A renewed national resolve marks this Veterans Day

If ever a Veterans Day observance were to benefit from a resurgence of patriotism, the one at hand would seem to be it, coming as it does just two months after the horrific events of Sept.11 that have made Americans mad as hell about global terrorism and not about to take it any more.

Since the September atrocities perpetrated by the dark forces of evil, Americans have given blood and money in record quantities while acquiring a new appreciation for freedoms long taken for granted. A national resolve not seen in decades is discernible in the universal display of the flag from sea to shining sea. Throughout the land there is renewed support for the men and women of our uniformed services as they mobilize to defend the motherland from a new breed of barbarians at the gate. As well, there is a renewed sense of gratitude toward veterans of wars past who willingly fought to preserve our way of life.

Bangor’s Cole Land Transportation Museum – whose founder, World War II veteran Galen Cole has few equals when it comes to support of veterans – has asked some 1,200 World War II veterans to record their wartime experiences for the museum’s military archives, or consent to be interviewed for the project. Veterans Ray Vear and Louis Pare of Brewer are among those who have told their stories to Cole assistant, Lowell Kjenstad.

Drafted into the Army in August 1944, Vear was an infantryman assigned to the 10th Infantry Battalion of the 4th Armored Division on the border of France and Luxembourg as it regrouped after the Battle of the Bulge. He vividly recalls his outfit being strafed by a German Messerschmitt 262, the first fighter jet that he and his buddies had ever seen. “It was scary, because it was so different. We didn’t know what to expect,” said the Brewer resident.

After his unit had fought its way to the Rhine River,Vear became a messenger between company and battalion headquarters, driving his Jeep mostly at night, without headlights. During combat – often with high-ranking officers as passengers – he was fair game for enemy snipers, which tended to make life interesting.

While part of a task force sent to liberate a prisoner of war camp at Hammelburg, some 60 miles behind enemy lines, Vear was captured and became a prisoner of war himself. Their mission was to retrieve a special prisoner, Col. John Waters, a son-in-law of Gen. George S. Patton Jr. The Americans were liberated, and as many as could climbed aboard half-track vehicles to begin their journey back to the front line, but Col. Waters was wounded in the operation and returned to the camp hospital.

A German counterattack that Vear said “scared the living daylights out of me” destroyed most of the American vehicles and equipment and killed some of the rescuers and the rescued. It became a case of every man for himself. Vear and several companions started back, traveling only at night.

Three days later, as they sought food in a German home, they were captured by the Germans. Imprisoned for 35 days before he was freed at the end of the war in May 1945, Vear lost 45 pounds. On his 19th birthday he boarded the ship that would bring him home.

Pare enlisted in the Marine Corps at Lewiston in August 1943. For nearly a year he served with the 5th Service Battalion of the 5th Marine Division, including combat against the Japanese on bloody Iwo Jima, having arrived on that desolate Pacific island on the third day of the invasion.

Under enemy fire almost constantly, he worked 16 to 18 hours a day unloading and sorting supplies and equipment while around him men were getting killed or maimed. Wounded in both legs, he was carried to a field hospital, where he lay on a stretcher for more than four hours amidst the carnage of dead and dying Marines.

Nearly 60 years later, the sights and sounds of what Pare describes as “the most horrible time of my life” still haunt the former Marine. Diagnosed with chronic and severe post traumatic stress disorder, Pare told Kjenstad that he remains subject to flashbacks and nightmares in which he tries to “claw his way through the bloody black volcanic sands of Iwo Jima…”

Ray Vear and Louis Pare. Just two ordinary guys going about their ordinary business until their country called on them in its time of need. Like thousands upon thousands of other patriots in all of the country’s wars, they answered the call without hesitation and their lives were never the same. On Veterans Day a grateful nation vows never to forget their sacrifices.

NEWS columnist Kent Ward lives in Winterport. His e-mail address is olddawg@bangordailynews.net.