THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, August 14, 1995 TAG: 9508140140
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Guy Friddell
LENGTH: Medium: 60 lines
People no longer sing that gospel hymn ``Ain't gon' study war no more,'' perhaps because they have been studying war up close for a century with no letup in sight.
World War II veterans had fathers who fought in World War I and sons in Vietnam and some had grandsons in Desert Storm. Some World War II vets went to Korea. And there was the Cold War.
Today, the 50th anniversary of the end of World War II, we recall where we were then. The 75th Station Hospital was on Okinawa. Its enlisted men, drafted in September 1942 for ``limited service,'' called themselves ``the Fightin' 4-Fs - fighting to get out.''
But really we fought to stay in, to prove the Army had been right in shaping an outfit from the lame, the halt, the blind and the very old.
Trying to cull our ranks before we went overseas, the Army put us to tests, including swimming. Those who could taught those who couldn't. Heavyset Wes Pharr learned the side stroke that took him to Okinawa. Each day, arthritic Bob Gray, 48, was laced in a canvas vest of his devising to stay upright.
After three mainland camps, the 75th embarked for Hawaii. One wife, back home, heard a broadcaster describe it as unique.
After training on Oahu, it set up a hospital on the island of Hawaii to care for men wounded in battles stepping across the South Pacific.
In Okinawa, it set up a tent hospital on a lofty plateau. In three weeks its clinics were either the first or the most complete while fighting continued in the south.
In August, there was the dropping of the atom bomb - the Adam bomb, some called it - and then word of Japan's surrender.
As we were settling for the night, a swirl of noise caught at the end of rows of tents and came roaring full-throated upon us. One shout rang above all others: ``The Japs wanna quit! The Japs wanna quit!''
At the first sound, many, fearing snipers, grabbed guns. Then they triggered round after round into the sky that was flaming with explosions: the heavy thump of ack-ack, hammering machine guns, rifles cracking, grenade blasts. Red rockets shot ladderlike into the sky. And fell in fiery chains.
Ack-ack popped in bright bursts. Flares looped overhead. Tracers crisscrossed in flaming patterns. Air raid sirens wailed. In the wards, patients hopped about, shook their fists, kissed the nurses.
It seemed the island would go up in a wild celebration of release. Men pounded each other, yelling, ``We made it! We made it!''
They expected to go home the next week, surely the next month, certainly by Christmas. Some made it by New Year's, others as late as February 1946. They went to work, to school, and gathered every two years in reunions across America.
The 75th grew as its members brought their wives with them, then children, and, finally, grandchildren.
Loath to lose more lives, yet appalled at cleansings, they ponder, seeking peace, studying war. by CNB