The City of Pasadena will host a November 11th Veterans Day ceremony at Pasadena City Hall, 100 N. Garfield Ave., beginning at 10 a.m. The event, open to the public, provides an opportunity for community members to recognize those who have served in the US Armed Forces.
I am fondly reminded of and grateful for my exceptional father, US Army Corporal Edward Piercy, who, like so many other US veterans, never discussed his experiences during his World War II combat service in Europe.
Occasionally, he would allow a detail to slip, but for the most part, we never heard any stories about his tours in Belgium, Germany, France and England. Even though we had many V-mail letters from him to my great-grandmother Myrtle as a reference, most location-specific identifying information was blacked out.
V-Mail was always written on standardized stationery, with uniform size and weight so it could be redacted, photographed onto 16mm microfilm, printed and the edited version forwarded to the addressee. The heavily redacted V-mail ensured that any information that could be useful to the enemy was removed from communications in case the enemy did manage to intercept messages home.
Grandma Myrtle was a frugal Boomer Sooner who came to Oklahoma from Tennessee as a child during the 1889 land rush and who never threw away anything. She was the kind of covered wagon pioneer woman who would recycle her Royal Albert snuff glass jars into wild plum jelly containers. Nothing was wasted.
She kept all my Dad’s WWII V-Mail letters in a used Folger’s coffee tin.
Early Commitment to Service
When he should have continued his eighth-grade education, my Dad instead became part of the Civilian Conservation Corps, a federal government program instituted from 1933-42 to supply jobs for young men, providing relief to families who had difficulty finding jobs during the Great Depression.
In exchange for labor, the CCC program provided participants with shelter, clothing, food and a monthly wage of $30, $25 of which had to be sent home to their families.
Today’s federal domestic service agency, AmeriCorps, is gender neutral and the compensation has considerably improved.
After his CCC service, in February of 1942, my 17-year-old father begged his mother to take him to the local draft office so he could enlist in the Army and go to war. Foregoing his real birth certificate, she swore to the board that he was really 18 and eligible to enlist, that his birth records were destroyed in the Cordell, Oklahoma Courthouse when it burned down, and that they should take her word as his mother about the veracity of his age.
Everyone on the board knew the local Courthouse was still standing, but Dad left for war and served for four years. He sent home almost all of his Army earnings.
After his service, my father had a long and productive life as a journeyman meat cutter and meat market manager, a union job that again allowed him to provide for his family. After he died in 1998, my mom pulled out his military service records, those never seen or shared documents and photos that included copies of his discharge papers, indicating he fought in the Battle of the Ardennes Forest.
I called my sons and read the entry to them.
With a note of incredulity, one of them said, “Jeez, Mom. The Battle of the Ardennes Forest was the Battle of the Bulge. We didn’t know Grandpa fought Hitler there.”
The Battle of The Bulge
Winston Churchill called The Battle of the Ardennes Forest “the greatest American battle of the war.” Otherwise known as the Battle of the Bulge, it was Adolf Hitler’s last major offensive in World War II against the Western Front in Belgium. Hitler’s failure to divide Britain, France and America with the tank-heavy offensive paved the way for victory for the Allies.
The brutal battle lasted six weeks, from December 16th, 1944 to January 25th, 1945, under excruciatingly frigid winter weather conditions. Thirty German divisions attacked battle-fatigued American troops across 85 miles of the densely wooded Ardennes Forest.
As the Germans drove their Tiger tanks into the Ardennes, the Allied line took on the appearance of a large bulge, giving rise to the battle’s name. It was the costliest battle ever fought by the US Army, which suffered over 100,000 casualties.
Claiming victory in the battle on January 25th, 1945, the Allies then headed for Berlin. The war ended less than five months later with Germany’s May 7 surrender.
My father was 19 years old, fighting Hitler.
We have V-mail my Dad wrote Christmas Day, 1944 from Germany, a poignant note of normalcy in what must have been an otherwise horrific scenario:
Dear Mom & all
How are you? I am fine. Rec your letter yesterday. Surely was glad to here (sic) from you. How is every one at home now?…Everything is O.K. over here. Right now it is cold but I guess I can stand that. Don’t pay any attention to the letters you get from Hazel. She is just another gal. She is not in the family & she won’t be…Yes Mom I got the cigarettes & hair gel. Send some more in about a mo. Hope you got the picture I sent you. If not let me know & I’ll send you another one. Well, Mom tell everyone hello. I stop for now. Xmas day. We are having turkey today. Boy o Boy.
Love Bud.
Dad’s Battle of the Bulge service also explained the Bronze Star Medal we found in his box of military credentials, an award he had never mentioned or discussed.
The US Armed Forces BSM decoration recognizes heroic or meritorious service or achievement and is a five-pointed star with a smaller raised star in the center. The ribbon is mainly red with a white-edged blue band in the center and white edge stripes.
We also found a marksmanship badge with expertise in automatic rifles, pistols, machine guns and carbines, signifying that he could shoot 23 out of 40 targets.
After his discharge from service and after considerable medical review, VA doctors determined the stress of war caused my father’s gastrointestinal bleeding ulcers. He received a 50 percent disability judgement with a commensurate payment for the rest of his life.
He also received surgery at the VA Hospital in 1954, where 80 percent of his stomach was removed. Such treatment is now regarded as an unnecessary cure for ulcers since later medical research discovered that H. pylori bacteria is believed to be the determinant cause of ulcers.
Today he would have been given a course of antibiotics.
We honor all veterans when we tell, maybe for the first time, or retell the stories that make up the richness of their sacrifices.
My father was buried with military honors at Riverside National Cemetery. In 2011, my mother was buried with him.
Her name was Janice, not Hazel.
Very good Sheryl. I enjoyed reading this article
Thank you for sharing this story about uncle Buddy. I enjoyed reading this. My Dad was Dewayne his younger brother.