Ron Eckberg

INTRODUCTION

Perhaps no other event in our nation’s history has produced more heroes than World War II.

Few of those heroes returned home to become entertainment giants, sports superstars, or business tycoons. Few built empires, placed their names in the record books, or discovered cures for any of mankind’s many diseases. Few returned to find their picture on the covers of Life or Saturday Evening Post.

They were common, ordinary men who came from common, ordinary backgrounds. They held ordinary dreams for ordinary lives yet left to do an extraordinary duty. They left behind cornfields to trudge the world’s battlefields, then returned home to become carpenters, farmers, laborers, husbands, fathers, and friends.

Nevertheless, they will forever remain imbedded in our nation’s consciousness as he-roes. They will be remembered as such because they lived in a time that placed incredible demands upon their simple lives. They will be remembered as heroes because they answered the call of their country in the time of their country’s need. They will be remembered as heroes because they did the job set before them without hesitancy, without complaint, without question.

Journalist and author Tom Brokaw called them the “greatest generation” and that designation has deservedly stuck. Their greatness was most certainly demonstrated on the battlefields of Europe, Africa, Asia and across the Pacific. It was demonstrated on the ground, in the air, upon the great seas and under those same seas.

But their heroism didn’t stop at the edge of the battlefields. It continued throughout their lives as they came home and got down to the work of building a better world, one family and one community at a time. The battlefields had shaped these young lives, turning them into disciplined men who would become the leaders of a post war world that would shape the lives of countless million others.

I was fortunate to have spent my entire life knowing some of these heroes. I have watched them, I have worked with them, and I have grown up with them. They are the men whose sacrificial service helped to preserve the many freedoms that my generation and I enjoy.

The Webster Dictionary defines a hero as, “A man noted for courageous acts or nobility of purpose, especially one who has risked or sacrificed his life” and the men who so gallantly served our country during the World War II years qualify beyond all question and without exception.

They sacrificed the best years of their youth. They left sleepy, isolated places like Walnut, Illinois only to wind up in places they had never before heard of, places like Normandy, Bastogne, Guadalcanal, Iwo Jima, Sicily. These places, as well as countless others, would soon be indelibly etched in their minds, their memories, and even in their nightly nightmares.They would leave their homes little more than boys, but would come back battle hardened men. They would celebrate their ascension to manhood under horrible and gruesome baptisms of fire. They would watch their comrades and best friends die on the field of battle. They would witness things that no human beings should ever have to witness or be party to.

The fortunate ones would return to resume their simple lives, but they would return as men changed for life.

What follows, then, is a tribute to their sacrifice as demonstrated by just a few from among the many and one in particular. They are not household names other than in their own household. Most spent the remainder of their life building and shaping the wonderful small Illinois community I grew up in. Some influenced my life from afar in remarkable other ways. They are as different as different can be from one another yet they all shared the common experience World War II brought. They all—in one way or another—had a hand in shaping my life.

It is my hope that these stories will serve in some small way as a reminder that heroism can not--and should not--be measured by one’s talents or abilities, by one’s success in accumulating or generating wealth, or by one’s athletic prowess.

The standard by which we define heroism is instead included in these pages. It is a standard set by one ordinary man in an army of many ordinary men who did extraordinary things.

It is the story of “Ordinary Heroes”.


 

HOME

Walnut, Illinois is no extraordinary place. A small town by anyone’s standards, it sits quietly amidst the farmland of Northern Illinois. Like all small towns it has its history. Walnut claims writer Don Marquis as her most famous son, through few outside literary circles probably know who Don Marquis is or what he wrote.

The Walnut Creek flows along the south side of the community and it is along this creek that the first settlers laid down roots some 150 years ago. A village grew and prospered from those early, modest roots. At one time, she was a boomtown with trucks rumbling through her all hours day and night, bound for Omaha in the west and Chicago to the east.

Life was simple if not always easy. The folks of Walnut lived a life relatively untouched by the world beyond.

Until December 7, 1941, that is. The “Day of Infamy”, as F.D.F. called it, put the world and communities like Walnut on a collision course. The call went out for volunteers to pick up their arms and defend our nation and Walnut, like hundreds of other towns, answered that call, sending her best and brightest off to the far corners of the world to battle evil.

The boys of Walnut went to war. They did their duty and when it was over, most of them came home. They went from the cornfields to the battlefields and back to the cornfields. They served without hesitation, without fanfare, and without complaining. They did their duty and when that duty was finished they went back home, right back to the life they had left.

As I grew up in the 50s and 60s I did so with little awareness of those times or of the courage and sacrifice of those boys, now pushing middle age. Little was said about the war. Oh, now and then I might catch a smattering of conversation between my dad and one of the many veterans that were part of his daily life as they stepped back in time to share their war remembrances. By and large, however, the horrors and adventures of those years were left unshared, much like Dad’s war souvenirs, tucked away in old, dusty army trunks, only to be brought out on very rare and special occasions.

I experienced these men daily in the town I loved although I didn’t necessarily think of them as heroes. I only knew them as Roy, Arden, Bobby, Wally, and Volley, to name a few. I knew them as businessmen, carpenters, lawyers, grocers and farmers. I knew them as Boy Scout troop masters, Little League coaches, community and church leaders. I knew them as husbands, the dads of my friends, my neighbors and buddies.

Most of all, they were just ordinary men who did an extraordinary duty for their community and nation. They were indeed true heroes. They are my heroes.

The following pages tell the stories of some of these young men, these Walnut boys, the boys of WWII. It tells the story of men whose lives were shaped by a magnificent, historic event unlike any other before or since. It tells the story of men who shaped my life and the war that did so much to shape theirs.

I tell their stories not because they seek or desire recognition or glory—nothing could be further from the truth. I feel compelled to tell their stories because I want my children and grandchildren to know these stories and know that the freedom we hold so dearly comes with an incredible price tag, a price tag these men and millions like them paid.

Simply put, I want them to appreciate my ordinary heroes as I do

Ron Eckberg