World War II vets see their legacy, through Blu Blockers

W.H. Bill Murray, on a visit with other World War II veterans, surveys the memorial for the first time. Grant Slater / MNSWASHINGTON – Near the back of a sea of BluBlocker sunglasses and navy-blue ball caps, W.H. “Bill” Murray presses the viewfinder of a Nikon film camera to his shades and presses the shutter button.

The camera is aimed somewhere between the electric blue November sky and the columns ringing the World War II Memorial as the morning shadow of the Washington Monument creeps across the plaza. He drops the camera, advances the film, spins and snaps again.

In every direction, veterans of World War II — 92 of them flown to the capital, at no charge, on one of several so-called Honor Flights that day — were seeing their monument for the first time, one day before their day, Veterans Day.

Their stories, and the stories of relatives and friends, reveal the deep familial bonds of service and the desire for modest recognition from the broader American public at a time when the country’s wars touch only a small slice of the population.

Murray, who retired in 1966 as the top enlisted man on the submarine Nathanael Greene, should not have been drafted in 1942, sent to man the commissary of a sub that saw action against the Japanese Imperial Fleet and was once given up for sunk before reappearing safely in harbor.

He wouldn’t have been there for all that if he hadn’t lied to a judge in South Carolina, rounding up his age one year to 18 so he could marry a girl. As an official 18-year-old, he was drafted soon after.

Murray was one of only two black sailors on his ship, and he didn’t like the other one, he said, a challenge that built character and altered the course of his life as he returned to his native South Carolina “to be part of the change instead of a problem” in the civil rights struggle.

“It’s great to know that people out there are thinking and recognizing that we did something good, something positive, even if it took 30 years too long,” he said, referring to the opening of the memorial nearly 60 years after the end of World War II.

Retired Air Force Master Sgt. Duane Goon of Yorktown, Va., showed up an hour and a half early in anticipation of his father-in-law seeing the memorial for the first time.

Tears streamed from behind his dark sunglasses as Goon recalled the wartime sacrifices made by generations of his family and reflected on the face of his father-in-law as he visited the memorial. Goon himself served in Turkey during 1991’s Operation Provide Comfort, helping to protect the Kurds in northern Iraq from attack.

“The solitude of being away from your family — but then again, you adopt a second family,” he said. “I was pretty lucky, luckier than these older guys who were away for three years straight.”

For years, retired Army Sgt. Maj. Freddie Brock trained soldiers. His military police brigade gave them the skills they needed to survive in war zones in Iraq and Afghanistan. When they came home through Dover, he went to the funerals of some of those he had trained.

In 2005, seeing off one of many flights to Iraq, he watched the soldiers board the plane — as he had done before — until he saw his son climb the stairs for his first combat assignment.

“We were shaking everybody’s hand as they were boarding, and I was pretty good right until I looked up and saw my son climbing the stairs,” he said. “What scares you the most is that telephone call that comes at 2 a.m., not knowing if it’s one of your guys or your own son. The constant deployment; the constant worrying.”

Brock’s father served three tours in Vietnam, and he recalled tuning into the nightly news in hopes of catching a glimpse of his father boarding a plane or resting in a camp in view of the camera.

“My son just picked up from me,” Brock said. “And we just pick up from them, just continue carrying the torch. I think the best thing you can do is just thank a veteran for your freedom.”