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Thread: Last WWII Medal of Honor Recipient Dies

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    Default Last WWII Medal of Honor Recipient Dies

    Hershel “Woody” Williams, the last surviving Medal of Honor recipient from World War II, died Wednesday at a hospital in Huntington, West Virginia. He was 98.

    The Marine Corps veteran received the nation’s highest military award for valor for his actions in the Battle of Iwo Jima. The battle took the lives of 7,000 Marines and was one of the bloodiest of the war.

    “Today, America lost not just a valiant Marine and a Medal of Honor recipient, but an important link to our nation’s fight against tyranny in the Second World War,” Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said. “I hope every American will pause to reflect on his service and that of an entire generation that sacrificed so much to defend the cause of freedom and democracy.”

    On February 23, 1945, Williams, then a 21-year-old Marine corporal and flamethrower operator, single-handedly destroyed multiple Japanese pillboxes and other gun emplacements at great danger to himself.

    According to his citation, on one occasion, he “daringly mounted a pillbox to insert the nozzle of his flamethrower through the air vent, killing the occupants, and silencing the gun; on another he grimly charged enemy riflemen who attempted to stop him with bayonets and destroyed them with a burst of flame from his weapon.”

    https://www.voanews.com/a/last-wwii-...%20Iwo%20Jima.


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    Rest In Peace

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    Just the simple act of carry the flame thrower into battle would be terrifying for most of us, much less charging enemy pillboxes over and over again with that bomb strapped to your back.

    R.I.P. Corporal Woody
    "I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy. I mean, that's a storybook, man."
    — Joe Biden on Obama.

    Socialism is just the modern word for monarchy.

    D.C. has become a Guild System with an hierarchy and line of accession much like the Royal Court or priestly classes.

    Private citizens are perfectly able of doing a better job without "apprenticing".

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    Quote Originally Posted by Bigdog View Post
    Just the simple act of carry the flame thrower into battle would be terrifying for most of us, much less charging enemy pillboxes over and over again with that bomb strapped to your back.

    R.I.P. Corporal Woody

    TIL the average life span for a flamethrower operator on the battlefield in Iwo Jima during WWII was a whopping
    4 minutes (estimated by a Marine Corps statistician).

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    Quote Originally Posted by signalmankenneth View Post

    TIL the average life span for a flamethrower operator on the battlefield in Iwo Jima during WWII was a whopping
    4 minutes (estimated by a Marine Corps statistician).
    That sucks! On top of that the weapon weighed 65 lbs. or more. Sheeesh.

    And the Marines initially rejected Woody because he was too short.
    "I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy. I mean, that's a storybook, man."
    — Joe Biden on Obama.

    Socialism is just the modern word for monarchy.

    D.C. has become a Guild System with an hierarchy and line of accession much like the Royal Court or priestly classes.

    Private citizens are perfectly able of doing a better job without "apprenticing".

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