joe foss. he was the stuff of a young boy s dreams. from a difficult beginning on the prairie, he soared to the greatest heights. as a world war ii fighter pilot ace and recipient of the congressional medal of honor, he lives in arizona now. but he met me in south dakota and took me to the hard scrabble farm where he was born. we lived in that one room. no heat in the rest of the house. and there was a table and four chairs. and then if we had guests, we had those little nail kegs we would sit on and the guests would get chairs. was it around here that you would see an airplane? oh, yeah. you see they will all the time. they came from that direction. the pilot would wave across at you. i thought, gosh, would i like the get in that thing. joe was a natural in the skies. even in the terror and confusion of air to air combat with faster japanese planes trying to shoot him down. he was shot down once but he was
that they otherwise wouldn t be able to afford. on the job he usesle different talents. we will work hard selling cakes and cookies. i make a black walnut cookie. it is fantastic. i cook a sweet potato pie, make you slap your mom. johnny holds was not interested in being a cook in the army. he wanted to be on the front. so he volunteered for what became one of the most famous units in the war. the 71st tank battalion. because the services were still segregated, the 761st was all black. the first black unit allowed into combat. once in come bass, they killed 183 continualuous days of heavy fighting but for him, the victories never erased the losses. to see the kids your age, you
they were. the thing behind it all, dedication to god and country. there s a star spangled banner waving somewhere in a distant land so many miles away only uncle sam s get to go there where i wish that i could also live someday after the war, joe never went back to farming. he became an entrepreneur, governor of south dakota, a sports executive, a writer and a hunter. but more than his resume, it is joe s spirit, his iron will to achieve that makes him the quint essential gi. a leader of men first tested and foreshaped by combat. in those young men, i think of them every day of my life. i think of those that didn t
bravery and combat, the congressional medal of honor. when they were kids, they saw the medal in a box in his den. but like a few million other children of gis, susan, rick and mick bush are only now learning to appreciate how many of their father s behavior toward them was formed by the war experiences he kept to himself. probably don t remember anything relating to the war until i was 12 or 13 years old. i don t remember my first recollection of realizing he had a glass eye. it certainly wasn t until i was probably in my early teens. when bob bush was a teenager, he was receiving his medal of honor from president harry truman in ceremonies on the white house lawn. bush was 18. the age that most kids are graduating from high school. only a few months earlier, he had wayne marine medic on the island of okinawa.
just when you think world war ii still affects only the actual combat veterans, you meet someone like jeannette in the minneapolis suburb of chaskin, minnesota. when jeannette s boyfriend was drafted into the army in 1944, they decided to marry before he shipped out. they had four months together as man and wife. then before camille left, they found out jeannette was expecting. their son robert was born while camille was in basic training to become a paratrooper. when the phone rang, he said, well, dear, i m on my way overseas. we re not getting any if you fu to come home. tears welled up in my eyes. i said well, i guess you won t get to see our boy.