Interesting, painful, and timely that this very good thread appears today.
Just yesterday I learned of the natural death of a Marine friend of mine
who fought with the Fifth Division in the brutal battle at Iwo Jima taking Mount Suribachi. Who will ever forget the photo of our flag being raised on that day?
I used to help pack bales of hay at a Marine veteran's farm who was at both Iwo Jima and Okinawa and a mountain of a man: 6' 6" and 315 pounds. He passed about 19 years ago - Earl Tiedt. He would move bales of hay like they were loaves of bread: take two of them from the back of the rack and flip them onto the elevator with one hand - both with the right and left hands equally accurate. On one load, he got to the point of lifting the bale in his left hand up to aim it into the elevator, when the board of the hay rack gave way and he fell towards the elevator. He kept control of the bale and used it to keep him from getting cut up by the sharp paddles of the fast moving elevator, but the elevator began to "eat" the bale and bring his hand closer to the elevator.
With the elevator on, I jumped onto the side of the elevator and slid rapidly down one edge while loosely touching the opposite side with a gloved hand the 45 feet on a 37 degree downward incline in time to lift him to his feet and away from the elevator. Adrenaline and wrestling training paid off for me that day when I was sixteen and about 165 pounds. Four yeasrs later, Earl agreed to tell me about his experiences in the Marines while "Island hopping" in the Pacific for an English paper in college. He had never talked with anyone about it before, and as I was going into the Nuclear Powered Navy and the hay baling incident in previous years, he felt comfortable with sharing. Less than 12% of his company were able to walk off of Iwo Jima - he always felt truly blessed, and the rest of his life showed it. His wife Darlyne was there during the interview, and she said that she had never heard the stories before.
Having seen what he had seen as a 20 year-old, it was amazing that he was such a funny man and positive influence on all of those around him for the entire time I knew him. I will always treasure my memories of Earl, and Darlyne was an amazing cook and baker. One of Earl's favorite stories (whether true or not - I prefer to think it was true) was about how he was out plowing until late at night and Darlyne had baked his favorite cake and he could see the German Chocolate frosting glistening in the moonlight coming through the kitchen window. He was having a hard time finding a knife in the dark, so he turned on the lights to find the knife to cut the cake. Once he found the best knife, he turned around to find that the cake was covered in house flies. Undetered, he truned the lights back off, cut the cake and ate a huge piece of German Chocolate cake. Darlyne denies that flies would ever be on her cakes, because she always covers them with glass cake covers, and keeps the flies out of the house, but the story fits his personality and his love for his wife and her cooking.
