I'd like to tell you about my grandfather a Pearl Harbor survivor and an incredible character.
Last edited Fri Jul 27, 2018, 06:48 PM - Edit history (2)
I posted this in GD but thought that more people should meet my grandfather. His 95th birthday was yesterday.
My Grandfather is an incredible character. Always has been. He spent 3 years in the Army til his hitch was up and came home to West Virginia and worked as a coal miner. He was home a couple of months, long enough to get in a few scrapes, a few fist fights, and long enough to chase the wrong women til he finally got in a bit of trouble with the local police and came before a judge who told him either go back to Army or he was going to put him in jail.
But instead of the Army he joined the Marines. And was at Pearl Harbor Dec. 7, 1941. He manned a machine gun next to the Navy Hospital on Hospital Point. He is credited with shooting down a Japanese Zero.
After the war he worked in the coal mines as a dynamite man. Then started a trucking company with his brother. He just recently told us the true tale how at the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis he was contracted to haul 2 Hydrogen bombs from Norfolk VA to MacDill Air Force Base near Tampa FL on a flat bed trailer pulled by his semi. He drove one bomb and his brother took the other one. He said they were huge things, over 40,000 lbs. He had an armed soldier riding shotgun and a couple dozen armed escorts in jeeps and deuce and a halves. He said it all happened so quickly and was an unplanned surprise to him, a sort of panicked response to what was happening in October of 1962. He said he still has no idea why the Air Force chose his little trucking company as he had had no dealings with any type of military either before or since, and he is still not sure how the Air Force chose him and his tiny company for this odd and so very serious job. He was never told why those H bombs had to be trucked to Florida ASAP, I imagine it was a way to help counter the threat from an atom bomb equipped Cuba, and their patron the Soviet Union. So my Grandfather, his brother, and that smallish convoy drove some 30 odd hours, much of it on 2 lane highways as most interstates had not been built yet.
My Grandfather was a rounder, he had a different girlfriend in every little town in the area. Even as he got old into his 70s, although he stayed happily married to my grandmother for 70 years, they were never apart, not until she died. After he retired from the trucking business he went on to become a commercial bus diver and drove a city bus until he turned 88 years old. He was featured at the time in a newspaper as the oldest public bus driver in America. He wasn't much for sitting around the house.
Last September (2017) he finally recieved a Purple Heart, 76 years after he had been hit in the leg by shrapnel on December 7th, 1941. After he shot down the one Japanese airplane, another Japanese plane that had been hit earlier by American anti-aircraft fire and was doomed, tried to crash into the Hospital he was guarding with a .50 caliber machine gun. It was an early kamikaze attempt. The plane just missed the hospital but he caught some of the shrapnel from the plane crash in his knee. He wouldn't leave that machine gun waiting hours after everything quieted down, long after the attacks he said he stole a jeep and drove himself to an Army Hospital 10 miles away to get his knee sewn up. I asked him why he didn't just go in that Hospital he had been guarding to get treatment. Well he said, I did go in that Hospital. It was packed and overflowing with wounded and dead American servicemen. He said the lobby was packed with around 50 men. Men who had been cut in half, men missing limbs, the blood running down the floors, he said there aren't any words to describe that scene, and his voice cracked, and tears came.
In the panic and disorganization at that time on Hawaii my Grandfather, a marine, was treated in an Army Hospital. He spent a few days there getting his leg sewn up and flirting with the nurses. In all the confusion his medical records were lost, either by the Army hospital or the Marine Corp. My Grandfather isn't the worrying kind so he never bothered saying anything it til 70 years later, when he told his buddies over beers at the bar at the local American Legion. His buddies, veretans themselves, urged him to see what would happen if he started asking questions about his old wounds. He said he called the VA and told somebody what happened and didn't think anymore about it.
The next day Senator Joe Manchin (Dem WV) phoned my grandfather and assured him that he and his office would investigate and see what could be done for him. A month or so after that Senator Manchin called again, this time to say that his records had been located and after 76 years he would receive a Purple Heart. So last year in an absolutely wonderful ceremony held at Marshall University and hosted by Senator Joe Manchin, and with nearly a thousand people on hand, my grandfather recieved his Purple Heart.
Now yes Senator Manchin rightfully catches a bunch of shit here on DU. Some of his votes and his conservative stances piss off a bunch of us Democrats. But we have to remember that he was elected Senator in West Virginia as a Democrat, a constituency that voted for Trump by some 30 points. Please be aware that for him to be elected, and hopefully re-elected, he must do some things we Democrats don't like. But we need every Democratic Congress person we can get, especially a Senator.
I must say how wonderful Sen. Manchin was to my grandfather, and indeed our entire family before, during, and after the Purple Heart ceremony, he spent3 hours talking, listening, sharing stories, laughing, and listening as my grandfather told the many tales that he'd lived though. The highlight of the day for me came after the ceremony, when just the immediate family was invited to a small luncheon with Senator Manchin where my mother, a retired high school principal sat down next to him (this was September 2017 and it was in the height of the Obamacare debate). In an extremely informal atmosphere (no cameras, no reporters, 10 people in the room) Mom and I had a chance to speak with, and listen to Senator Manchin speak about how important the looming vote on Obamacare was to the people of this state, and this nation. And thank goodness, on this issue anyway, Senator Manchin was on the side of the angels. He PASSIONATELY discussed how important Obamacare is to our state (we have the highest Obamacare rate in the country in here in West Virginia) and also for the millions of everyday Americans. He wasn't shy about his view, he loved Obamacare, and knew how important this particular vote was going to be. He was a great advocate for Obamacare. I had heard a few Republican pundits claiming that Senator Manchin might side with them on this issue and vote to end Obamacare, they were pathetically wrong. On this issue was he was staunch, never wavering. I will never forget how passionate he was.
But this is a story about my Grandfather, so here is a delightful little news article . This article gives some insight what an incredible character this man is. His nickname is 'Sundowner' because he always said the best time to steal your neighbors chickens was at Sundown, so he could find a good spot to cook them undisturbed.
http://www.herald-dispatch.com/news/purple-heart-finally-awarded/article_b3fd21d4-3524-510b-bdfa-979bcf5f5ae2.html
Purple Heart finally awarded
By BISHOP NASH Sep 16, 2017 (1)
HUNTINGTON - Misplaced paperwork lost in the aftermath of Pearl Harbor and a neglectful company first sergeant kept Wetzel "Sundown" Sanders from his Purple Heart for 76 years.
A 94-year-old native of East Lynn, West Virginia, wounded while manning Oahu's anti-aircraft defenses, Sanders held out hope for a time, but had long given up until his story reached U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin's office.
"After about 50 years, I thought that'd be about the end of it," Sanders said.
After about two weeks of digging through hospital records on his behalf, Manchin's office announced it had secured a Purple Heart merited to the shrapnel in Sanders' knee as he fired into an onslaught of Japanese planes.
"I thought I was going to have a heart attack," Sanders joked when he heard the news earlier this month that he would finally receive his medal.
Better late than never, he did.
Manchin, D-W.Va., arrived in Huntington to personally pin Sanders' long-awaited Purple Heart during a ceremony Friday afternoon at Marshall University.
"Today's our way of saying, 'We didn't forget, Wetzel. It might have taken 76 years, but buddy, we didn't forget,'" Manchin said.
Sanders' life is as colorful as his demeanor. Born to Barney and Emma Jane Sanders in the wilds of East Lynn in 1925, he earned the nickname "Sundown" by regularly sneaking into a neighbor's chicken pen at night before heading into the woods to fry up a few stolen birds for dinner. Sundown was the time to best raid the chicken pen, he added, and it has stuck ever since.
Dissatisfied with a life of hauling coal at age 17, Sanders lied about his age and enlisted in the Army prior to U.S. entry into World War II. Having asked the Wayne County jailer to forge his father's signature, Sanders was already in boot camp by the time his family realized he had disappeared to enlist.
Hawaii, he explained, was where he wanted to wind up.
"When I was growing up, every once in a while my dad would get a can of pineapples and I knew they came from Hawaii," Sanders said. "I'd seen these hula dancers with them grass skirts on, and I thought I'd like to go over there and see."
Sanders was pointed at an anti-aircraft battery on Hospital Point in Pearl Harbor when Japanese planes began to fly over on Dec. 7, 1941. Sanders manned a .50-caliber machine gun as he shot down multiple Japanese fighter planes strafing the hospital because a chunk of shrapnel split his knee open.
Sanders rushed himself to a nearby Navy hospital and remained in Hawaii until March 1942 until he was redeployed deeper into the Pacific Theater, facing combat at Guadalcanal and Bougainville before being discharged in 1945.
As the company first sergeant took stock of the damage in the aftermath of the attack, Sanders was the only man in the battery reported wounded. He had a personal disdain for the "hillbilly" troops, those from West Virginia, Virginia, Tennessee and Kentucky, Sanders said, and his wound was not recorded.
"The first sergeant said, 'That West Virginia hillbilly, you couldn't hurt him if you shot him between the eyes,'" Sanders recalled.
Sanders returned home and spent a career as a bus driver, retiring just five years ago at age 89. At the time, he was the oldest public bus driver in the country.
"He's such a character, and he remembers everything," Manchin said. "He's living history right there."
Sanders is one of two Pearl Harbor survivors alive in West Virginia. He lives in Midkiff in Lincoln County.
Follow reporter Bishop Nash on Twitter @BishopNash.
= new reply since forum marked as read
Such kind words.
His widow, my grandmother, also 95 is still with us.
She gave birth to my father while my grandfather was stationed in Pearl Harbor.
She still has a large box of the letters he wrote to her every day.
Thanks for sharing your story!!
Thank you so much for sharing your amazing grandfather with us! 
