The Way I Heard It with Mike Rowe - 173: Visiting Hours

Episode Date: October 6, 2020

When you have a family this big, you're guaranteed an occasional visit…

This is the way I heard it. According to the President of the United States, America would never see another soldier like him. And the President was probably right. Certainly, no one soldier had ever seen so much action. Two world wars, a stint in Korea, and more battles than he could recall. Now, retired at long last, the old soldier is relaxing in the place he calls home, looking down on a field of green and the wide river that flows below. It's a good home, as homes go, a defined place to welcome his family, who come to see him every day.

In fact, there they are right now, strolling up the driveway to say hello. The old soldier is always available during visiting hours. Always. A lot of men his age wind up alone and forgotten, especially in a place like this, but not him. Family members are always dropping by to spend time and share. a story or keep him up to speed on the latest news from home. Just last week, his daughter Susan had stopped by to tell him his grandson had been accepted to Harvard.

How about that? And just yesterday, cousin Billy brought word the old general store where he had met his wife, God rest her soul, was now a Starbucks. Ah, well, time marches on. These visits from loved ones are lifelines, just like the letters he received in France. all those years ago. June 5th, 1918, one day after the Battle of Bella Wood. He was only a private back then, a teenager from Baton Rouge, among the first wave of Marines to charge into that unspeakable meat grinder on the Marne River. He was still in shock from what he had seen on that

terrible day, the withering machine gun fire, the constant shelling, and the brutal hand-to-hand combat. But then a letter from Bakersfield arrived with his mother's writing on the front, a letter from home, which he read in a muddy trench surrounded by dead friends. What? His kid brother had made the basketball team. When did he grow so tall? Sally, the little tomboy from down the block, was Biloxi's buttermilk festival queen? Unbelievable. And Freckles, the Cocker Spaniel, just had a litter of ten puppies, all of which were, being named in his honor and given away to good homes around Boise. With every sentence, the young Marine had felt a little more human, a little more determined to make it back home to the people he loved. Obviously, that determination paid off. Not only did he make it back from Bella Wood, he made it back from the Ardan, the Battle of Ipre,

and San Miguel, each one bloodier than the next. For his heroism, he was awarded the Medal of Honor, as well as the Victoria Cross, unprecedented. But the old soldier was still a young man and just getting started. When the Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor, guess who was sleeping peacefully in his bunk aboard the USS, Arizona? He was lieutenant by then, one of 1,500 sailors assigned to the mighty battleship, when a torpedo bomb fell from the sky and sent them all toward the bottom. of the Pacific. Somehow, he had made it back to the surface, only to find the ocean burning with thousands of gallons of gasoline and littered with hundreds of his shipmates, burning to death

in the salty brine. It's a miracle that anyone survived that terrible morning, and yet, just six months later, there he was again in the coral sea, and then again at the battles of Midway, Corregador, Mindanao, and Luzon. After that, it was back to Europe where he stormed the beaches of Normandy, fought the battle of the bulge, and distinguished himself at Anzio. Through it all, no matter where the war raged, those letters from home always found him, little lifelines that reminded him of why he was over there in the first place. His family could never know how much that meant to him, or how much their visit today would lift his spirit. His final battle had taken place in Korea. 14 November, 1950.

The Chosan Reservoir. A cold front from Siberia sent the temperature plunging to 36 degrees below zero. He was a captain by then, commanding a few good men who were slowly freezing to death around him. It was the bloodiest battle he'd ever seen, even though the blood of his wounded men froze before it had a chance to flow. Again, he never expected to find himself among the survivors, the frozen chosen, as they were called, but neither did he expect a visit from the President of the United States, who stood before him long after his return and proudly declared to all assembled that there would never be another soldier like him.

As his loved ones draw near, the guards step aside, leaving him to relax. in his usual spot, while getting the latest updates from Biloxi or Boise or Baton Rouge, or was it Bakersfield? Honestly, it's hard to keep it all straight. He is old, after all. An old soldier whose real family includes every dead American who never made it back and all the loved ones who still grieve their collective passing. The president was right.

There will never be another soldier like him, because today every soldier's DNA is kept on file, so his or her remains, no matter how small, can be positively identified. Thus, the old soldier really is the last of his kind, a legendary warrior who everybody has heard of, but nobody knows. A faceless hero who looks down on a field of green, and the Potomac River that flows below. There, in a place called Arlington, you can find him still,

waiting for visitors and relaxing for eternity. In the tomb he calls home. The tomb of the unknown soldier. Anyway, that's the way I heard it. The ocean moves us, whether that's surfing a wave or taking in an inspiring view. The ocean feeds us. sustainable seafood practices bring the ocean's bounty to our plates.

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