Barton: Old soldiers, fading away

Douglas MacArthur was only half-right. Old soldiers do fade away - but they die, too.

Each day, America loses an estimated 1,100 veterans of World War II, men who shipped off to Europe and the Pacific in their late teens and early 20s are now on the back side of 80.

Age is a more relentless foe than the Germans or Japanese. Some of these old soldiers - the heroes of Omaha Beach, Iwo Jima and places that don't have names - are fighting private battles against failing health or diseases such as cancer.

A lucky few are blessed with life. Still, that's of small comfort when a familiar name pops up in an obituary. With each passing, their own special brotherhood dies a bit, too.

Bill Kelly has been to more burials than he can count during the past 10 years. And he can count pretty well, because he's a retired, 86-year-old mechanical engineer.

Kelly stopped by my office several weeks ago to talk about a group of his peers - some 700 strong from the Savannah area - who were called to serve their country in 1940, a year before the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. These young men, he said, were green kids just out of high school - mostly Savannah High and Benedictine.

They mobilized on Sept. 16, 1940 - 66 years ago this Saturday - with the Georgia National Guard, 118th Field Artillery Regiment. This was a time when much of the world was at war. Many wondered when America would jump in.

"There was a song we all sang - 'I'll be back in a year, little darling,'" Kelly said. "But most of us didn't come back until five or six years later."

Kelly, a sign painter's son, served with the Army in the Pacific, island hopping toward the Land of the Rising Sun until Truman put a stop to prolonged bloodshed by dropping two atomic bombs. He returned to Savannah. So did most of his old high school pals.

They married their sweethearts, had kids and got jobs. They tried to forget some of the things they saw or did.

But the 700 from Savannah remembered - and celebrated - their mobilization as soldiers each year on Sept. 16. They held annual dinners at places like Carey Hilliard's. Nothing fancy. But these weren't fancy guys, just regular Joes swapping stories.

Unfortunately, their numbers are dwindling dramatically. Only a few dozen were around in 2004. Last September, no one responded to the dinner invitations, which Kelly mailed as secretary-treasurer of their group.

This year, sad to say, there will be no reunion. There are too few to invite, and many are too weak or ill to attend.

"It's hard to believe that all these boys are gone," Kelly said, perusing an old newspaper ad, published on the 50th anniversary of the mobilization. It listed the names of all 700 soldiers. "But I look at these names, and I can still see them as they were in 1940. Boys like W.J. Farr from Garden City. We called him Dub Farr. He was the catcher on the baseball team and his daddy was a railroad man."

I don't have room to print all 700 names from the 118th Field Artillery Regiment. But here are the names of those who got the call 66 years ago this week and are still living:

W.L. "Bill" Kelly Jr.

W.G. "Dub" Farr.

Lester Lowe.

Tom Corey.

E. Ciucevich.

Benny Itzkovitz.

Stanford White.

T.J. Sullivan.

Richard Lee.

Jimmy Eure.

D.A. Doss.

Joe Becton.

W.E. Dykes.

E.G. Kirkley.

Allen Branch.

If you know them, thank them.

If you don't know them, then thank your lucky stars you live in a nation where these citizen-soldiers came when their country called them.

And do it now - before more of them fade away.
