Thanks Roy: Veteren's Day
Found this on another site:
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oy Pruitt
Back in the late 1980s, I went to an awards banquet with my wife, for a high school where she was a teacher. Other couples at our table had one or the other spouse working at the school. I met the man to my left. He didn't teach there either and we talked. His name was Roy Pruett. Older than I and, I think, an engineer. At that time, I was working at a major Veteran's hospital and had daily contact with vets from every service and every war since 1941. Turns out, Roy had been a Marine in the Pacific during WW-II. Somehow, we got to talking about his experience during the Solomon Campaign.
Along the way I asked what weapons he preferred, Garand, Thompson, Carbine etc. He told me his unit had been issued the Johnson Rifle and absently pantomimed how the barrel would come off to make it small enough to jump with . . .he had been in the Marine parachute regiment. And then, in the middle of the general swirl of conversation, teacher's shop-talk and eating going on all around us . . . . he went far away-and-long-ago . . . . to describe a jungle fire fight at night. Between rushes the Japanese were chanting "Mah-Reen-Too-Night-You-Die!". Backed up to a beach, they were low on ammo, and it looked bad. Another charge came with shouting. It was just shooting back at muzzle flashes and grappling in the dark he said.
Then his Johnson gun got something up the barrel. The next shot burst the barrel short in front of the fore end, with the rest hanging by a splinter of metal. "I just banged it against a stump and broke it off. It looked like a sort of star out front." he said gesturing with spread fingers. "It still shot OK, but who knows where the bullets went?" And then he was empty and out . . .and there was another lull. I had stopped eating so as not to disturb this flow of memory.
Roy went on to say that an officer had called for a Higgins Boat to come in for their wounded. It showed up, but the Cox'n wouldn't bring it in because he was attracting some fire. Roy said the Lieutenant stripped down and swam out to the boat with a .45 in his teeth . . .and threatened to blow the boat driver's brains out if he didn't bring it in. The boat did come in and the Lt. gave Roy the job of holding the Cox'n at gunpoint. "There I stood looking like a pirate with that deadly looking empty gun!" he said . . . till the wounded were loaded and taken off. And then . . .
And then desert came with coffee, and the spell was broken. I never got any of that verified in any way or clarified either (as in; "Gee-wiz Roy, what happened NEXT?"). I give it credence in my heart as I saw his eyes and heard him speak it. Later on I found out that Roy had also been in the fighting for Iwo Jima.
I never saw Roy again. He died a few months later from having lived a long, full life. There were other award dinners, but Roy was gone.
Thanks Roy
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