Memorial Day Holiday 2012 U.S.A.

Memorial Day Holiday 2012 U.S.A., earlier today I put a post on my Facebook page which I gave thanks to those who served in our Armed Forces.

The person who came to mind was my mother's brother Forest Knott who joined the Army and became a Cook, at the on set of WW2. Uncle Forest was a great Trumpet player and artist, and as many of us in the family had a Photographic Memory.

There were 1,600 men in his battalion, he during the course of their training learned the first names of the majority of enlisted men  he served with.

The story continues, the first piece of American Soil that we recovered from the Japanese was the Frozen Island of Atu.  American Soil that is now part of the state than is the furthest North, West. and largest, Alaska.

During the Invasion of Atu the G.I.'s (G.I. means Government Issue for those who don not know the origin of the term.) landed on the beach and the Japanese waited trenched in before opening fire until most of my uncles Battalion was on the beach, being a cook; Forest Knott had to wait on the ship, as there was no safe ground to set up the mess tents.

No one knows why the Japanese troops waited for neatly a day to open fire on the American troops on the beach but when they did the machine guns ended the lives of 700 men in under an hour. The Japanese Troops  had to stand their ground as there was no place for them to retreat, nor would there be any reinforcements. It took several days for the American Forces to secure the island of Atu.

Now the Army had a logistic's problem this was during the dead of winter and even the sand on the beach was frozen; where and how were they going to bury the dead?

It was decided that heavy construction equipment would be brought in from the ships and a bulldozer created a trench near a half mile long in the frozen ground. Here the bodies of the American G.I.'s remain to this day nameless in a mass common grave, with few visitors to Honor them.

A few months after the Battle of Atu the Stars and Stripes newspaper had a photo on the front page, my mother asked my oldest sister who was around age 5; if she knew who the man who was blowing "TAPS" over that frozen grave.

Her reply: "That is my "Uncle Forest", yes it was a Army Cook with is own horn that he had with him; as there was no one else alive on the island to do so, according to him in 1979 on New Years Day when he spoke for the first time in his life of what he saw as he gave me a first hand account of the events of his time in war when I was visiting him and his family.

I write this as I do not want the man in that photo in the Stars and Stripes to remain nameless, to give the readers of this post the reason for Memorial Day 2012 in America.

You may ask what happened to him, well he became a custom Saddle Maker in California owned Knott's Saddle Shop in Fullerton and later moved to Anaheim.

When I was a kid my family was visiting his and he was building a custom saddle that was used in many Western Movies that we have all watch.

That day when I was in his shop he was working on the saddle; I watched him carve the name "John Wayne" into the leather on the back of the skirt as he was the man who had the custom saddle made.

There is something I want you to know "John Wayne" never severed in out Armed Forces, but as an actor portrayed many who did.

Was this his way to Honor them?