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VETERANS 11/16/2013 8:29:06 AM
VETERANS – NOV 16
Veterans Day, November 11, or Armistice Day, as it was called when I started school in 1937, is to me less significant than Memorial Day. Armistice Day signaled the official end of World War I signed at Compiégne at precisely 11 AM the morning of Nov 11, 1918; Memorial Day, originally called Decoration Day, was never to be confused with Veterans Day.
Memorial Day, celebrated in May, is a day of remembering the people who died in service to the USA, while Veterans Day celebrates the service of all U.S. military veterans, living or dead. There are a few civilians, as well, we pause to remember (they would be 95 years old, at least!).
Memorial Day, a Civil War tribute that was later expanded to include all wars in which we participated, including but not limited to, World Wars I and II, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, etc.
Of course, I grew up with World War II — I was ten when it started and fourteen when it was over — and for many years I searched for the one story that best describes, for me, what the war was all about.
My former boss, Roger Ardston, told me one that fills the bill.
Many years ago, when I was just a kid, there was a gangster, a despicable fellow named Al Capone, who virtually owned the city of Chicago, Illinois. Capone was not famous for anything heroic — in fact, he was, in all likelihood, a draft dodger — but he was notorious for everything from bootlegged booze to whores to wholesale murder.
Al had a lawyer nicknamed Easy Eddie, a Capone mouthpiece for a very good reason: Eddie was extremely talent and very good as a lawyer! In fact, Eddie’s unique skill at courtroom shenanigans kept Big Al out of jail for a long, long time.
To show his appreciation, Capone paid Easy Eddie exceptionally well and gave him many bonuses of a hundred thousand dollars or more. Not only was the money humongous, but also Eddie got special dividends on top of bonuses.
For example, Eddie, though divorced from the mother of his children, lived in a guarded, fenced-in community, a mansion with eighteen rooms and live-in, permanent help and all the conveniences of the day, an estate so large that it covered an entire Chicago city block — entirely at Capone’s expense.
Eddie lived the high life of Chicago mobdem and paid no attention to the atrocities that went on around him and for which he was on call 24/7 to speak for and defend his boss.
However, Eddie did have one soft spot: he had a son that he loved more than anything else in this world. Eddie saw to it that the kid had everything from clothes and cars to a super education. Nothing was withheld, and thanks to Capone, price was no object.
His involvement with organized crime notwithstanding, Easy Eddie even made sure his son knew right from wrong. He wanted to be certain his son was, against all odds, a better man than he. Yet, with all his wealth, influence and connections, there were two things he could not give the boy. He could not pass on a good name or set a good example.
One day, Easy Eddie reached a difficult decision: he wanted to rectify the evil he had done. He wanted, for the sake of his kid, to go to the authorities and tell the truth about Al Capone. Maybe it was too late, maybe it was not, and maybe they could still get Capone on, say, income tax evasion, the one area Easy Eddie avoided because the Feds could not figure it out.
In any event, he would clean up his tarnished name, and offer his son some semblance of integrity and the good life.
To do this, he would have to testify against the Mob, and he knew, going in, that the cost would be great. So, realizing the danger to himself, he went to the attorney general and barred his soul; he offered minute testimony against Al Capone. And, lo and behold, the Feds got the wry criminal on, of all things, income tax evasion!
A few days before Capone was arrested, Easy Eddie’s life ended in a blaze of gunfire as he sat alone in his car on a dark Chicago street. But to his way of thinking, he had given his kid the greatest gift he had to offer at the greatest price he had to pay. Police removed from the pockets of his bullet-riddled suit a rosary, a crucifix, a religious medal, and a poem Easy Eddie had clipped from a magazine.
The poem read: The clock of life is wound but once,
And no man has the power;
To tell when the hands will stop,
At late or early hour.
Now is the only time you own.
Live, love, toil with a will.
Place no faith in time.
For the clock
May soon be still.
World War II produced a number of genuine, bona fide heroes, such as my uncle, PFC Rollin W. Mills, US infantry. What heroics did he perform? None, I know of. But did manage, by the grace of God, to endure the entire war, serve in Europe, and come home in one piece, just as he went in. In my book, that makes him outstanding
But WWII produced many who were not so fortunate. One such hero was Lt. Butch O’Hare, a fighter pilot assigned to the aircraft carrier, USS Lexington, in the South Pacific.
One day his entire squadron went on a mission. After he was airborne, he glanced at his fuel gauge and noticed that a deckhand had neglected to top off his auxiliary tank. He knew he would not have enough gas to complete the mission and get back to his ship.
The flight leader told him to return to the carrier immediately. Reluctantly, Lt. O’Hare dropped out of formation and headed back to the fleet. And then he saw something that turned his blood to ice water — a squadron of Japanese bombers speeding toward the American armada!
With the fighters all away on an assignment, the ships were defenseless. He could not radio his squadron and bring them back in time to save the fleet, nor could he warn the ships, for obvious reasons, of the approaching danger.
There was only one thing he could do!
With no thought of personal safety, he came out of the clouds with the sun behind him and dove into the formation of Japanese bombers, his wing-mounted 50 cals blazing; Butch wove in and out of the surprised and confused formation. He blasted as many planes as possible until all his ammunition was exhausted.
Undaunted, he kept the assault going. He dove recklessly into the enemy, clipping a wing or tail here or there in hopes of damaging as many as he could, making them unable to continue flying.
Finally, the battered Japanese squadron became exasperated and changed course in another direction. Relieved, Lt. O’Hare likewise spun his equally tattered fighter about and limped back to the Lexington.
Upon landing, he reported to his CO and related the events surrounding his return. The film in the camera mounted in his plane’s tale showed the extent of O’Hare’s daring attempt to protect the fleet and the subsequent destruction of five enemy aircraft.
This action took place on February 20, 1942, and as a result Lt. O’Hare became the Navy’s first WWII ace and the first Naval aviator to be awarded the Medal of Honor. He was simultaneously promoted to lieutenant commander.
Almost a year-to-the-date later Butch O’Hare was killed in aerial combat. He was just 29 years old. And he was the son of the late Easy Eddie O’Hare!
Butch’s home town of Chicago would not let the memory of this WWII hero fade away, and today, though the specter of Al Capone is rarely acknowledged, O’Hare Airport remains a tribute to the courage of a great American.
The next time you are at O’Hare International, take a moment and visit Edward Henry Butch O’Hare’s memorial, which displays his statue and his Medal of Honor.
