St. Maries, where an MRI showed the tumor in his brain.

He was flown to Seattle, where surgeons removed the baseball-sized malignant tumor on Sept. 29, but left two tumors on his spine.

Baker returned home three weeks after his surgery, unable to do anything for himself. Heidy worried she would lose her husband, but he began to eat and take his medication, and was able to walk and talk.

Then the bills arrived. The Bakers were on the hook for his bills before the VA and Medicare kicked in, and they owed $20,000 to the company that flew him to Seattle.

The Bakers are not well-off, “but I have made payments on everything,” she said.

Sgt. James E. Wright, Green Belt Instructor, Marine Martial Arts Center of Excellence

http://www.navyleague.org/

I was an assistant team leader with Team 1, 2nd Platoon, Bravo Company, 1st Reconnaissance Battalion. It was April 7, 2004, and we were on a movement in Al Anbar province, going through a neighborhood that we knew was unfriendly toward Americans. They always had a lot of IED (improvised explosive device) attacks and ambushes in that neighborhood.

We knew we were going to get ambushed; we could tell by the people and their actions. But we had to go. We had a mission to accomplish. There were about 12 Humvees, and ours was in the lead. We were ambushed by 40 to 60 insurgents using rocket-propelled grenades, machine guns, AK-47s and mortars.

Our Humvee was in the kill zone, and we were taking a lot of fire. A rocket-propelled grenade hit the weapon I was holding, an M-249 SAW, and just blew my hands off and blew my leg open. My femur was fractured and sticking out. My artery was hit, too, and bleeding like crazy. One of the Marines was able put the tourniquets on.

I was irritated that I couldn’t pull the trigger. I was thinking, “Damn, I can’t shoot back; what can I do?” What I could do was talk to my Marines and issue orders and supervise. I was still in a leadership position even though I didn’t have my hands. And that probably kept me from going into shock and from sitting there thinking about my hands.

There were five of us in the Humvee and three of us were wounded to the point we were ineffectual as far as being able to pull the trigger. The gunner took a lot of shrapnel in the legs and was laid out on the roof. My team leader sitting in front of me had a big hole blown out of his triceps and [had] shattered his elbow, and he was putting a tourniquet on his right arm. His gun got blown out of his hands, too. So he was firing the driver’s weapon left-handed. The other two guys, the driver and the guy sitting behind him, had shrapnel, but it wasn’t disabling.

We fought our way out of that kill zone and stopped a couple hundred meters up the road. We regrouped and did a little more first aid on me, set out security and got with our signal plan to make comm with our unit. But we were in a bad position. We could see the enemy moving up the road to try to finish us off. We were being separated from the convoy, and it wasn’t good.

So we turned around and linked back up and got some good cover and got a corpsman up. It was probably 45 minutes from the time I got hit to the time the helicopter came. The ambush was still going on that whole time. The helicopter took me to the field hospital, and I asked the doctor to give me something for the pain. He did. And I don’t remember anything until I woke up in Bethesda [Naval Hospital] about 11 days later.

I only spent a month at Bethesda. Since I was an amputee, they sent me to Walter Reed [Army Medical Center], and I was there about a year. I was not an inpatient the whole time. I was at Malone House doing recovery. But pretty soon I wanted to get out of that environment. You just get comfortable; you get stagnant. There’s nothing going on.

You’ve got to find some way to channel your energy, and you can only go out to eat with your buddies so many times before it gets old. Each day, you go to your appointment for an hour or two and then you’re done. You sit around the rest of the day. Once you’ve maximized the benefits of rehab and occupational therapy and physical therapy, you should move on.

You’d be surprised. There are not a lot of people walking around Walter Reed all bummed out because they’re missing an arm or a leg. They’re young. They have good attitudes and strong minds, and they don’t see this as the end of their lives. It’s just kind of a speed bump. And they get a lot of support in whatever area they need, so it’s hard to be negative.

The opportunity to work here came up, and I jumped on it. It’s probably the best thing I’ve done yet as far as rehab — getting back into a normal routine and getting a sense of normalcy in my life.

If you’d have asked me before if I would want to be alive had I lost my hands, I would have said no. But now that I’m in those shoes, it’s not so bad. I get frustrated a bit, but I still feel like the same person. The worst part is not missing my hands. The worst part is not being able to do my job that I was doing and be with my buddies as they go back to Iraq and stuff like that.

I remember always wanting to be a Marine. My father is in the Air Force — active duty. And when I was a little kid, I used to go to PT with him. He’d run, and I’d ride my bike. And I guess I saw some Marines running to cadence one day. He says since that day, I wanted to be a Marine.

That’s the hardest thing that I’m dealing with now — just letting the Marine Corps go. I’m not doing what I joined the Marine Corps to do. So I’m figuring out my next step. I want to find a job that I will enjoy.

I have an opportunity now through the VA, the vocational rehab program, and all the benefits that are offered out there. I can take advantage of it while I’m young — go to school and start another career. But a future occupation, that’s open.

I like history and government, and I’d like to continue working for the government, maybe. I’m looking for something that would be active and have an impact on what’s going on overseas, though I don’t think I have the tact to be a politician. I’m in no rush, I have plenty of time.

If people want to help out injured Marines, there is a good organization called the Injured Marine Semper Fi Fund. If a Marine gets injured, family members leave their work to take care of the Marine. The bills start piling up, and things get real tight. The Semper Fi Fund is a good organization that helps out, no questions asked.

Editor’s Note: Information about the Injured Marine Semper Fi Fund is available via e-mail at info@semperfifund.org or by telephone at (703) 640-0181.

Marines have always considered themselves elite and a special force. During World War II that no-surrender character was embodied well in a young Californian who had a very adventurous spirit at an early age.

Col. Peter J. Ortiz, USMC

The United State Marines and The Office of Strategic Services

There are numerous detailed accounts of the background and exploits of Ortiz in various publications; I will list those of which I am aware at the end of this article. He had been born in New York City and educated in France where he left school before graduation to join the Legion. He was said to be the youngest sergeant in the history of the French Foreign Legion. He was wounded in action between the Legion and Germans in 1940, then imprisoned in a concentration camp in Austria.

After escaping, making his way to the U.S. and joining the Marine Corps in June 1942, he was commissioned in August 1942, commissioned a captain in the Marine Corps Reseve in December 1942, and assigned to North Africa as an assistant naval attache where he organized a patrol of Arab tribesmen to scout German forces on the Tunisian front. He was asigned to the OSS after recovering from wounds suffered in Tunisia.

Captain Ortiz had reported back to HQMC in April of 1943, and the following month joined the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), a secretive organization and predecessor to the CIA. He was a graduate of both the Legion’s and Marine Corps’ parachute schools. Having lived in France he was fluent in that language; he also spoke nine other languages and was fluent in five. He parachuted into France on January 6, 1944, assigned to help organize and lead elements of the French underground forces known as the “Marquis.”

-RWG

The Leatherneck magazine of January 1991, indicates that:

In the course of his duties he began frequenting a nightclub in Lyons that catered to German officers. This enabled Ortiz to gain much information regarding German activities in the area, which he turned to good use against the Germans. This Marine had worn his Marine uniform when leading Marquis groups in raids. To have an Allied officer leading them bolstered their morale immensely, especially when the uniform bore such impressive decorations.

“One night, while Ortiz sat with the German officers at the club in Lyons, an enemy soldier damned President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. He then damned the United States of America. And then, for whatever reason, he damned the United States Marine Corps (Ortiz later wrote that he “could not, for the life of me, figure why a German officer would so dislike American Marines when, chances were, he’d never met one.”)

Perhaps Ortiz was bored. Perhaps he… he excused himself from the table and returned to his apartment where… changed into the uniform of a U.S. Marine… he then shrugged into a raincoat and returned to the club… he ordered a round of drinks… refreshments were served… removed his raincoat and stood brandishing his pistol.

“A toast, he said, beaming, resplendent in full greens and decorations, “to the President of the United States!” As the pistol moved from German officer to German officer, they emptied their glasses.

He ordered another round of drinks and then offered a toast to the United States Marine Corps!

After the Germans had drained their glasses, the Marine backed out, pistol levelled at his astonished hosts. He disappeared into the rainy, black night.

…The train approached. The explosive device was detonated… the Marqis opened up… Grenades were tossed. Ortiz waited for the firing to subside, then stood in full view in his Marine Corps uniform and ordered the Marquis to withdraw… leaving 47 Germans dead and many others wounded. Not a Marquis was lost.

His adventures were numerous…”

–Leatherneck, January 1991

After the war, Colonel Ortiz worked with director John Ford, a former member of the OSS himself. Two movies were produced depicting the exploits of Ortiz. They were, “13 Rue Madeleine,” with James Cagney, etc., and “Operation Secret,” with Cornel Wilde, etc.

Ortiz also had small parts in such films as, “The Outcast,” “Wings of Eagles,” and “Rio Grande.” He also played the part of Major Knott in the film, “Retreat Hell,” a movie about the Marines at the Chosin Resevoir in 1950.

Marine Colonel Peter Ortiz was laid to rest at Arlington National cemetery on May 23, 1988. Prior to burial, the procession was led by the Marine Band in full dress, playing hymns – then a Marine rifle company in full dress, with fixed bayonets – six white horses pulling a caisson with the flag draped coffin and the beautiful black riderless horse with the reversed boot.

A Navy commander chaplain conducted a short service.

Representing the U.S. Marine Corps was General Frank Breth, Director of Intelligence; representing France was Colonel Guy Hussenot; representing England was Captain Jeremy Robbins, of the British Royal Marines…

References and Reading List

1. “A Different War: Marines In Europe And North Africa,” By LtCol Harry W. Edwards USMC (Ret)
2. Leathernck magazine, January 1991
3. Marine Corps League, Autumn 1992
4. Friends of the Foreign Legion Newsletter, V3, No.2 1988
5. Military History magazine, April 1990
6. World War II magazine, July 1998
7. This Is Your Life (TV show) Nov9, 1949
8. Miscellaneous documents, newsclippings, etc. from Historical Section HQMC
9. Marines In WW II, The Atlantic, Africa & Europe

The above references were provided by Historical Section HQMC.

It is recommended that interested viewers of this webpage obtain the above documents where much more information is to be found.

-RWG