Northern California veteran among the last living WWII Marine Raiders
LODI -- Corporal Frank S. Wright, 98, will proudly tell you that he quit high school in 1942 to join the military during World War II. The Lodi veteran said he chose the Marines for one simple reason.
Lo, there do I see my father. Lo, there do I see my mother, and my sisters, and my brothers. Lo, there do I see the line of my people, Back to the beginning!
Lo, they do call to me. They bid me take my place among them, In the halls of Valhalla! Where the brave may live forever!
When men were men. My grandfather got stranded on Guadalcanal when the Japs counter attacked. He turned 18 out there. He never went swimming again after he came home. He never talked about it. Not even to his wife.
Our family went camping every year. My dad never went to sleep in a tent without a milsurp machete by his side. Long after he died I made the connection to him surviving a kamikaze attack by hundreds of Japanese soldiers on Iwo Jima.
Literal Superheroes.
ReplyDeleteLo, there do I see my father.
ReplyDeleteLo, there do I see my mother,
and my sisters, and my brothers.
Lo, there do I see the line of my people,
Back to the beginning!
Lo, they do call to me.
They bid me take my place among them,
In the halls of Valhalla!
Where the brave may live forever!
When men were men. My grandfather got stranded on Guadalcanal when the Japs counter attacked. He turned 18 out there. He never went swimming again after he came home. He never talked about it. Not even to his wife.
ReplyDeleteOur family went camping every year. My dad never went to sleep in a tent without a milsurp machete by his side. Long after he died I made the connection to him surviving a kamikaze attack by hundreds of Japanese soldiers on Iwo Jima.
DeleteI still have that machete.
This is the kind of guy who would deny that he's a hero, but that kind of guy is a hero to me.
ReplyDeleteHe sounds like a real hero to me too. He seems to have fought in every major battle in the Pacific Theater during WWII.
Delete