A Veterans Day Story
Mon., November 11, 09:22 AM
I heard this story on the radio this morning. I hope you like it as much as I did.
Lee Marvin – the tough guy actor whose films still turn up on the classic movies channels – is buried in Arlington National Cemetery. The marker is simple; it has his name and dates, plus “U.S. Marines, private.” So you might wonder why he rates a space among the generals.
Lee Marvin was one of those actors who not only enlisted but actually served, in contrast to those who mostly smiled and posed for recruitment materials. He was in the first wave to land on Iwo Jima, where he was wounded and later awarded the Navy Cross. Johnny Carson asked him about it once on the “Tonight Show.”
“Yeah, I was shot going up Mount Surabachi,” he said, “but the bravest man I ever knew was my sergeant, who was awarded the medal the same time I was.” Marvin went on to talk about how dangerous it was to be shot on a mountain slope, because those who have to rescue the wounded are right in the line of fire, without a place to hide. Nevertheless, his comrades did come to get him, and as they carried his stretcher down, they passed his sergeant, standing there and directing the rescue. He stopped to light a cigarette, which he handed to Marvin lying there on his belly, and exchanged a few words with him before he was taken away. “Where were you shot?” asked the sergeant. “If you talk to my mother,” said Marvin, “tell her to sell the outhouse.”
“Sergeant Keeshan was the bravest man I ever knew,” repeated Marvin. “He remains one of my closest friends.” Sergeant Keeshan is in show business too, and most of us know his work even if we can’t quite place the name Bob Keeshan. He was Clarabelle on “Howdy Doody,” for those who remember back that far. But he is best known for his own show, “Captain Kangaroo.”
Didn’t that make you feel good?
