The 98-year-old stands ramrod straight at the Armed Forces History Museum in Largo, curls his right index finger into his palm and offers a boast no one in their right mind would take him up on.
“No man in Florida,” says Irving Zeider, “can open this finger.”
I for one, do not doubt him. Not after his vice-like handshake.
Zeider, of St. Petersburg, was at the museum to take part in a portrait project by Tampa photographer Ryan Joseph. He was one of about a dozen veterans of WWII, Korea and Vietnam that Joseph wanted to capture on film.
“I wanted to do fine art portraits of them while they are still around,” says Joseph.
The portraits will hang in the museum, as well as in the Washington and local offices of U.S. Rep. David Jolly, who helped set up the shoot. Hearing about it, I wanted to talk to the veterans. I never pass up a chance to listen to old war stories, especially when the chances to hear them from those who were there are diminishing every day. And though every day is Veterans Day in the world I cover, what better time to tell these stories?
Zeider, a self-described “Connecticut farm boy,” served in Italy during the war as a combat engineer. When I ask him his rank, he tells me “it went up and down. I didn’t take orders too good.”
How high up?
“Corporal,” he says.
A combat engineer, Zeider was assigned to clear roads of bombs and booby traps and unexploded ordnance.
It was dangerous work.
Sometime in 1943, Zeider’s unit received a new shipment of mine detectors. A sergeant wanted him to give them out to the young troops, but Zeider says he refused.
“We were losing too many boys,” says Zeider. “I wanted to make sure they worked good before I gave them out. The sergeant got angry and I told him he could kiss my a–.”
During his time in Italy, Zeider would receive two Purple Hearts.
The first one was for what happened after trying to push an ambulance out of the road, says Zeider.
“It blew me up,” he says.
The second time was when he got hit by some shrapnel.
On the way into Rome, in May of 1944, Zeider saw the devastating effect of Allied attacks against the Nazis.
“There were dead Germans all over the road,” he says.
Gerard “Bud” Berry had a different view of WWII.
A C-47 transport co-pilot, he took off from Britain for his combat mission at about 10 p.m. June 5, 1944. Inside his plane, he had about 18 paratroopers, heading for a drop zone near Sainte Mere Elgise, France (famous for paratrooper John Steele, who got hung up on a village church).
It was a massive undertaking. Berry’s plane joined more than 800 others headed across the English Channel. They flew in tight formations, three groups of planes flying together in a “V” pattern, with three of those groups flying together in a larger formation.
Close to the shore, they ran into a cloud bank.
“It was night time,” recalls Berry, now 94 and living in Clearwater. “We couldn’t have our position lights, just the formation lights, which were very pale blue lights. You could not see the airplane beside you.”
In the confusion, “every one was on their own,” says Berry. “Some planes gained altitude so they wouldn’t hit anyone else.”
Despite that, Berry says that when all was said and done, “70 percent of the troops were dropped within five miles of their scheduled drop zone.”
Berry says he takes issue with historian Stephen Ambrose, author of “Band of Brothers,” and his account of Easy Company soldiers dropped behind the lines, sometimes far from the drop zones.
“He never talked to the pilots,” says Berry.
There were veterans of other wars, too.
Bill Allen, wearing a mask over his face “because I have no immune system left,” joined the Army in 1949. A sergeant, he was stationed in Japan with the 24th Infantry Division when they got the orders on July 4, 1950, to head to Korea, to help try and stop the North Korean invasion of the South.
“Everything was fine until July 1, 1951,” says Allen. “That’s when I got captured.”
He was just north of Seoul. The North Koreans marched he and about 40 or 50 other soldiers north to the Yalu River.
It was a death march, says Allen, with the Americans suffering not only the brutality of the enemy, but from the blazing guns of their own planes.
“We were being strafed and bombed by U.S. aircraft,” says Allen. “They didn’t know.”
It was, he says, an experience he will never forget.
“You have never lived until you had jets fly over you at 600 miles per hour, firing machine guns and dropping napalm,” he says.
Eventually, Allen wound up at Camp 5. Out of 3,000 prisoners, Allen says about 1,600 were buried after dying of starvation and mistreatment.
“You do what you have to do to survive,” he says.
Prisoners were beaten and shot for minor infractions, says Allen. Things only improved a little when the Chinese took over, he says.
“They didn’t do things out in the open,” says Allen, adding that the Chinese also introduced brainwashing, trying to indoctrinate the prisoners to get them to espouse the Communist point of view.
“It didn’t work on me,” he says.
After 31 months, Allen was finally freed, part of a prisoner exchange that sent nine enemy north for every U.S. soldier heading south.
The memories of that moment are hazy, says Allen.
“It happened the same way as I got captured,” he says. “Very fast.”
Allen eventually wrote a book, called “My Old Box of Memories,” that includes his recollections of experiences so horrible he never wanted to remember.
Some of the events I write about may not be in the right order, but they did happen. Writing this is like watching a TV screen. I am seeing everything in my mind as I write it and it is very difficult to relive it. There are a lot of things that I wish I could forget, but it is impossible, even after all these years. It is strange sometimes that I can’t remember what I did yesterday, but I can remember in detail what I was doing over 45 years ago.
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While waiting for his picture to be taken, Gary Littrell, who received the Medal of Honor for his heroics in Vietnam in 1970, said the photo shoot will preserve the past.
Littrell, according to his Medal of Honor citation, “exhibited near superhuman endurance as he single-handedly bolstered the besieged battalion. Repeatedly abandoning positions of relative safety, he directed artillery and air support by day and marked the unit’s location by night, despite the heavy, concentrated enemy fire. His dauntless will instilled in the men of the 23d Battalion a deep desire to resist. Assault after assault was repulsed as the battalion responded to the extraordinary leadership and personal example exhibited by Sfc. Littrell as he continuously moved to those points most seriously threatened by the enemy, redistributed ammunition, strengthened faltering defenses, cared for the wounded and shouted encouragement to the Vietnamese in their own language.”
The photo session, he says, is a welcome event. And not just for those whose pictures are being taken.
“Young people will be able to come here and see these pictures” says Littrell, now 70 and living in St. Pete Beach. “It will be good for them to see this history.”
While it was amazing to talk to the veterans, I regretted not doing more to record their stories for posterity.
That’s not the case with those taking part in “Call to Service,” an interactive exhibit being held up in New York, and available online.
A partnership of Google and the 9/11 Memorial, the interactive installation, powered by Google Tour Builder, will be on display through Nov. 14. It features several stories of those who fought in the initial wave of combat in Afghanistan and Iraq, including retired Green Beret master sergeant Scott Neil of Tampa, a name probably well familiar to folks who read this space.
And why not? Neil is always in the middle of something interesting, including this exhibit.
“Visitors at the museum will be able to tap on the screen and pick one or all of our histories and follow us through all of our mission in Afghanistan and Iraq,” says Neil, “We will all be a part of two panels — one at the National 9/11 Museum and one at the Google headquarters in NYC.”
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The Pentagon announced no new deaths in support of either Operation Enduring Freedom or Operation Inherent Resolve.
There have been 2,340 U.S. troop deaths in support of Operation Enduring Freedom, the nation’s longest war and two in support of Operation Inherent Resolve, the nation’s newest conflict.