Vivid memories

LAKE COVE — The year was 1941 and Japan, in the words of Japanese leader Isoroku Yamamoto, had just “awakened a sleeping giant” with their military attack on Pearl Harbor. That December 7th day, which President Franklin D. Roosevelt predicted would be “a date which will live in infamy,” has done just that for the veterans who are still alive today.
As 97-year old World War II veteran Woodrow King, attempted to recall the events that took place during his time serving in the United States Army, King’s stories were often cut short due to the fact that he struggled to talk about some of the unfortunate things he experienced as a soldier. Halfway through some of the more difficult memories that he talked about, the Lake Cove resident, who can recall fighting along the Rhine River in Europe, would stop, look down towards the floor, and softly say, “It was bad. It was bad.”
King can still recall what it meant to him when he pledged his loyalty to his country in 1941. King said, “When you join the army and take that oath, it means that you are willing to give your life for your country. You are saying that you are willing to die for your country, and that’s how I felt.”
The word infamy can be defined as the state of being well known for some bad quality or deed, and for King there are many days from his time as a soldier that are engraved in his mind that live in infamy.
It is the details of these days that King, today, remembers the most.
When asked what the war was like, King said, “Bad. I was shaking in my boots. You’d be shaking in your boots too if bullets were flying over you.”
King then recalled the way he and his fellow brotherhood of soldiers would fight. “We shot crossfire from a foxhole, and while we were shooting across the river, soldiers were shooting back at us. When we stood up to shoot from the foxhole, the enemy could see our heads, and we could see their bullets flying by.”
While the majority of the fighting that King can remember was done in foxholes, which usually only fit one soldier inside, there was one instance where there was no foxhole around, but there were plenty of enemy soldiers approaching. King said, “I remember just walking around one day and all of a sudden I could see German soldiers in the distance, so I dug a hole near a brier patch and laid on my back to hide. I had my riffle on the side of me, and I told myself, the first SOB that sticks his head in here, I am going to shoot. My hiding spot must have been good though, because they walked right by me and never noticed.”
The Germans weren’t the only enemy that the United States faced during WWII. There were also the Japanese, who were actually the ones who forced the United States to enter the war in the first place. King said, “The Germans were bad, but they were nothing compared to them damn Japs. Those god damn Japs were crazy. They believed in suicide missions, so they had people that would fly planes into our naval ships. They didn’t care.”
One of the most difficult things that King, who was drafted at the age of 22, remembers encountering while overseas dealt with the killing of a baby girl.
King said, “One day, me, my commander, and another soldier were walking a little ways away from our camp, and there was this female walking towards us carrying a baby in this brown bag that wrapped around her back. When the girl saw us, she put the baby on the ground and took off running into the woods. My commander said, “King, shoot her.” I picked my gun up, and aimed at her. I was good at shooting, and I know I could have shot that girl, but I just told my commander, “The trees are in the way. I can’t get a good shot.” I really could have though.”
King paused for a minute and poked at the fire he was sitting in front of at his home. He then sat back, and continued to tell the part of this story that was clearly more difficult for him to re-live. “We then walked up to the baby, and I can still remember that pretty little girl looking up at us and laughing. When my commander told me to shoot that baby, I told him, “Sir, you can shoot me if you have to, but I am not shooting this baby. My commander then pointed the barrel of his rifle at the baby, so I reached down and pulled the riffle away. Not long after I began walking back to camp by myself, I heard a gun go off. I understood that my commander did what had to be done, I just couldn’t be the one to live with that on my conscience for the rest of my life.”
By the end of the war, King was ready to return home. After encountering so much brutality, King remembers feeling “good” when he learned he was finally heading back to the states.
“The Chief Commander always made a speech, and he would tell us what’s going to happen and what has already happened in the war. That’s how I found out that the war had ended and I was going home. I got my discharge papers and $200.00. The money was my mustered-out pay,” King said. “I remember telling the Chief Commander, I felt good after being discharged, and he said to me, “I would too.” Then he wished me good luck. I wish I could remember his name, but there were so many people that I would see one time and then I’d never see them again.”
While the ugliness of WWII is still so vivid in King’s mind, the time he served fighting as a soldier in the United States Army was worth it. King said, “If my country asked me to, I’d do it all again.”
King then grabbed one of the several American Flags he has at his home, and said, “This is what I fought for. The American Flag represents freedom, and if I had to, I would defend it again today.”