A final message from the last veterans of World – Latest News
During World War II, over 16 million Americans served in the Armed Forces. Today, much less than 45,000 are nonetheless alive. I spent the previous ten years interviewing Marine Corps veterans who fought in the Pacific Theater for my forthcoming e-book, “The Last of the Old Breed: An Oral History of the Final Marines from World War II” (St. Martin’s Press). Of the 130 survivors I spoke with, the youngest was 90 and the oldest was 103.
And they’ve a final message for America.
Les Anderson was 95 years outdated when he sat down for an interview in 2021. He had by no means mentioned the battle earlier than our assembly.
“I thought I would be able to talk about it now, but I still have trouble,” he stated, tears streaming down his face. “I thought I could forget about it, but that doesn’t work either.”
As a younger chaplain’s assistant, Kenneth Brown spent the first day of the battle of Iwo Jima aboard a troop ship. Courtesy of Kenneth Brown
On Feb. 23, 1945, 21-year-old Anderson landed on the black sands of Iwo Jima as a radio operator with the First Provisional Artillery Group. It was the begin of a 30-day descent into hell.
From his foxhole at the base of Mount Suribachi, he watched as flamethrower operators sprayed burning fuel into Japanese bunkers. The occupants would race into the open, engulfed in flames.
“It didn’t make any difference whether you rolled in the sand or not: the napalm either killed you or suffocated you,” he stated.
“The heat and the flames would suck the air out of the tunnels. Then our bulldozers would come up and push sand over the entrances. That stuff is why I’ve never talked about the war before.”
Soldiers pose with assorted souvenirs captured on Iwo Jima. Courtesy of the writer
Anderson, a prototypical silent member of his era, broke his silence for one cause: to remind Americans of the price of freedom.
“I hope that they’ll remember that freedom is not free,” Anderson stated.
“It really disturbs me now with all this bickering. I just don’t understand that. Back in World War II, even the little kids would gather pots and pans. Even when I came back, I was buying E-stamps, which you put in a book to help pay for things. I hate to leave this world in such a mess.”
Les Anderson handed away in 2022 at the age of 98.
Kenneth Brown poses with a Japanese rifle and flag captured on Iwo Jima. It’s signed by his mates in the fifth Marine Division. Courtesy of the writer
Kenneth Brown was additionally reluctant to discuss his experiences on Iwo Jima. As a younger chaplain’s assistant, he spent the first day of the battle aboard a troop ship.
“They were bringing some of the wounded aboard,” he stated. “That was the first time I’d seen injured men. Some of them were dying . . . they were in terrible pain because the morphine had worn off. The chaplain and I went down and helped. Some of the men were giving their last words; they knew they were going to die. I took down notes of what they wanted to say, something to send back to their parents. That was my first experience with how hellish war is.”
A column of marines advances on Bougainville in late 1943. USMC Photo
Later in the battle, Brown would help in the burial of practically 7,000 younger Americans on the island. One was his best good friend, a boy from Plano, Idaho, named Lorin Oakey.
Oakey had been killed on March 2, 1945. He was 22 years outdated.
After the battle, Brown didn’t talk about Iwo Jima for over 50 years. He was stricken by nightmares and flashbacks. It wasn’t till he began lecturing at Ricks College in the Nineteen Eighties that he realized younger people knew little or no about what had occurred in World War II.
A corpsman guides a wounded marine, Bert Rutan, to the seashore on Iwo Jima. USMC Photo by Eugene Jones
A probability dialog in Rexburg, Idaho, lastly motivated him to share his testimony: “I had a sticker on the back of my truck: ‘Iwo Jima.’ I parked downtown and this college girl came around and saw the sticker. She said, ‘What’s that Iwo Jima? Is that some kind of a drink?’ They didn’t know anything about it, so I decided that I would tell my story.”
When requested what America meant to him, Brown didn’t hesitate, “America means just that — it means freedom. We’re free to go where we want to go, and say what we want to say and to worship as we choose to worship. That’s the important thing. We don’t appreciate that.”
Kenneth Brown handed away in January of 2026 at age 102.
Bert Rutan holds the picture in 2019. Courtesy of the writer
Milton “Red” Cronk, age 98 when interviewed in 2021, served in the elite Third Raider Battalion and fought in the largely forgotten Battle for Bougainville. Cronk skilled for over two years solely to be shot on the eighth day of the battle. But his enduring reminiscence of the battle wasn’t of fight; it was a reminiscence of guilt for not doing more for a burn sufferer in the hospital on Espiritu Santo.
“They would ask us to go in there and feed him,” Cronk stated. “I told those nurses: ‘I’ll do anything for him, but I won’t do that.’ I couldn’t do that. The smell of his burnt body was terrible, awful.”
Reflecting on the future of America, Cronk’s message was clear: “I wish they didn’t have to fight anymore. It’s a losing battle no matter who’s fighting. It just doesn’t make any sense. But someone gets it going and they just fight, fight, fight. War is hell.”
“I wish they didn’t have to fight anymore. It’s a losing battle no matter who’s fighting. It just doesn’t make any sense. But someone gets it going and they just fight, fight, fight. War is hell,” Cronk stated. USMC Photo
Milton “Red” Cronk died on Sept. 9, 2022.
Like the three males profiled on this piece, the last veterans of World War II — now of their late 90s or already over 100 years outdated — will quickly go away us. According to the Department of Veterans Affairs, the final survivor shall be passed by 2037, without end severing our firsthand connection to the best calamity in human historical past.
We owe it to people like Anderson, Brown and Cronk to recollect the price when younger women and men go to battle.
Scott Davis is a historian and journalist. He runs a common YouTube channel on the Vietnam War,
“The Vietnam Experience.” His writing has appeared in Naval History, Army Magazine and plenty of different publications. Over the previous decade, he has interviewed over 500 veterans of World War II, Korea and Vietnam.
