06/07/2023
I have the honor of being the son of a Marine who participated in the D-Day Normandy Invasion...my father manned antiaircraft guns on the USS Texas, a battleship that saw lots of action throughout WWII. My father had joined the Marines in December 1943 at age 17, boarded the Texas in April, and by June 6 he was in active combat. I've had the pleasure of meeting several of his friends who served with him--one of whom I still talk to today, Bill Wright, another Marine AA gunner on the Texas. All just regular guys who stepped up to do a very extraordinary thing. They weren't blinded by a need to make themselves great, they felt great because they contributed to the greater, maybe the greatest, cause. I've posted his memoir of that day before, but I never lose pride in who he and they were or what they did.
My father went onboard the battleship USS Texas , on April 4, 1944 at Pier 51, North River, New York as a US Marine. He was assigned to the team that manned one of the two four-barrel 40mm anti-aircraft guns—called quad-40s—that were situated at the fantail of the ship: the 8 black barrels in th...
