THIS BLOG IS SO IMPORTANT I’M GOING TO LEAVE IT UP FOR A COUPLE OF DAYS.
Gary Alexander’s letter made me leap up and check this out: He’s right. Ben didn’t win the Medal of Honor. It was the Silver Star. It was my mistake, and here’s how it happened.
One of the useful — and I hope charming — aspects of blogging, and this blog (I trust) is that I write about whatever just happened or is happening, almost every day, seven full columns a week, whether it’s about garbage pickups or too much to drink, or marriage or a football game with the kids. A vital part of the pact, though, I think, between writer and reader, is that everything I say is true. If it’s not, well, we all make mistakes, and I hope I’m always the first — or second — to say it. As Lenny Bruce once said, the audience always knows whether a comic is lying to them or not.
Some encyclopedias or sites on the web are a bit notorious for printing things that aren’t true and then just leaving them up, and I hope I’ll never be one of them. Thanks to Gary’s swift response, I don’t have to.
There is a giant problem in our country for many years now about men who make up stories about things they didn’t do in wars, about being in outfits they were never in. They’re in all walks of life, sometimes they just want to boast in bars, sometimes they’re professors and such, sometimes they write books about it, sometimes they trade off it and buy success, and I can’t imagine anything lower, and I share Gary’s passion about this. Stealing and murder are terrible crimes, but I don’t know how a crime could be much more worse than stealing someone’s glory.
It’s like that woman who waited in the tunnel that time in the Olympic marathon and pretended she won. It’s like that times a million.
So here’s the thing, and again, I wanted to jump right on this, I just read Gary’s letter, it’s almost 6:00 pm L.A. time, Monday evening. First of all, I’ve known Ben for years, and he’s never said a word about any of his service. Whatever happened here, it didn’t come from him, and in fact that’s one of the reasons I always liked him and thought I’d write about him, because I knew his experience was deep and interesting, but he was never the one to talk about it. Ever. And when someone the other night told me he won the Medal of Honor, I thought it was interesting and wonderful enough to tell you about it the next day.
Again: It’s an everyday blog, but I was wrong, not him. And now — with Gary’s help — I have a chance to set it straight.
I got a lot of the specifics about him just now, and I’ll give you a little, but I hope it’s enough.
He was a Lt. in the Navy, (the equivalent of a captain in the army) and a Lt j.g. at Normandy. He was part of a group of 17 liaison officers attached to, first, the 29th Division, 5th Battalion (later 2nd Battalion) of the Army Rangers, commanded by a Colonel named Rudder, who was later Chancellor of the University of Texas for thirty years.
Colonel Rudder was wounded three times and has passed on, but Ben was called to testify six months ago (after the colonel’s death) so that, even posthumously, the colonel might get the Medal of Honor. Ben was wounded, too, with shrapnel in his back, but it didn’t keep him out of action, and in those days, not every wound was enough for a Purple Heart, which he completely agrees with.
Apparently the navy didn’t want to aim their guns, which at the time fired up to 25 miles inland, unless they were “aimed” by spotters attached to the Rangers. Ben was in the invasion at Casablanca with this unit, fought across Africa to Tunisia, landed at Sicily doing the same thing in that invasion (this was a very unique group that was getting more and more experienced), and by that time, he and some of the others were so experienced, they were called in for the same thing at Omaha and Utah beaches. Ben landed at Omaha, in the first wave, with the first engineers, and had to get up the cliff separating the beaches, and…
There is a tremendous amount more to this story, but I don’t want to tell it poorly. The point is, that’s what Ben won the Silver Star for (and his whole unit got a Presidential Citation), but he didn’t win the Medal of Honor, he didn’t think he should have it, he never mentioned it, he never said a word.
Someone told me about it in that bar Saturday night, and I was impressed and thought I’d tell you.
I was wrong, and there’s much more, but I hope that’s enough for all you folks. It wasn’t someone stealing glory, it was me writing my daily column about something I thought you’d want to know. Gary was right to jump on it, and I’m grateful to him. Whether it’s a kid misbehaving in a mall or a thief running away, I wish more folks jumped on things in life when they know it’s wrong.
Anyway, as I said, I think this is important enough to leave up for a couple of days. In thought and deed and prayer there are few people I know who respect our soldiers more. I go to every room in Walter Reed every time I’m in Washington to pass out books, and hopefully a laugh or two (that is through Bernie Rone at the U.S.O., in case anyone wants to check), I, like lots of you, I’m sure, always shake a hand in the airport and make sure the kids do the same, so they know what’s important. This doesn’t make me anyone special. I wish more of us did the same thing.
The point is, comedy or no comedy, I never want to besmirch anything, only honor it. I’ll leave this up, as I said, and in a few days, we’ll get back to comedy.
Yours,
Larry
