Warrior symposium takes

  • Published
  • By Airman 1st Class Christopher Hatch
  • 56th Fighter Wing Public Affairs
More than 320 Thunderbolts went to Omaha Beach during the invasion of Normandy and flew with the first aircraft into Iraq during Desert Shield, without leaving the comfort of the Desert Star Club June 1. 

The warrior symposium was an opportunity to listen to five veterans who served in the last four wars from World War II to Desert Storm. 

Ellis Reed, U.S. Army Ranger, was the first to speak. 

"We were well trained," said Reed. "You had to be a sharp shooter to join. We just took the best." 

Reed told the audience about the invasion at Omaha Beach and how his battalion was assigned to clear the beach for the incoming soldiers. Displaying a picture of himself and one of the officers assigned to the rangers, Sid Solomon, Reed explained how Solomon wiped out all the mortars on the cliffs above the beach. 

"Sid climbed the cliffs while the enemy dropped grenades on his unit," Reed said. This made it possible for the incoming troops to land on the beach without the threat of mortars. 

"If it hadn't been for the rangers they would have had to abandon the beach," he said. "The landing was hard and many men died but we did it." 

Far from the fighting in Europe, WWII was also raging in the Pacific. 

Joseph Johnson, a WWII and Korean War veteran, who joined the Army at 14 and
earned the name "Baby of Bataan," was first stationed at Manila in the Philippines. 

"Soon after arriving, I became company bugler," said Johnson. "Being the bugler I was also the runner." 

Johnson told how runners saw the front lines quite often and "it wasn't pretty." 

Just after Pearl Harbor was bombed, the Japanese bombed the U.S. base in Manila. Johnson's position as bugler and company runner gave him a fighting advantage point along the line. He fought with his company in a machine gun squad until April 1942, when he went with a Marine unit in Corregidor, just missing the famed Bataan death march. 

About a month later, Johnson was captured and spent the rest of the war as a POW. 

"I wasn't a hero; I just did my job," said Johnson. Another symposium speaker, Bob Robinson, also fought in WWII and the Korean War. 

"I was a senior in high school at the time of the Pearl Harbor bombing," said Robinson. "I tried to enlist after it happened but the recruiters told me to finish school first." 

After finishing school and enlisting, Robinson's first assignment was guard duty at Pearl Harbor, where he completed submarine training. He then went on a submarine into the Pacific and fought there until the war ended. 

Jerry Houston, a Vietnam veteran, mentally took Thunderbolts into the jungles and indicated how the Viet Cong were merciless. 

"They would threaten to kill your family if you didn't do what they wanted," said Houston. 

The Viet Cong also made it dangerous to go anywhere on foot. 

"I remember being flown around by helicopter most of the time," he said. "When the unit had to walk or take ground transportation, that's when most people died." 

James Uken, an F-4 pilot, then mentally took Thunderbolts out of the jungles into the desert, during the Gulf War. He flew one of the first fighter jets into Iraq and was part of the first strike. "When we got to the Bahrain Air Base we had to parkthe jets in the dirt next to the runway," said Uken. 

He explained when he first arrived at the base there was no room for the jets, so the military had to build new structures for everything. The command post was a prefabricated building that was flown in and dropped in a cleared field. 

"The night before we went in, the commander said 'tomorrow we ride.' We all knew what was going on and we were ready," Uken said. 

He commented that everyone in the military has an important role to play. 

"People think we are heroes but the heroes are dead," he said. "The most important job out there is the one you're doing. For example, if it were not for maintainers, the planes would fall out of the sky. Every job has its importance and you should be proud to do yours. It's the reason we are the best Air Force."