This week, honoring our heroes who have passed took center stage with the 80th anniversary of the D-Day Allied invasion of Normandy today. For me, the topic was on my mind for longer than just one day though as I recently commemorated the loss of my greatest personal hero, my father.
So, I wanted to write about heroes. But my father is personal to me, so I didn't want to make him the centerpoint. Scrolling through Twitter yesterday, I found the hero I wanted to talk about.
His name is Hershel 'Woody' Williams. Williams passed away a couple of years ago on June 29, 2022, and he wasn't even present at the D-Day invasion. He was far too busy in another theater of operations in World War II, but one that had just as many heroes as the boys and men who landed at Normandy on June 6.
What struck me most, however, was not so much where Williams fought for America, but what his passing represented. As the last of 472 Medal of Honor recipients in World War II, his death seemed symbolic of something we have lost. I am sure many Twitchy readers are already familiar with Williams' story, so I hope you can indulge me in recounting it. And in recounting it, I thought of some parallels and started to think that maybe, while no one will ever equal the Greatest Generation, maybe our heroes don't have to be lost after all.
RIP Woody Williams, the last surviving MOH recipient from WW2. All gone. All 472. pic.twitter.com/Ni3PCmGB8G
— Military Support (@MilitaryCooI) June 5, 2024
Woody Williams was an underdog from birth. Born at under 4 pounds in 1923, no one even expected him to survive. He lost his father at a young age and many siblings as well, but Williams persevered. After the outbreak of World War II, when Williams tried to enlist in the Marines (he loved the dress blues), he was told he was too short, standing at only 5 feet, 6 inches. The war being what it was though, by the next year, the requirements were changed and Williams was able to enlist.
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This frail baby, who experienced great loss in his youth and was initially rejected by the Marines, then went on to be one of the most renowned heroes of the Pacific Theater. He participated in the Battle of Guam in 1944 as part of the 1st Battalion, 21st Marine Regiment, 3rd Marine Division. Then, in February 1945, the Battle of Iwo Jima took place, where Williams' performance would earn him the Medal of Honor.
What Williams did on February 23 in that battle is something not even a Hollywood movie could make up if it tried. The last remaining demolitions expert in his unit, when his commander asked him if he could do something about the enemy pillboxes that had them stalled, Williams simply responded, 'I'll try.' Armed with only a flamethrower and his charges, he and a few riflemen guarding him took down pillbox after enemy pillbox, seven in total, clearing the way for the American tanks. After Williams took one down, he retreated, re-armed, and advanced again. And again. And again. For hours. Later, when asked about those furious events, he would say, 'I have no memory.'
One thing he DID recall about that day was the famous raising of the American flags at Mount Suribachi. Williams was less than 1,000 yards away from that historic event and said, 'I still remember that,' and how it lifted everyone's spirits.
After that fateful day, Williams continued fighting in the weeks-long battle, earning a Purple Heart for a fragmentation injury he suffered on March 6. When he returned to the United States that fall, President Harry Truman awarded him the Medal of Honor at the White House on October 5.
Asked later about how he summoned the courage to do what he did on February 23 at Iwo Jima, Williams responded:
Everybody has some instinct of bravery. And, as long as they can control the fear, you can be brave. But if fear overtakes you and becomes the dominant instinct, you cannot operate. You cannot operate under fear. Your brain won't let you.
I feel that our upbringing had some influence on our bravery because we were taught in the depression years, if you didn't have it, you had to make it. And the only way you could make it was to work at it. Our upbringing gave us the confidence that developed into bravery.
What those men did simply cannot be overstated.
Legends. Freaking legends. https://t.co/YNTxNZXMPX
— Kurt Schlichter (@KurtSchlichter) June 5, 2024
We have lost the greatest men to walk among men.
— D.H. Cannon (Thumbless Wonder) (@D_H_Cannon) June 6, 2024
May they guide our hands with the help of God. https://t.co/vT2L2jKMqe
"It is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died. Rather, we should thank God that such men lived."
— Yali Elkin (@yalielkin) June 6, 2024
- Gen. George S. Patton Jr. https://t.co/Tie4dXyrFU
Years later, Williams would note that his Medal of Honor was not for him, but for the men who died to protect him so he could do his job.
Despite all of the heroism that Williams and everyone else who fought in World War II exhibited, including the boys who stormed the beaches in France on D-Day, this was what struck me and made me want to write about him this week.
My father was only a boy during World War II, but he grew up with the stories of men like Williams and in the Ignatian tradition of being 'a man for others.' That phrase may not have been known by most of the men who served in World War II, but they didn't have to know it. They lived it.
When the Vietnam War began, as a young physician with a new family, my father had every opportunity to make that his focus. Instead, he did not wait for the draft to come to him or try to avoid it. He volunteered to serve. When his brother, my uncle, asked him why, he bluntly responded, 'I don't have a choice. My country needs me and I can help those men who are sacrificing a lot more.' My father served as a doctor in the Army for several years and went on to live a life for others long after his service and that war ended.
Several months ago, long after my father's passing, my brother (also a doctor) met a new patient, an elderly Marine master jump instructor who my father had treated long ago during Vietnam. Upon realizing who my brother was, that Marine went home, retrieved his master jump wings, and gave them to my brother as a gift to remember and honor the man who served with him and treated him 60 years prior.
I hope it is not too presumptuous or disrespectful of me, but I couldn't help but draw the parallel between Williams cherishing his Medal of Honor because of the men who served with him and sacrificed for him, and this Marine giving up his wings for the family of a man who treated him.
I don't draw that parallel to try to raise my father up. He doesn't need that and wouldn't want it or ask for it. I make the comparison to honor all of the men who served and sacrificed. From Woody Williams who survived the ordeal of World War II's Pacific Theater to the thousands of young men in Normandy who never made it off the beach. And everyone in between. And everyone who came afterward to serve our country in war. But I also make the comparison on D-Day to note that, even if 21st-century culture wants to strip them away from us, we still have heroes and role models today. We just have to look harder, and maybe look toward the past to find them.
Not long ago, I wrote for Twitchy about the passing of Lou Conter, the last surviving sailor from the USS Arizona. I wrote about how America was different then and that we may never again know the equal of men like Conter and Williams. But I thought differently this week. Those men inspired my father, who tried to live up to their example during Vietnam. Men of that generation, in turn, inspire us to live up to the same example generations later.
What I think today is that I hope the world will never demand men and women endure the horrors of a World War II or a Vietnam. But even if we are spared that, God willing, it does not mean that we cannot strive to be like them.
I can't think of a better way to honor the lives, deaths, and memories of men like Williams. And men like my father.
