Quiet Heroism Marks Fading WWII Generation

John R. Crews kept his past in an old cedar chest. He didn’t visit it much; mostly, he lived in the here and now, a churchgoing man who worked as a plant foreman and raised four kids.

But each Memorial Day, he would reach into that chest and retrieve ribbon and medal, mementos of his bravery a half-century ago, when he was a young man. There was a Purple Heart, silver and bronze stars, and a golden star, rarest of all, emblazoned with a single word: “Valor.”

And then, with that Medal of Honor dangling from his neck, he would lay a wreath for all those who did not come back from war.

This year, when the roll of Oklahoma’s war dead is read, John Crews will not be there to hear it. He died of a heart attack on Sept. 25. He was 78.

His obituary appeared in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post, in newspapers far from Bowlegs, Okla., where he grew up. He was, after all, the recipient of the nation’s greatest honor.

But you probably didn’t hear about Kenneth F. Ermlich, 75, who died that same day in Westerville, Ohio. An airman during World War II, he worked for Rockwell International for 32 years. He is survived by his wife, Jaye, and five children.

Or William G. “Dub” Martin Jr., who served as a radio operator on a Flying Fortress in Europe, who was awarded the Air Medal with three oak-leaf clusters, and came back to get a law degree and work for Allstate Insurance.

He, too, died Sept. 25, in Winter Haven, Fla. He was 74.

Every day, the nation’s obituary pages bring this sad news home: The men who fought and won World War II are dying at a far greater rate than they did on the battlefield.

In all of that war, 406,000 Americans died; more than 16 million came home to build the world in which we live.

“They were mature beyond their years, tempered by what they had been through, disciplined by their military training and sacrifices. . . . They stayed true to their values of personal responsibility, duty, honor, and faith,” writes Tom Brokaw in his book “The Greatest Generation.”

To their children, the baby boomers, they seemed like giants. But even heroes die. Over the years, 10 million have passed away, and now they are dying at a rate of more than 1,000 every day.

Their ranks are thinning at the annual Memorial Day parades, at the VFW halls (there are fewer than 10,000 posts now, a drop of 10% in five years).

And their deaths have stretched the limits of the national cemeteries. The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs has opened five new ones, six more are in the works, and older national and state cemeteries are being expanded.

But who will bury them with the honors they deserve?

The military has downsized, and the number of servicemen and women available to serve on honor guards has declined. Lt. Col. Catherine Abbott, a Defense Department spokeswoman, acknowledges that in recent years there sometimes wasn’t anyone available to fold the flag that draped a veteran’s coffin, to present it to the family, to play taps.

Last year, Congress mandated that a military funeral must be provided for anyone who is eligible. So a system was established: Whenever requested, two representatives of the military--either active or retired, preferably one of them from the deceased’s branch--would be sent to a funeral.

And because “there’s not that many buglers out there,” says Steve Westerfeld, a spokesman for the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Defense Department recorded taps on Memorial Day 1999, at Arlington National Cemetery, and sent a copy of the CD to every funeral director in the nation.

“Taps is supposed to be played in the distance. The family is not going to see the bugler anyway. So having it on a CD is no big deal,” says Abbott.

The funeral with full military honors also has seen changes. These days, the same servicemen and women who act as pallbearers then take up rifles for the 21-gun salute--a tribute reserved for those who die on active duty, for those who retired after 20 years of service, and for those with awards like the Medal of Honor.

Not that there are many funerals for Medal of Honor recipients. Of 441 heroes recognized during World War II, only 58 survive.

Michael Lindquist, executive director of the Congressional Medal of Honor Society, says the group is looking ahead to a time when it will have no living members. It is setting up a foundation to advance the values embodied by these heroes.

Lindquist foresees scholarships honoring “courage, commitment and selfless service”; educational programs to promote patriotism and citizenship; a museum that will tell the stories of these patriots after they are gone.

A Distaste for Celebrity

Actually, most medalists are unwilling to tell old war stories. Their deeds are known to very few and are recounted at length only in their obituaries.

“Many of them won’t talk about it,” says Lindquist. “They never refer to themselves as heroes. They did not seek out celebrity. They did not do what they did purposely, so that somebody would hang a medal around their neck.”

“They are representatives of that generation”--a generation that acted with great valor but didn’t make much ado about it, Lindquist says.

Men like Robert S. Scott, who died Feb. 5 in Santa Fe, N.M. He was cut off from his troops during a 1943 battle in the Solomon Islands; though injured in the head and hand, he crouched behind a stump and lobbed grenade after grenade at the enemy, forcing them to withdraw. Twenty-eight Japanese were found dead.

“He didn’t talk about it,” says his son, James. “He disliked it when people regarded him as a hero. He felt he had a job to do, and he did it.”

Men like Thomas E. Adkins, who died Sept. 15 in Inman, S.C. Adkins was wounded in the hip, leg and back in a 1945 battle in the Philippines; two men in the foxhole with him were killed.

Adkins fought on, firing 400 rounds from his rifle and the rifles of his dead comrades, killing 13 Japanese. When the rifles jammed, he withdrew to get another rifle and ammunition; he accepted medical treatment, but when he saw that a Japanese soldier had gotten through the platoon’s lines, he grabbed a rifle and killed him. And when he saw more Japanese approaching, he sat up from his litter and launched a fusillade, forcing them back.

He came back from the war to farming, and to his childhood sweetheart, Vivian. There was tragedy in his life--one of his six children, a boy, fell off a truck in 1961 and died. Thomas “just never got over that,” Vivian says.

He had his pleasures. “He liked to possum-hunt and coon-hunt and rabbit-hunt. He was an outdoor man,” Vivian says. But you didn’t ask him about the war: “He didn’t want to talk about it. He would say, ‘I ain’t no hero. I just done for my country as anybody else would do.’ ”

Bravery Goes Unsung

Jon Crews remembers being 6 or 7 when some old Army buddies came to visit his father, and from their conversation he caught glimpses of the heroism John Crews had never discussed.

In April 1945, near Lobenbacherhof, Germany, Staff Sgt. Crews and two others stormed an enemy stronghold. One man was killed and the other seriously wounded. Crews pressed on alone.

At point-blank range, he killed two Germans who were firing a machine gun. Then he wrested a rifle from another. And then, though badly wounded in the thigh, he attacked an automatic rifle placement. Seven of the enemy were so unnerved that they surrendered, while others fled.

“I know he thought about it virtually every day,” says another son, Mark.

He came back a changed man-- quieter, more devout in his Southern Baptist faith. He didn’t want disability pay for his war injury. It was a stigma. He wanted to make his way in the world.

If he talked more about the war in his later years, it was because his 13 grandchildren asked him to, and, well, grandchildren always get their way.

He left another legacy: His son Mark is a lieutenant colonel in the Air Force and teaches at the Air Force Academy. He knows that he was inspired by his modest, heroic father.

“I always felt like Dad was a real hero,” he says. “People are always looking for heroes, and I had one in my own home.”