HAPPY MEMORIAL DAY: Thank You to All Who Serve

Leatherneck-

Although numbers are not easy to come by, the National Baseball Hall of Fame has derived some telling statistics. In the wake of the attack on Pearl Harbor, more than 500 major leaguers served during the war, including 29 who would eventually be elected to the Hall of Fame. Five Hall of Famers served during the war in Korea...

...Professional football players answered the call as well. Of the 638 NFL players who served in World War II, 355 were commissioned as officers, 66 were decorated, and 21 lost their lives...

Dennis Carpenter-

The military newspaper Stars and Stripes estimated that 800 sports stars, at both the collegiate and professional level, were killed during World War II. Marine Corps athletes, more than any other branch of the military, have carved out a record of bravery and a tradition of excellence on playing fields, in sports arenas and in the numerous theaters of combat in which they served...

....Baseball, the national pastime, produced its share of Marines whose lives were seared by the fire of combat. Knowledgeable sports fans know that Ted Williams served two tours as a Marine pilot, flew 39 combat missions in Korea, and, in the process, lost five years of his professional baseball career to military service. Likewise, Marine pilot Lloyd Merriman, a less heralded player of the same era, posted one of the most impressive combat-flying records of the Korean War. Merriman played outfield for three seasons with the Cincinnati Reds before being called to active duty, serving with Marine Fighter Squadron 115...

...Legendary Brooklyn Dodgers first baseman and New York Mets manager Gil Hodges, who hit 370 home runs over an 18-year major-league career, was a Marine option in the Naval Reserve Officers Training Corps program before he was called to active duty...

...Hodges served with the 16th Antiaircraft Bn, and during the 18 months he was stationed in the South Pacific, he saw action on Tinian and Okinawa. Hodges was promoted to sergeant during the war and received a Bronze Star. He also earned a Combat Action Ribbon, but never gained the recognition he deserved for that honor until he posthumously received the award in June 2004. At a presentation ceremony held at Shea Stadium, his wife said, “He was so proud to be an American and so proud to be a Marine.”

...Another was New York Giants end Jack Lummus, who was killed on Iwo Jima when he stepped on a land mine after single-handedly taking out a Japanese gun emplacement. “I guess the New York Giants have lost the services of a damned good end” were reported to be his last words to a battlefield surgeon...

...President Harry Truman awarded Lummus the Medal of Honor posthumously. Marine Corps football maven Colonel John Gunn, USMCR (Ret) noted that a plaque honoring Lummus was unveiled at the Polo Grounds, then the home of the football Giants, in October 1945, eight months after the 29-year-old Marine lieutenant was killed. Interestingly, the bronze plaque has not been seen since 1964 when the Polo Grounds was torn down. (Given Lummus’ conspicuous sacrifice, it would be appropriate for the Giants and the NFL to replace the plaque in memory of the heroic Marine lieutenant.)

...What these Marines achieved while serving in the Corps deserves as much recognition as what they accomplished in their respective athletic undertakings. In a society where sports is such an integral aspect of life, the careers of these Marine athletes suggest that a new perspective and reappraisal of national values is greatly overdue.