Flags of Our Fathers

by James Bradley

  It had been a jolt for Goldie when Franklin had gone off to Dayton, farther away from Hilltop than she had ever traveled. When she learned that the man in her life was off to the Marines, all she could do was hope for the best and pray to her Lord.

  Now eighteen-year-old Franklin, who had smiled his way throughout his difficult boyhood, was off to another world. He spoke of his “duty as a man,” but his friend J. B. Shannon remembers that Franklin was “just a big country boy, unafraid of anything.”

  Franklin was a “good ol’ boy” off to fight in the “good war.” What could possibly go wrong?

  Harlon Block: Rio Grande Valley, Texas

  Harlon Block is the figure with his back turned to the world. He’s there struggling with the base of the pole, his face invisible. He was the Seventh-Day Adventist who had been taught “Thou Shalt Not Kill,” who was out in the Pacific doing his duty. For almost two years the country didn’t know it was Harlon in the photo. But his mother, Belle, knew. Belle, who had begged him not to go to war. She knew. He had rejected her pleadings not to fight, but as he experienced the killing in the Pacific her teachings came back to him.

  But by that time it was too late. He was committed.

  He was from a place they call simply “the Valley.” It’s the Rio Grande Valley at the bottom of Texas, the far eastern end. Harlon Block was born on a farm there, outside of McAllen, down near the knife-blade tip of Texas where the Rio Grande empties into the Gulf of Mexico.

  It’s hot in the Valley, but not the dry heat of much of Texas. It’s hot and humid there, semitropical, with palm trees growing.

  The farm had been something of a compromise between his parents, Ed Block and the former Ada Belle Brantley. Especially for Belle. Ed and Belle had been married in San Antonio in 1917. Ed promptly went off to fight in France in World War I. Just as promptly, he was laid low with both the measles and the mumps. Recuperating in England, he was tapped as an ambulance driver, and spent the rest of his service days ferrying hideously wounded men from the docks to the hospitals in London.

  While he was away at war Belle lived frugally and saved the money he sent her. She took courses and became a practical nurse. When Ed returned, Belle spent another portion of the money on tuition for a business course for him. Belle liked the city and saw herself as the wife of a successful businessman there.

  Ed passed the course and gave city life a try. He sold real estate and was moderately successful. But Ed dreamed of farming, his first love. One day he saw a get-rich flyer touting the Rio Grande Valley. Thanks to the technology of irrigation, a land boom was about to detonate there: Citrus orchards and cotton fields would overtake the sagebrush. Ed bought forty acres sight unseen and tore off his necktie once and for all. Belle was disappointed; she had no desire to work on a farm. But Ed was enthusiastic and painted a picture of a ground-floor opportunity. He was a practical man and made a down-to-earth case for a new life, living off the land. Belle was a young woman with strong convictions of her own, but she was also idealistic, a bit of a dreamer, and she was swayed by her forceful husband. She overcame her doubts and agreed to go along. It would be the first of many compromises for Belle.

  The Valley is a seventy-mile stretch of land carved by the Rio Grande River between Mission, Texas, in the west and Brownsville, Texas, in the east. A separate part of Texas with its own weather system, its own way of life.

  A drive along two-lane Route 83 in the 1930’s of Harlon’s youth would reveal a flat, lush land dominated by small farms, large cultivated fields, and the occasional town of 1,000 to 2,000 people. Where the land was not tilled, mesquite and palm trees held sway.

  There was no industry in the Valley; everyone was involved in agriculture, working the soil. What was growing depended upon the seasons, of which there were two: summer and winter.

  It was mostly summer in the Valley, from March to October. The hot and humid weather came from the southeast, borne on winds from the Gulf of Mexico. Cotton was king during the Valley’s summer, a crop that flourished despite the lack of rain. Fathers and sons would pick cotton by hand on days that regularly saw temperatures of over one hundred degrees with ninety percent humidity.

  From Thanksgiving to March, the “northers” brought cooler weather. Temperatures would fall and the humidity would ease. The people of the Valley called this season “winter” and complained of the “cold” if the temperature dipped below fifty degrees.

  Citrus and “row vegetables” were planted and then harvested. In the winter the Valley was a grand garden of grapefruit, navel oranges, lemons, limes, carrots, beets, broccoli, and cabbage.

  Ranching and oil were small contributors to the Valley’s economy, unlike the rest of Texas. There were no wide-open grazing spaces; cattle were raised on feedlots. Some oil was found in the western part of the Valley, but the gushers were far away.

  The small Valley farmers were hardly affected by the Depression. The country had an appetite for all they could produce, and the numerous harvests meant work for all.

  On the other side of the Rio Grande is Mexico, and the Mexican influence was evident throughout the Valley. Spanish-style white stucco buildings with red tile roofs were part of the landscape. Tacos, tamales, and enchiladas were eaten alongside hamburgers and hot dogs. Twenty percent of the population was Mexican; they lived together in their Catholic enclaves and mixed easily with the majority Protestant Anglos.

  Everyday social life revolved around farm, school, and church. Annual celebrations at the county fairgrounds were for displaying prize beets or carrots or pigs. Floats with agricultural themes would follow the high-school band as it marched down the paved main streets. The “Style Show” consisted of ladies modeling fashions made from local produce—carrot and beet “diamonds” shimmering against an eggplant-skin-and-date-palm dress. One lucky girl would have her life transformed as she proudly accepted the title “Citrus Queen.”

  The Valley was a small part of Texas with small farms and small towns. A youngster’s grade-school class would consist of eight students. A large high-school graduating class might number forty-five. It was a place where everyone knew their neighbors’ dogs.

  The Blocks struggled at first. The newly built farmhouse caught fire and burned to the ground. Ed had to take a job as a farm laborer and rent a small house while they got back on their feet. Belle had an idea to make some money. She suggested they buy a cow every two months with Ed’s earnings. Soon, the Blocks were in the dairy business.

  And soon they had a family. Ed Jr. arrived in 1920, followed by Maurine two years later, and Harlon in 1924. Later came three more boys: Larry, Corky, and Melford.

  As a middle child in a large family, with a brother four years older and a sister two years older, Harlon didn’t have to be a trailblazer. He could follow along in his older siblings’ footsteps.

  The chores started small and gradually for young Harlon. At first he would open the gates as his older brother, Ed Jr., brought the cows in to be milked. Then, as he grew, Harlon, his parents, his brother Ed Jr., and his sister, Maurine, milked fifteen cows apiece every morning starting at three A.M. Maurine would cool the raw, unpasteurized milk. She and Belle would wash the milk bottles and fill them. Then Ed Sr. would be off on his route selling his milk for five cents a quart. “That is how we survived the Depression,” was the way Maurine remembered it toward the end of the century.

  Harlon was a good helper. He always completed his chores without complaint. He took orders well, fit in as part of the family.

  Belle was determined to do right by her family, and she tried to be happy on the farm. But it was difficult for her. She missed the city, but loved her husband and children. So she made the best of it. Fine-featured and dark-haired, she was bred for the city. The Valley’s hot, damp climate had her red-eyed and runny-nosed from asthma and hay fever all the time, and the work at the milking stool hurt her back. Maurine recalled how her mother began to suffer bouts of depression: Toward evening she’d walk outside the
farmhouse, stare off into space for half an hour, have a conversation with herself, and then come back.

  Perhaps it was Belle’s longing for another life that made her open to the preachings of the Seventh-Day Adventist Church. Early in their move to the Valley, Belle became a fully accepting practitioner of the vivid Protestant strain that assumed a seven-day creation of the Earth, a Great Controversy between Jesus Christ and Satan, and a millennial return of Christ into history, at which moment the dead will awaken, evil will vanish, and time will end. Belle accepted, too, her denomination’s strictures against alcohol, narcotics, and unclean foods; against swearing and unchastity; and against violation of the Ten Commandments—including the Commandment that stipulated, “Thou Shalt Not Kill.”

  All Christians shared a belief in that Commandment, but the Seventh-Day Adventists took it to heart. Their founder, William Miller, had been an Army officer in the War of 1812, but the killing he witnessed caused him to become a skeptic. Adventist boys were taught they must never carry guns or knives because the Lord would offer them all the protection they needed. And Seventh-Day Adventists had a long record of refusing to fight in time of war. They never faltered in their support of their country, but they served in the medical corps as conscientious objectors.

  But being an Adventist didn’t just mean heeding prohibitions. It meant being an active force to help your fellowman. The Adventists were well represented in the healing and helping professions as nurses, doctors, and teachers.

  Belle was a nurse and put in long hours nursing terminal patients in their homes during their last days. She used her hard-earned money to pay the tuition of her children at the local Adventist school. Knowing her children were being brought up in the protective fold of her church, she felt her sacrifices were worth it.

  Ed converted too, donning a respectable suit for church services on the “Seventh Day,” Saturday. He followed his wife’s lead in the family’s religious life, as many men do. But Belle was the true literal believer who lived the word of her Bible. She was always ready to help, and others sensed it. A series of kids who needed a break came to stay with the Blocks over the years. Like young Herbert Savage, who was not welcome in his own home, they showed up at Belle’s door asking for room, board, and a new start in life. A local girl who had been raped walked four miles in the dark to seek out Belle’s loving help.

  Harlon was the child most influenced by Belle and her beliefs. He grew up feeling sure of what was right and wrong. He accepted that the Bible was the literal word of God; the Ten Commandments an absolute guide. Harlon was confident with this ordered view of the world. He was smart—he skipped second grade—and entered his teenage years a chesty, likable boy, somehow at the center of everything. And a free spirit. Often when his chores were finished he was off horse-racing bareback with his Mexican pal Ben Sepeda in McAllen. “Harlon rode a white horse, a solid white horse,” Ben remembers. “Harlon was daring and determined. We’d ride bareback over to my house. My mom would make us corn tortillas and jellied tomatoes. Harlon used to bring a jar along to take some jellied tomatoes back with him.”

  Harlon was sure of himself and his beliefs. He didn’t feel he had anything to prove. And Harlon couldn’t be cowed. His friend Russell Youngberg remembers the time that somebody vandalized a stepladder at the Seventh-Day Adventist school. Harlon and his buddy Russell were among the three suspects. The principal called them into his office and told them they couldn’t play on the playground until they’d fixed the stepladder. Russell Youngberg kept quiet, but Harlon spoke right up. He was terse and to the point: “We didn’t do it, and we won’t fix it, and you can’t make us, and it ain’t fair.”

  The straitlaced principal reddened, but held his tongue. And Harlon Block’s Seventh-Day Adventist education had approached the beginning of its end.

  In Harlon’s sophomore year the mysterious vandal struck again, writing obscenities on the wall of an outhouse next to the school. The principal launched his inevitable inquisition. When he got to Harlon, the boy nonchalantly allowed that he knew who’d done it, but he wasn’t going to tell. For this, the principal kicked him out of school.

  Harlon, and apparently the whole family, were ready for a change. They moved to the neighboring town of Weslaco, a flat, square speculator’s grid slapped down on the Valley floor. Its name was a crunching of its founding firm, the W. E. Stewart Land Company.

  At Belle’s insistence the other Block children continued at the Adventist school. But Harlon didn’t want to return. He felt he had absorbed all they had to teach him. More important, Harlon was athletically inclined and the Adventist school did not have a sports program. He wanted to make his mark in the sport that attracted the local crowds and created excitement in Weslaco, indeed, in all of Texas: football. Harlon wanted to be in on the action, part of a team.

  Belle didn’t like such talk. She felt Harlon should make an effort to get back into the Adventist school. And football! Well, football was a game of violence and the games were on Friday night, the beginning of the Sabbath, so football was out of the question.

  Belle presented her views forcefully to Harlon, who shrugged noncommittally like all teenage boys who are being told what to do. Belle appealed to Ed to discipline the boy, to focus him back on the church and get his mind off football. Ed, who thought Adventism was all well and good but didn’t take it as literally as Belle, didn’t see the harm in attending a public school. And he was excited by the idea of his son playing football.

  Belle was aghast. They argued, but Ed pointed out that they didn’t have to decide this right away: Because of the difference in the schools’ schedules, Harlon had a seven-month delay before he could enter Weslaco High School. So Ed bought some time and told Belle he’d talk with Harlon as they worked together hauling oil.

  A few years earlier, as the Depression deepened, milk prices had sagged. Oil had been discovered forty miles west of McAllen, and Ed had a money-making idea. He bought one, then two, finally four new oil trucks. The Rado refinery in McAllen gave anyone with a truck free gasoline if they’d haul the crude from the oil fields. It made for long, grueling days but Ed was a hard worker with a family to feed.

  As his sons matured, he got every one of them involved in hauling crude oil from the hill-country wells to the refinery in McAllen. So when Harlon had time on his hands and was old enough—before he was old enough, Belle thought—Ed enlisted him as one of his drivers. It was brutal work: long trips several times a week, even weekends.

  Harlon took the remainder of the school year off to haul oil with his father. Belle was alarmed, but Harlon relished the independence and the opportunity to do man’s work. He and his father shared the labor and grew close—“best friends,” as Ed would later say. Harlon was the perfect number-two man, ready to take over when the need arose.

  Ed loved nothing more than Harlon’s company, and he was torn when their months of working together drew to a close. But he couldn’t wait to cheer his most athletic son as he starred on the gridiron.

  Belle felt she was losing Harlon—he was the only Block child to leave the Adventist school—so she worked hard to involve him in the daylong Sunday socials—“convenings”—the church held. But Harlon was good-looking and gregarious and attracted the attention of the girls.

  Belle was troubled by what she saw as the waywardness of her son. And she was horrified when Harlon brought home a .22-caliber rifle. A gun in Belle’s home! Harlon’s friends all had guns to shoot rabbits in the fields, and Harlon wanted to have some fun. Belle came home one day to find Harlon innocently instructing his younger brothers in its use. Belle told Ed he must discipline Harlon, and Ed spoke to him, but his heart wasn’t in it. What was so wrong about a Texas boy having a little gun? Belle’s ideals were compromised a little more.

  And there were many times when Belle wasn’t told of Harlon’s hijinks. Harlon’s brother Mel remembers when Harlon and some friends, in an attempt to make their own liquor, mixed yeast and grapefruit juice
in mason jars and hid them behind a pillar in the barn. “For two weeks those jars were exploding,” Mel told me. “We found this concoction dripping all over the barn. Dad thought it was funny. Mom never found out.”

  Harlon’s developing brawn made him a natural for the Weslaco High football squad when he transferred there. He quickly became a star despite a certain naïveté regarding the game’s finer points. Leo Ryan recalled a practice early in Harlon’s first season when the two of them had drawn their equipment from the team manager and were ambling out to the hard-dirt field. Leo noticed that his friend was limping along on bowed legs. “Hey, big guy,” he said, “what’s the problem?”

  Harlon spoke right up: “My thaghs hurt.” He glanced down to a point below Leo’s waist. “I sure wish I had me some of those boards you have in your thaghs.”

  Leo had to think about that for several moments before he realized that Harlon was referring to the protective pads in Leo’s uniform pants.

  Harlon was tough; he could take it. In one game the archrival Donna High School players somehow learned of the painful boils covering Harlon’s back and shoulders. The Donna boys pounded on Harlon but he didn’t flinch. Harlon caught a breathtaking pass that scored the winning touchdown against Weslaco’s biggest rival.

  In fact, Harlon spearheaded Weslaco to an undefeated season. With him as punter, pass-catcher, and blocking back, the Panthers ground their way through every other team in the Valley with an offense as dry and drab as the red dirt under their cleats. They quick-kicked a lot out of the short punt formation, and as far as Leo Ryan could remember, they had only one running play. It was called “Harlon’s play,” which was strange in that it called for Harlon to block out for the fullback Glen Cleckler. But when the Panthers needed an artillery strike—a pass to gain some first-down yardage—Harlon’s big milk-hauling hands were usually wide open and ready for the ball.