The Musings of a Crotchedy Old Bastard
(What--you were expecting
Emmanuel Kant?)
Saturday, July 16, 2011
Herbert D. Gibson 1st Battalion, 501st Parachute Infantry Regiment 101st Airborne Division
Airborne Born in 1925, Herbert was still in high school at the time of Pearl Harbor. Although he wanted to enlist as soon as he graduated, his father convinced him to start college. Herbert stuck with it a few months, but eager to go to war, he dropped out and was inducted into the United States Army soon after his eighteenth birthday. Volunteering for the paratroops, he completed airborne training at Ft. Benning, Georgia, and in the Autumn of 1944 received orders transferring him overseas as a rifleman replacement in the 101st Airborne Division, then in Mourmelon, France. On the evening of 18 December 1944, the Division was alerted for deployment to aid in halting what was thought to be a limited German offensive in the Ardennes. The troopers were loaded onto open cattle cars and endured a miserable, freezing, seemingly endless motor march to the vicinity of the small Belgian city of Bastogne. The men of the Division had been mobilized so quickly that they found themselves with almost no equipment, cold weather clothing, or even ammunition. Few of the troopers even had overcoats. With the aggressive spirit of the airborne, the troopers began to scrounge what they needed to fight with, begging weapons and ammunition from the frightened, demoralized troops who were straggling through town. In most cases the retreating troops were only too happy to give up their ammo to those crazy paratroopers, who apparently didn't know what they were in for. In the minds of most of the 101st, though, it was the Krauts who were about to get a surprise.
The CowpensThe 501st took up positions outside of Bastogne, enduring freezing temperatures, constant shelling, and frequent attacks by German infantry. Part of the 1st Battalion's position was situated in a pasture dominated by cattle pens. On or about 20 December, Company A of the 1st Battalion was the focal point of a combined tank-infantry assault. Portions of the line were overrun. One of the positions was occupied by Herbert Gibson and his buddy. The tanks swept through the line, crushing some troopers in their holes and spraying the rest with machinegun fire. Close behind came German infantry to mop up whatever remained. A Panzergrenadier stood above Herbert's foxhole and sprayed the occupants with fire from his MP40 machinepistol. Herbert's buddy was killed instantly. Herbert had been in the act of reloading his M1. His hands, numb from the cold, fumbled the ammunition clip and it fell into the snow in the bottom of the foxhole. Desperate, Herbert did the only thing he could think of: thrusting his rifle upward with all his strength, he rammed his bayonet to the hilt into the German's belly and pitched him into the hole like a farmer pitching hay. There he finished the German off with his rifle butt. Once the assault had been driven off by artillery and counterattacks, Herbert heaved the German's body out of his hole. Before he did, however, the 19-year-old paratrooper took a trophy. With his jump knife he cut one shoulder epaulet off of the German's uniform and stuck it in his pocket. The epaulet from the dead Panzergrenadier is still in the family's possession.
Luck Runs OutDuring a subsequent artillery barrage, Herbert survived one more close call. His companion received a direct hit, nearly obliterating his body. The concussion ruptured one of Herbert's eardrums, and shrapnel sliced off the toe of his boot. Although the wound was not serious, he had nothing to protect his bleeding foot from the freezing temperature except some rags which he stuffed into the shredded boot. Within hours frostbite set in. Since the Division hospital had been captured by the Germans earlier in the battle, Herbert was treated at a battalion aid station which consisted of a large hole dug into the frozen ground. Along with the other wounded of the 101st, he would have to wait until the siege of Bastogne was broken on 26 December before he could be evacuated. During his recovery in an English hospital, Herbert made a decision that would affect the rest of his life. Profoundly troubled by the carnage that he had seen, Herbert decided that he was meant to save lives, not take them. Once his convalescence was completed, he transferred to the medical corps and finished the war with the 101st as a combat medic.
Epilog At war's end Herbert Gibson entered the University of Alabama as a medical student. Upon graduation he practiced for several years in Birmingham, then returned to his hometown of Enterprise and joined the staff of the hospital that his father, also a doctor, had founded. A practicing surgeon for over 40 years, Herbert, with his wife Jayne, raised three daughters and was an active and highly respected member of the community. He was an avid fisherman, hunter, and golfer. In the late 1970s, Herbert vacationed in Europe and retraced his journey to Bastogne. He found the remains of his foxhole situated in what was once again a serene cow pasture. There is a picture of Herbert (which I hope to find and include), standing at the site of his hole, grinning and flipping a "bird" in the direction of the German lines.
Dr. Herbert D. Gibson, F.A.C.S., former Corporal, 101st Airborne Division, will always be missed.
Dissolution of the Long Parliament by Oliver Cromwell given to the House of Commons, 20 April 1653:
It is high time for me to put an end to your sitting in this place, which you have dishonored by your contempt of all virtue, and defiled by your practice of every vice; ye are a factious crew, and enemies to all good government; ye are a pack of mercenary wretches, and would like Esau sell your country for a mess of pottage, and like Judas betray your God for a few pieces of money.Is there a single virtue now remaining amongst you? Is there one vice you do not possess? Ye have no more religion than my horse; gold is your God; which of you have not barter'd your conscience for bribes? Is there a man amongst you that has the least care for the good of the Commonwealth?Ye sordid prostitutes have you not defil'd this sacred place, and turn'd the Lord's temple into a den of thieves, by your immoral principles and wicked practices? Ye are grown intolerably odious to the whole nation; you were deputed here by the people to get grievances redress'd, are yourselves gone! So! Take away that shining bauble there, and lock up the doors. In the name of God, go!
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
Since I've been too *cough* busy to post lately, I thought I'd post some of the disordered thoughts of fellow raconteur, curmudgeon, and local (Enterprise) legend, Mr. Richard Clay Adams:
Stashed within the bunkhouse behind the House of Adams on the old RCA Ranch, is an ever-growing collection of TV and movie westerns, running the gamut from Dothan’s Johnny Mack Brown to “Fury, The Story of a Horse and a Boy Who Loved Him.” In many of the programs, that always return viewers to yesteryear, is the underlying assumption that the code of the west is something all Baby Boomer saddle pals continue observing on either side of the Mighty Mississip. For any tenderfoots, that code, of course, is to “shoot first and ask questions later,” which is what's about to happen here in the City of Progress. If you haven’t been around these parts lately or if you don’t drive your cattle on two of our biggest trails, Boll Weevil Circle and Rucker Boulevard from sunup to sundown, you may not realize the days of yore have returned. A cowpoke moseying along either of these trails can never let his guard down nowadays, as they’s too many squatters here, staking claims on what was once prime buffaler hunting grounds for 1950s cowboys and Indians. It’s easy to identify some of the sod-busters who’ve come here from lands near the state of sunshine whose buckboards are adorned with tags beginning with “34.” Now come drovers from the west with “23” on their tags, looking for a grubstake; and there's another swarming horde of desperadoes looking to settle in what would now be called “New Mexico,” had someone not beaten us to it many moons before the sons of Montezuma followed the boll weevil, fire ants, and coyotes to this “Land Between Two Rivers” we call Enterprise. These Mexican renegades travel in what white eyes would call “posses,” if their groups of 12-20 weren’t all riding in sway-backed covered wagons with license plates starting with “6.” But it’s not any of these desperadoes who put the rage into “The Red Rage,” a temperamental little Dodge (City) Dakota buggy whose daily chores include rounding up grandson Lane “Deadeye”Marler, 11.5, so he can get his lessons from his school marm and do his chores thereby earning his keep. Whenever we approach one of those right-turn, merging trails connecting Rucker Boulevard to Boll Weevil Circle (and vice-versa) and/or any other pass on the 11-mile BollWweevil Circle, some city dude, probably from back east, keeps his mount a’runnin’ in a maneuver known locally as “Ride ’em Cowboy.” You’ve likely seen these settlers who, for example, might be coming in from Dothan headed toward their farmstead in Valley Stream aiming to keep from being dry-gulched on the trail. They’ll grab the reins of their Mustangs, look over their left shoulder, pucker their butt cheeks to better grab a'holt of the saddle leather, likely of fine Corinthian vintage, and “kick” their steed into high gear to put you in the ditch so's he can beat you to the next traffic light before sundown. Starting later today, the Red Rage Rider will be packin’ leather. From now on, the Code of the West IS back in force. From here on out podnah, it’s time to “slap leather” and “swap some lead” with these yahoos, and then ride off into the sunset as they ask, “who was that masked man?”
General Douglas MacArthur's Farewell Speech Given to the Corps of Cadets at West Point May 12, 1962
General Westmoreland, General Groves, distinguished guests, and gentlemen of the Corps. As I was leaving the hotel this morning, a doorman asked me, "Where are you bound for, General?" and when I replied, "West Point," he remarked, "Beautiful place, have you ever been there before?"
No human being could fail to be deeply moved by such a tribute as this, coming from a profession I have served so long and a people I have loved so well. It fills me with an emotion I cannot express. But this award is not intended primarily for a personality, but to symbolize a great moral code - the code of conduct and chivalry of those who guard this beloved land of culture and ancient descent. That is the meaning of this medallion. For all eyes and for all time, it is an expression of the ethics of the American soldier. That I should be integrated in this way with so noble an ideal arouses a sense of pride and yet of humility which will be with me always.
Duty, Honor, Country: Those three hallowed words reverently dictate what you ought to be, what you can be, what you will be. They are your rallying points: to build courage when courage seems to fail; to regain faith when there seems to be little cause for faith; to create hope when hope becomes forlorn. Unhappily, I possess neither that eloquence of diction, that poetry of imagination, nor that brilliance of metaphor to tell you all that they mean.
The unbelievers will say they are but words, but a slogan, but a flamboyant phrase. Every pedant, every demagogue, every cynic, every hypocrite, every troublemaker, and, I am sorry to say, some others of an entirely different character, will try to downgrade them even to the extent of mockery and ridicule.
But these are some of the things they do. They build your basic character. They mold you for your future roles as the custodians of the nation's defense. They make you strong enough to know when you are weak, and brave enough to face yourself when you are afraid.
They teach you to be proud and unbending in honest failure, but humble and gentle in success; not to substitute words for action; not to seek the path of comfort, but to face the stress and spur of difficulty and challenge; to learn to stand up in the storm, but to have compassion on those who fall; to master yourself before you seek to master others; to have a heart that is clean, a goal that is high; to learn to laugh, yet never forget how to weep; to reach into the future, yet never neglect the past; to be serious, yet never take yourself too seriously; to be modest so that you will remember the simplicity of true greatness; the open mind of true wisdom, the meekness of true strength.
They give you a temperate will, a quality of imagination, a vigor of the emotions, a freshness of the deep springs of life, a temperamental predominance of courage over timidity, an appetite for adventure over love of ease. They create in your heart the sense of wonder, the unfailing hope of what next, and the joy and inspiration of life. They teach you in this way to be an officer and a gentleman.
And what sort of soldiers are those you are to lead? Are they reliable? Are they brave? Are they capable of victory?
Their story is known to all of you. It is the story of the American man at arms. My estimate of him was formed on the battlefields many, many years ago, and has never changed. I regarded him then, as I regard him now, as one of the world's noblest figures; not only as one of the finest military characters, but also as one of the most stainless.
His name and fame are the birthright of every American citizen. In his youth and strength, his love and loyalty, he gave all that mortality can give. He needs no eulogy from me, or from any other man. He has written his own history and written it in red on his enemy's breast.
But when I think of his patience under adversity, of his courage under fire, and of his modesty in victory, I am filled with an emotion of admiration I cannot put into words. He belongs to history as furnishing one of the greatest examples of successful patriotism. He belongs to posterity as the instructor of future generations in the principles of liberty and freedom. He belongs to the present, to us, by his virtues and by his achievements.
In twenty campaigns, on a hundred battlefields, around a thousand campfires, I have witnessed that enduring fortitude, that patriotic self-abnegation, and that invincible determination which have carved his statue in the hearts of his people.
From one end of the world to the other, he has drained deep the chalice of courage. As I listened to those songs of the glee club, in memory's eye I could see those staggering columns of the First World War, bending under soggy packs on many a weary march, from dripping dusk to drizzling dawn, slogging ankle deep through mire of shell-pocked roads; to form grimly for the attack, blue-lipped, covered with sludge and mud, chilled by the wind and rain, driving home to their objective, and for many, to the judgment seat of God.
I do not know the dignity of their birth, but I do know the glory of their death. They died unquestioning, uncomplaining, with faith in their hearts, and on their lips the hope that we would go on to victory. Always for them: Duty, Honor, Country. Always their blood, and sweat, and tears, as they saw the way and the light.
And twenty years after, on the other side of the globe, against the filth of dirty foxholes, the stench of ghostly trenches, the slime of dripping dugouts, those boiling suns of the relentless heat, those torrential rains of devastating storms, the loneliness and utter desolation of jungle trails, the bitterness of long separation of those they loved and cherished, the deadly pestilence of tropic disease, the horror of stricken areas of war.
Their resolute and determined defense, their swift and sure attack, their indomitable purpose, their complete and decisive victory - always victory, always through the bloody haze of their last reverberating shot, the vision of gaunt, ghastly men, reverently following your password of Duty, Honor, Country.
The code which those words perpetuate embraces the highest moral laws and will stand the test of any ethics or philosophies ever promulgated for the uplift of mankind. Its requirements are for the things that are right, and its restraints are from the things that are wrong. The soldier, above all other men, is required to practice the greatest act of religious training - sacrifice. In battle and in the face of danger and death, he discloses those divine attributes which his Maker gave when he created man in his own image. No physical courage and no brute instinct can take the place of the Divine help which alone can sustain him. However horrible the incidents of war may be, the soldier who is called upon to offer and to give his life for his country, is the noblest development of mankind.
You now face a new world, a world of change. The thrust into outer space of the satellite, spheres and missiles marked the beginning of another epoch in the long story of mankind - the chapter of the space age. In the five or more billions of years the scientists tell us it has taken to form the earth, in the three or more billion years of development of the human race, there has never been a greater, a more abrupt or staggering evolution. We deal now not with things of this world alone, but with the illimitable distances and as yet unfathomed mysteries of the universe. We are reaching out for a new and boundless frontier. We speak in strange terms: of harnessing the cosmic energy; of making winds and tides work for us; of creating unheard synthetic materials to supplement or even replace our old standard basics; of purifying sea water for our drink; of mining ocean floors for new fields of wealth and food; of disease preventatives to expand life into the hundred of years; of controlling the weather for a more equitable distribution of heat and cold, of rain and shine; of space ships to the moon; of the primary target in war, no longer limited to the armed forces of an enemy, but instead to include his civil populations; of ultimate conflict between a united human race and the sinister forces of some other planetary galaxy; of such dreams and fantasies as to make life the most exciting of all time.
And through all this welter of change and development your mission remains fixed, determined, inviolable. It is to win our wars. Everything else in your professional career is but corollary to this vital dedication. All other public purpose, all other public projects, all other public needs, great or small, will find others for their accomplishments; but you are the ones who are trained to fight.
Yours is the profession of arms, the will to win, the sure knowledge that in war there is no substitute for victory, that if you lose, the Nation will be destroyed, that the very obsession of your public service must be Duty, Honor, Country.
Others will debate the controversial issues, national and international, which divide men's minds. But serene, calm, aloof, you stand as the Nation's war guardians, as its lifeguards from the raging tides of international conflict, as its gladiators in the arena of battle. For a century and a half you have defended, guarded and protected its hallowed traditions of liberty and freedom, of right and justice.
Let civilian voices argue the merits or demerits of our processes of government. Whether our strength is being sapped by deficit financing indulged in too long, by federal paternalism grown too mighty, by power groups grown too arrogant, by politics grown too corrupt, by crime grown too rampant, by morals grown too low, by taxes grown too high, by extremists grown too violent; whether our personal liberties are as firm and complete as they should be.
These great national problems are not for your professional participation or military solution. Your guidepost stands out like a tenfold beacon in the night: Duty, Honor, Country. You are the leaven which binds together the entire fabric of our national system of defense. From your ranks come the great captains who hold the Nation's destiny in their hands the moment the war tocsin sounds.
The long gray line has never failed us. Were you to do so, a million ghosts in olive drab, in brown khaki, in blue and gray, would rise from their white crosses, thundering those magic words: Duty, Honor, Country.
This does not mean that you are warmongers. On the contrary, the soldier above all other people prays for peace, for he must suffer and bear the deepest wounds and scars of war. But always in our ears ring the ominous words of Plato, that wisest of all philosophers: "Only the dead have seen the end of war."
The shadows are lengthening for me. The twilight is here. My days of old have vanished - tone and tints. They have gone glimmering through the dreams of things that were. Their memory is one of wondrous beauty, watered by tears and coaxed and caressed by the smiles of yesterday. I listen then, but with thirsty ear, for the witching melody of faint bugles blowing reveille, of far drums beating the long roll.
In my dreams I hear again the crash of guns, the rattle of musketry, the strange, mournful mutter of the battlefield. But in the evening of my memory I come back to West Point. Always there echoes and re-echoes: Duty, Honor, Country.
Today marks my final roll call with you. But I want you to know that when I cross the river, my last conscious thoughts will be of the Corps, and the Corps, and the Corps.
Project Valour-IT, in memory of SFC William V. Ziegenfuss, helps provide voice-controlled/adaptive laptop computers and other technology to support Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Marines recovering from hand wounds and other severe injuries. Technology supplied includes: Voice-controlled Laptops - Operated by speaking into a microphone or using other adaptive technologies, they allow the wounded to maintain connections with the rest of the world during recovery. Wii Video Game Systems - Whole-body game systems increase motivation and speed recovery when used under the guidance of physical therapists in therapy sessions (donated only to medical facilities). Personal GPS - Handheld GPS devices build self-confidence and independence by compensating for short-term memory loss and organizational challenges related to severe TBI and severe PTSD. The experience of Major Chuck Ziegenfuss, a partner in the project who suffered serious hand wounds while serving in Iraq, illustrates how important these laptops and other technologies can be to a wounded service member's recovery.
Naturally, I'm on the Marine Corps Team (and we're currently in the lead), but any donations ultimately go to provide for all Wounded Warriors, regardless of branch of service. You can donate by clicking on the graphic on the left side of the page, or visit the Soldiers' Angels website: http://soldiersangels.org/valourit-details.html
A curmudgeon-in-training, I have reached the stage in my life wherein, if I can't sit on a park bench and trip young whippersnappers with my cane, I can at least perform the written equivalent.
