When I came to work for the Deseret News in the early 1970s, I interviewed all the Spanish-American War veterans who were still alive in Utah - about half a dozen.
Using a tape recorder, notebook and camera, I tried to capture their stories and faces. Now all of the men from that last war of the 19th century have passed away, but I still have the stories and the photographs. They are precious to me, a bond with the time when ragtime was king and Teddy Roosevelt led the charge up San Juan Hill.Meeting those interesting old men taught me something about history. It wasn't just facts. History was a real, living man standing proudly beside an American flag 75 years after the Battle of Manila, his Spanish-American War medal on his chest.
The experience made me wish I could make contact with soldiers of all American wars. So I have spent the past 20 years or so doing just that.
My project centered around photography. As its linchpin, I acquired a camera-original photo of an identified veteran or participant of every one of the American wars.
First, a definition. "Camera-original" is a term collectors of antique photographs use to mean a picture that was formed on the same material that went into the camera. Prints aren't original; they are reproductions from an original negative that can be multiplied thousands of times.
By contrast, a camera-original photo is one of a kind. A vacation slide is a good example. Also camera-original are daguerreotypes, ambrotypes, tintypes and negatives.
America has fought 10 wars, starting with the War for Independence - 10 major wars, disregarding lesser engagements like the invasions of Nicaragua and "war" with the Tripoli pirates. Also, we must not include the decades of military actions against Indian tribes that are misnamed the "Indian wars."
I have known veterans of six of the 10 wars, and I found out something about men who were in the earlier four.
These are all real people - like my father-in-law who waited through cold months of separation in the Aleutians in World War II, or my friend Larry who woke up in the middle of one April night in Vietnam as mortar shells exploded.
I have worked for the past 20 years or so collecting the photographs printed here. They're all camera-originals, all showing definitely identified people who are either participants in or veterans of every one of the United States' major wars.
Some were easy to find, some were inexpensive, some photos were taken by myself or my wife, while others cost me hundreds of dollars.
Studying microfilm in the LDS Church's Family History Library, sending away to the National Archives for records, borrowing obscure unit histories through interlibrary loan, digging out old government records, and finally, interviewing, I felt I could touch the fabric of our country.
This is probably the first time such a collection ever was assembled and published.
REVOLUTIONARY WAR
Simeon Hicks, born in 1755, joined a Rehoboth, Mass., minuteman unit shortly after the Boston Tea Party. He and other feisty young men drilled every Saturday for a year, so they would be prepared to take up their muskets at a minute's notice once war broke out with Britain.
It began with the Battle of Lexington on April 19, 1775. News reached Hicks' outfit the next day, and they immediately mobilized. A private in Capt. John Pain's company, he served at Dorchester, helping besiege the British in Boston.
"The day of Bunker Hill battle he was at Dorchester with the company to which he belonged, employed in building the breastworks," says his pension application.
A true minuteman, he joined various militia companies whenever needed. Hicks served eight enlistments from 1775 to 1780, with about a year and a half in groups from several states. He was the last survivor of the Battle of Bennington, Vt., and his daguerreotype was taken on Aug. 16, 1854, the 77th anniversary of the battle.
Bennington Battle was a turning point of the Revolution, in which 1,000 enemy were killed or captured. It set up the later surrender of an entire British army.
A powerful invading column of British regulars, Tories and Hessians was cut to pieces by a band of American militia at Bennington. The Yankees were armed with scythes, axes, muskets and bird-hunting guns; they wore cornstalks in their tricorner hats so they could distinguish themselves from the Tories.
They fought through the hot afternoon, parched with thirst, muskets growing almost too hot to hold. They stormed a Hessian fortification, running up within 25 feet of roaring cannons to pick off the cannoneers.
At the Tory breastworks, where Hicks is known to have fought, the enemy soldiers fired simultaneously. While they were reloading, the patriots jumped over the breastworks. The Americans killed, wounded and captured everyone except some who managed to splash across the Walloomsac River and flee into the countryside.
Simeon Hicks' pension application says that on Aug. 16, 1777, "he was engaged in the Bennington Battle, under Major Peabody in the Centre commanded by Gen. Stark . . . he was engaged against the Tory breastworks and was again engaged against the tories at the Barn, that he Said Simeon
,T Benjamin Ingalss, & Leon Fuller took nine Hessean privates & one Major prisoners."
He settled in nearby Sunderland, Vt., in 1783 and lived there the rest of his life. He died at age 99, revered as a hero.
WAR OF 1812
Martin O. Coe served as a lieutenant in a Genesee County, N.Y., regiment during one of our country's worst military disasters - the invasion of western New York during the War of 1812 (which began in 1812 and ended in 1815).
In the winter of 1813-1814, the American frontier was devastated by the British and Canadians; a 1927 account in a local newspaper says it was in retaliation for an American general burning a Canadian town (Newark). British and Indians stationed at Fort Niagara launched raids onto American soil, burning settlements, plundering and slaughtering civilians.
During one of the harshest winters on record, refugees fled to the east. The newspaper called them a mob: militia soldiers, citizens, sleighs, ox-sleds, wagons, people on horseback. Many were overtaken and massacred by Indian allies of the British.
An American force marched to Buffalo at Christmas. They faced the British on Dec. 29, 1813. When the British approached, other than one small regiment, they all fled without firing a shot.
That day the British burned Buffalo and captured the Black Rock Navy Yard. Batavia, N.Y., became a rallying point for the American troops and refugees. Homes became military headquarters and hospitals.
Exactly what Coe was doing at this dark time is uncertain, except that military records show him serving as a lieutenant in the 777th New York militia under Capt. William Sheldon.
Coe was born in Massachusetts in 1786 and moved to Le Roy, Genesee County, N.Y., in 1811. He built two sawmills and an "oil mill" and established a brickyard. He was county superintendent of the poor for 14 years. He was a loan commissioner about 10 years, was involved in a newspaper, and eventually became colonel of a militia regiment. He died in Le Roy in September 1861.
MEXICAN WAR
Lt. Col. Joshua Howard was born April 17, 1793, and was a professional soldier from Massachusetts. He served in the War of 1812 as a lieutenant of the U.S. 9th Infantry, fought in the actions against the Seminole Indians in Florida, commanded during the Mexican War and was an Army paymaster in his old age during the Civil War.
He built an arsenal at Dearborn, Mich., in 1834, then temporarily resigned from the Army. He was elected to the Michigan House of Representatives in 1838 and 1840 and was appointed U.S. marshal for Michigan in 1841.
In March 1847, when the Mexican War began, he recruited and organized the U.S. 15th Infantry Regiment at Cincinnati, and was appointed lieutenant colonel of the regiment.
Howard was made a brevet colonel for "gallant and meritorious conduct in the battle of Chapultepec," which was fought on the outskirts of Mexico City on Sept. 13, 1847.
Howard had taken over command of the 15th when the colonel was disabled by a wound at Churubusco on Aug. 20, 1847.
Gen. Gideon J. Pillow, writing in the captured Mexico City on Sept. 18, 1847, mentions Howard's actions in the storming of the hill of Chapultepec:
"No less distinguished and no less glorious was the conduct of the 15th regiment of infantry, now under command of Lieutenant Colonel Howard. This regiment, which had greatly distinguished itself in the actions near Churubusco, on the 20th ultimo, where the brave Colonel Morgan was wounded, now covered itself with new honors and fresh laurels, under command of its present veteran leader
HowardT, assisted by his gallant Major Woods . . .
"Great credit is due to the officers and men for their rapid movement at this time, for the whole hill was mined, and, had the enemy been allowed to fire their trains, great destruction must have inevitably ensued."
Howard died in Detroit, July 12, 1868.
CIVIL WAR
Lt. James H. Low of Company D, 38th Indiana Infantry, was first wounded at the Battle of Perryville on Oct. 5, 1862. Shot in the head so that his face was covered with blood, the wound "made him a frightful object to behold," wrote Col. Benjamin Franklin Scribner in his 1887 book, "How Soldiers Were Made."
"As Low came reeling by me, he was not so concerned for himself but that he could salute me with words of encouragement and confidence of victory. The next day when the regiment was about to start in pursuit of Bragg, Low was recognized in his place with the company. His head was covered with white bandages, whereupon he was at once ordered to go to the rear, but he begged to be allowed to go with us.
"To relieve his mind from any misgiving he might have of any unjust construction his men might put upon his going back, I preemptorily ordered him to the hospital in their presence, saying that I would not take the risk of properly taking care of him.
"But poor Low was hurt worse than he thought, for his skull was cracked, and it was many months before he was again fit for duty."
He had recently returned to the regiment when the tintype with this article was taken. It shows him with other officers and men, all of them identified, while the 38th recovered from the terrible Battle of Murfreesboro, Tenn.
Low was a captain commanding the 38th, with a commission as colonel on its way, when the Hoosiers fought in one of the last actions of the Civil War, the Battle of Bentonville, N.C.
Capt. D.H. Patton wrote in his official report of that battle of March 19, 1865:
"When within about fifty yards of their works they opened fire upon us. Captain Low, then in command of the regiment, ordered the men to lie down. At this time, through some mistake, the report was circulated that we were firing upon our own men, whereupon Captain Low gave the order to cease firing.
"Firing from the front grew more rapid and Captain Low fell, mortally wounded."
SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR
Elmer Thomas, a Salt Lake man, was only 17 in 1898 when he joined Battery A of the Utah Light Artillery. The two batteries took a train to San Francisco, then went aboard the Colon for a rough sea trip to the Philippines.
He recalled Aug. 13, 1898, when the Americans captured Manila. "There wasn't much resistance. The infantry went in and attacked the town, and we followed them in.
"There was only token resistance. We had been shelling the town."
After the Spanish surrendered, Thomas and others in the Utah batteries fought against Filipino rebels, then returned to a great victory parade in 1899.
He was in the Army during World Wars I and II and a member of the Utah House of Representatives. Thomas was the national commander of the United Spanish-American War Veterans, and the big event of the year for him was the Manila Day gatherings in Liberty Park.
Once when I visited his apartment in the old Eagle Gate Apartments, 28 N. State, I found him working on plans for the next Manila Day celebration, which was months away. He died on Oct. 8, 1977.
WORLD WAR I
When Charles M. Dailey would mow his lawn on hot days, he would wear only his sleeveless undershirt, and we'd see the terrible scars that crossed his shoulder and back. Our next-door neighbor on 11th East, he was a veteran of the U.S. raid into Mexico to hunt for Pancho Villa in 1916, and of World War I.
One of my fondest memories of Charlie was inviting him in to hear a 78-rpm record I had acquired, an antique from World War I. As it played, Charlie started singing along with it and marching in place, feet going up and down, arms swinging. Then I sang too: "Over there! Over there! Send the word, send the word, over there, that the Yanks are coming, the Yanks are coming . . ."
Charlie came from Ohio. He joined the Rainbow Division and fought in the battles of Alsace-Lorraine, the Marne, Champaigne, Chateau-Thierry and the Argonne Forest.
He talked about a time when the Americans were advancing and had to cross a creek about 31/2 feet deep. "So I got out darn near the middle of the creek, and the machine guns started to firing over the top of my head," he said. The unit was pinned down in the creek from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. the next morning, when the Americans drove off the Germans.
Another time when Germans had breached their trenches, a German officer was aiming his pistol at an American officer who didn't see him. "So I let the guy have a hand grenade! He dropped to the bottom of the trench, and I never did see him, so I guess I must have got him."
At the Argonne Forest, the machine-gun bullets flew so thickly he seemed to feel them going through his fingers. "You could hear 'em whistle, too, past your ears."
He was injured at the Argonne. An ambulance driver told Dailey he saw it happen: "He said there was an Austrian 88 shell that lit about four feet from me and exploded. And he said I was blowed up in the air about eight feet."
When the war ended on Nov. 11, 1918, he was in a French hospital. He looked out the window and saw soldiers of all countries celebrating, even Germans who were recently released from a POW camp. "They were all marching down the street locking arms with each-other."
Charlie moved to Ohio about 15 years ago, and I haven't heard from him lately.
WORLD WAR II
My father-in-law, Henry Charles Wilcox, was somewhat older than most men who joined the infantry for World War II. Born in March 1910, he served from May 1942 until Oct. 4, 1945, when he was released with an honorable discharge.
During the war he was posted to several places, but the most desolate was Amchitka in Alaska's Aleutian Islands.
He was in an anti-tank unit, and some might think Alaska was a strange place for them. But those far western islands, close to the Bering Sea, were a combat zone. The Japanese invaded one island, and Henry's group was strafed while he was there.
Mostly, Amchitka was a lonely, cold place. Their quonset huts, which were largely underground, were noisy whenever rain or hail fell - like banging on tin pans, he recalled.
Immediately after Alaska, he was sent to Fort Hood, Texas. He went from the coldest post to the hottest, he joked. Because he had served an LDS mission in Germany, he was able to speak German, and he talked with POWs who waited table on the Americans.
They were so happy to get out of the war, and get good food themselves, that many wanted to stay in America, he said.
I have the fondest memories of him, a quiet man who loved carpentry. In his old age, after he retired from the U.S. Postal Service, he was always building chests or boxes; he even built the family's house in the Sugar House area.
After he suffered a stroke, the Veterans Administration (now the Veterans Affairs Department) took care of him, helping him stay in a nursing home. He died on June 13, 1990.
KOREAN WAR
William R. Pastore had enlisted in the Marine Corps from Salt Lake City at age 17. He fought throughout the Pacific and was wounded on Iwo Jima. Following that war he worked for the Deseret News' press department.
In 1950 he joined the Marine Reserves, just as fighting broke out in Korea. "Then they activated the Reserves, and we went right from here to Camp Pendleton (Calif.), and in two weeks we were in Korea."
A member of the 1st Marine Division, 2nd Battalion, 1st Regiment, E Company, he fought almost constantly after the landing at Inchon. "I was there 13 months, and out of the 13 months, I was off of the front lines two weeks," he said.
At the Chosin Reservoir, troops fought at 40 degrees below zero. "And you know living in a foxhole, that's not very warm," he said.
"There were nine Chinese divisions surrounding one Marine Corps division . . . We were in about a 12-hour firefight, and one of our sister companies was in a 48-hour firefight."
The Chinese launched five attacks during those 12 hours. "They just kept coming. They never cracked the lines. And they were suffering, they were suffering bad. They were just bare-handed and tennis shoes . . .
"They just kept comin' and we kept shooting."
Marines were so numb with cold that sometimes they didn't realize they were shot, and they'd bleed to death because they didn't notice the wound. Others were pinned down with their feet in water and their feet would freeze.
"It was pretty grim," he said.
"Last time I was wounded was there on the Iron Triangle . . . I got hit in the lung there. That was shrapnel."
He returned to Salt Lake City, retiring both from the Marine Corps and from Newspaper Agency Corp.
VIETNAM WAR
In June 1967 Larry Weist was drafted into the 2nd Battalion, 14th Infantry, part of the 25th Infantry Division. He left from Danville, Calif., and stayed in the Army until June 1969.
He was stationed in War Zone C, between Saigon and the Cambodian border. "I was wounded twice," the first time in a helicopter crash that left him hospitalized for a week, the second a lesser shrapnel wound.
"I think one of the most terrifying things is a mortar attack at night when you're sleeping on the ground in a rice paddy," he said.
That's how he was sleeping at 2 a.m. one morning in April 1968 when he was awakened by loud explosions and flashes. "For a second or two you're not sure what's going on or where you are when you come out of a sleep. It's very disorienting. Then you run for cover."
But there wasn't much cover in the middle of a rice paddy. He headed toward a bunker, shrapnel tearing into his back. "I ran into this bunker and an 82mm. mortar (shell) came right through the bunker and sandbags."
It exploded in the bunker, injuring some and possibly killing one man. Weist wasn't hurt badly and medics didn't need to work on him long.
"It was just pull the shrapnel out, patch you up, and you're out," he said.
After Vietnam he went to college in California and transferred to Brigham Young University, where he graduated in 1973. He worked as a reporter and editor, including a stint at the Deseret News, and is now director of the news service at University of Utah Communications.
Recently installed as president of the 25th Infantry Division Association, he thinks America was right to fight in Vietnam. "All I can say is I am very proud of the guys I served with.
"I'm proud of what we did. I can't apologize for it, because we were right . . . It was the communists killing their own people."
OPERATION DESERT STORM
I watched Travis Suazo, a young gunner in the Marine Reserve, head off to war in the Persian Gulf in November 1990, when his light-armored vehicle company was activated. The 100 Marines flew to Camp Lejune, N.C., and then to Saudi Arabia. They fought in the ground battles to liberate Kuwait from the Iraqi invaders.
"As soon as we went over, we were shelled with artillery - taking fire and giving fire, you might say. For that entire time, three days that we were over there, we were taking fire and killing Iraqis."
They pulled up close to an Iraqi position, just outside a minefield - near enough that they could see individual enemy soldiers directing fire on the Americans. At night, surrendering Iraqis began walking across the minefield.
As a gunner directed the line of Iraqis, one of them took a shortcut and tripped a mine. "I saw two explosions, and then that's when I ducked down inside (his vehicle) because I thought it was artillery coming in on us again," Suazo said.
He saw two bright orange flashes and heard the shrapnel raining on his vehicle. "You hear it, just phssst! - like a ricochet," he said.
Suazo went back up and he could hear screaming. One of the Iraqi's legs was blown off at the knee, and the other was "hanging on, just by some flesh." The gunner also was injured by shrapnel.
The Marines called for an evacuation helicopter.
"It took two hours, two hours, for a helicopter to get there. The Iraqi lived for an hour and a half," he said.
The first day of combat, his company captured 907 prisoners, according to its commander Maj. Ronald Canale.
Interviewed recently in his bachelor pad in Rose Park, Suazo - now 26 and a senior equipment operator for the Salt Lake City Public Works Department - says he doesn't want to worry about reports some Americans were exposed to nerve agent during the gulf war.
"Luckily, I haven't had any symptoms, so I'm not going to worry about it too much," he said.
In retrospect, what does he think about the war?
"I think it was worth doing, not only justified for the liberation of Kuwait, but it kind of brought the country back to the military side after the Vietnam War . . . They were behind us all the way, with the yellow ribbons around the trees and the branches, with the support of the families," Suazo said.
The troops in combat heard about that in news reports. "It made a difference to me that they were behind us," he said.