American Patriot

by Robert Coram

  As sometimes happens with children who are not happy with their lives, Bud found a better world between the covers of a book. Subsequently, he began checking books out of the city library. The limit was two volumes, but Bud went through books so fast and returned them so promptly that the librarian — as is the way of good librarians everywhere — increased his limit to four. During the summer he read from seven to nine books each week, many of them while lying on the roof of his house in the shade of an oak tree.

  Ed, for all his rigidity in other matters, was lenient in the extreme about Bud’s reading, probably because he thought reading would help Bud graduate from high school. A high school diploma was considered as far as a Riverside boy could go. College was not even a dream. Again and again Ed used his most emphatic tone to tell Bud, “You will be a high school graduate.”

  Bud read with the undisciplined enthusiasm of a boy who has discovered a secret. He quickly burned through books in the children’s section, books about Daniel Boone, and books by Nathaniel Hawthorne and James Fenimore Cooper, and moved on to books about Nathan Hale and Thomas Paine and Daniel Webster and Thomas Jefferson. His boyhood hero became Charles Lindbergh. Bud considered Lindbergh almost a local; after all, he flew out of St. Louis, which was not that far away. Bud bought a leather pilot helmet and goggles and daydreamed of duplicating Lindbergh’s exploits, of mounting up with wings as eagles. But of course it was only daydreaming. Boys from Riverside did not become officers and pilots; they became enlisted men and infantry soldiers.

  BY the time Bud was ten, he had several friends with whom he would remain close all his life.

  The one thing they had in common was that they were afraid of Ed. Sometimes when they knocked on Bud’s front door, Ed appeared with his angry scowl. The boys were already backing away when Ed announced, “He’s not coming out.” There was no rhyme or reason as to why Ed sometimes kept Bud at home.

  Bud inspired a fierce loyalty among his childhood companions. One of Bud’s friends was Paul Jackson, a Serb (the family name was Jaksik until it was changed to Jackson) whose parents spoke heavily accented English. When Jackson was in his late seventies, battling cancer and a host of other illnesses, he met a person inquiring about Bud and said, “I’ll fight any man who says anything bad about Bud Day.” He meant it.

  And there was Frank Work, a tough kid from a big family, all of whom lived in a tiny apartment for which the rent was $5 per month. Even in Riverside some people looked down on Frankie Work. But not Bud. “He treated me with dignity and respect,” Work recalled, and it was clear from his tone that few other people had. Work often was in trouble with the cops and was widely known for his fighting abilities, and from an early age he made it his mission in life to protect Bud. Once, when he was tossed out of his own home, he came to Bud’s house and slept with Bud. Work remembers that Bud’s bed “was hard as burled oak,” and he still wonders how his friend slept on it night after night.

  Another buddy was Dick Skavhdahl, whose older brother, “Skinks,” was an enlisted Marine — one of the old-timers known as China Marines — who sometimes wore his dress blues when he came home. He was a bigger-than-life figure, a recruiting-poster kind of military man who, in a few years, was to have an enormous influence on the boys of Riverside.

  And finally there was Jim Brodie. Brodie’s father, John, was a lawyer with considerable political influence. In a few years he would have a significant impact on Bud’s life.

  The boys spent much of their time in the Loess Hills, “running the hills,” they called it, and shouting, “Radook,” a nonsense word that became their rallying call. An old buffalo wallow was up in the hills, as were several Indian burial grounds where Bud and his friends found arrowheads and partial skeletons. In the summers they swam nude in “Greenie Pond” or they swam the Sioux River to steal watermelons on the South Dakota side. During the winter they rode sleds down Catholic Hill (which they called “Cat-licker Hill”), and when the Big Sioux froze, Bud and his friends played ice hockey using a tin can as a puck and willow limbs as hockey sticks. In the spring, when the ice broke up, it was a big deal among the boys to see which one first dove in.

  There were two illegal whiskey stills in Riverside. Bud and Frankie found them and studied their construction.

  Bud turned eleven in 1936. Even today, people in Sioux City who are of a certain age shake their heads when they remember 1936, a brutal year that included one of the coldest winters and hottest summers in history. That summer the temperature was around 100 degrees for weeks, so hot that many people in Riverside slept on the grass in local parks.

  That same year, Ed was hired by the Works Progress Administration (WPA) — one of President Roosevelt’s programs to get Americans relief during the Great Depression — to be a night custodian of equipment kept on the banks of the Floyd River as part of a flood-control project. Ed went to work every day at 5 p.m. and returned at about 8 a.m. He slept a few hours, then supervised Bud’s chores and puttered in his garden until it was time to return.

  By the time he was twelve, Bud not only was a caddy but had a job at the Lakeshore Inn on McCook Lake. The Lakeshore Inn was a place where the food was cheap and the booze was bad — a dimly lit place where older men brought younger girls. Bud cleaned the floor of vomit when he arrived and then cooked ribs for the dinner crowd. He spent what little extra money he had on Bing Bars, a candy bar made by the local Palmer Candy Company. With their cherry-cream center and a chocolaty-peanut coating, Bing Bars would be a lifelong passion for Bud Day.

  WHEN the time came, Bud attended Central High School, a monstrous building made of Sioux Falls granite that everyone referred to as the “castle on the hill.” There he made Bs and Cs. He used study periods at school to do all his homework and never once took a book home. He played hooky often and used those absences to walk up to the north side of town and admire the two-story brick homes of wealthy people. He marveled at the cars in the driveways and vowed that one day he too would live in a large house, preferably a two-story brick house, and that he would drive what then was the ultimate sign of success — a Cadillac.

  Bud was in numerous fights at school, not because he picked them — he was too small to pick fights (about five feet tall and a hundred pounds) — but because he was from Riverside and everyone picked on River Rats. Though frequently beaten up, Bud also held his own many times. In fact, he became known as something of a scrapper who never backed down, no matter the size of his challenger. He did not tell his father about the fights; to go home and whine that a big kid had picked on him was unthinkable. He knew what Ed would say: Take care of yourself. Pick up a stick and do whatever it takes, but don’t let anybody run over you.

  When Bud was fifteen, someone, he doesn’t remember who, gave him a dog — an Irish water spaniel. Bud named it “Curly” and set about teaching him to hunt. In so doing, he found he was a gifted dog trainer. Before long the eighty-pound chocolate-colored spaniel had a reputation throughout Siouxland. Bud and Curly spent countless hours roaming the sloughs near the Missouri.

  By the time he was sixteen, Bud had still another job delivering the Sunday Des Moines Register. Through this job he met Sonwald Sorensen. The Sorensen family was immensely proud of its Norwegian heritage; at home they spoke only Norwegian.

  Bud often took Curly with him when he met Duffy and Stanley Sorensen and played basketball in the Sorensens’ driveway. A nearby streetlight enabled the boys to play well into the evening. Duffy had a younger sister, Doris, who, when the boys got hot and sweaty, brought them water. Bud, focused on his friends, the game, and his dog, did not know she existed.

  In high school, Bud dated a cheerleader for a while and flirted with a few other girls before meeting — and finally noticing — Doris again. She was twelve but appeared to be years older. They encountered each other at the empty lot on Riverside Boulevard that, during October, was flooded by the fire department. The “skating pond” remained frozen all winter. Bud wanted to skate with Doris, but ic
e-skating meant holding hands, and she did not want her parents to drive by and see her holding hands with a boy. So the two skated independently, smiling at each other.

  Bud, sixteen at the time, thought Doris was his age, maybe a year younger, a mistake easy to make. She worked part-time for her father, ordering paint and lumber and paying bills and answering the phone — chores usually reserved for an older person. In addition, pictures of her taken during that time show she had the physical attributes not only of an older girl but of a much-blessed older girl.

  ON Sunday, December 7, 1941, the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. The next day as Bud rode the streetcar to school, passing the post office at the corner of Pearl and 6th Street, he stared at the double line of young men stretching around the block and halfway around in a second loop. These were young men from age eighteen up to their early thirties. They were locals who had taken the streetcar down to the post office to enlist in the military. It was a cold December in Sioux City, but few of the men wore coats. They were too poor.

  Bud kept his eyes on the men until the streetcar rounded a corner. Something about the long line resonated with him. Although he was too young to articulate his feelings, he sensed the young men were standing on the street for two reasons: America had been dealt a serious blow and needed soldiers for the long war that was ahead. The young men of Siouxland were simply answering the call. But another reason, the unspoken reason, was that the military was a jobs program. The Depression still lay heavily on America. Boys graduating from high school knew they faced the same bleak future that thousands of men in their middle and late twenties were facing. The military would teach them a trade. They could serve their country, do their bit for America, then come home and get on with their lives.

  That afternoon after school Bud walked downtown and saw that the line around the post office was longer than it had been that morning.

  Bud wanted to be part of it. But he was only sixteen and it was not yet his time.

  IN the months after Pearl Harbor, the war did not go well for America. The Japanese controlled almost half the Pacific, and the Germans were defeating the British in North Africa. A glimmer of good news came in April 1942, when the Doolittle Raiders bombed Japan. In August, the U.S. Marines landed on Guadalcanal and took horrendous casualties. Felt all across America was a desperate urgency for a battlefield victory. Young men volunteered to do their part.

  Abroad and at home, America was still struggling. Twenty-eight percent of the population had no income. Tenants could not pay rent. Cities could not provide services. People could not cover their mortgages and were forced out of their homes. One-fourth of America’s schoolchildren were malnourished, and no place in America suffered more than the Midwest.

  In the summer of 1942, Bud hitchhiked to Chicago to spend the summer with a half brother. He says he left home because he “grew tired of the old man’s constant griping and carping.” He says too, “There was some pushing and shoving,” and that he wrestled his old man to the floor and pinned him. He denies that it was a real fight. Whatever it was, it led to his first venture away from Sioux City. He worked in a Chicago bowling alley all summer and then hitchhiked home for his final year of high school.

  That fall he won a golf tournament with other caddies at the country club, shooting a 75. Life went on.

  SONWALD Sorensen became successful enough to leave Riverside and move into Sioux City. But on Fridays the family came back to Riverside so Mrs. Sorensen could have her hair done. On one of these trips, Doris ran into Bud again, this time at the ice-cream parlor. They shared a chocolate malt and caught up. She was now thirteen and Bud was a senior in high school. He walked her home, and Doris thought he was the most polite boy she had ever met. She went inside to tell her parents she was outside talking to a friend. She and Bud then stood in the bitter cold of an Iowa winter and talked more than an hour, oblivious of the cold. Bud said he wanted to meet her again next week at the skating rink. She agreed and he leaned over and kissed her good night.

  That kiss was the beginning of one of the great love stories of our time — a love story in which, years later, during a time of great adversity, both Bud and Doris manifested the finest qualities of the Midwest and of America for all the world to see. Thus, their stories, like their lives, cannot be separated. From that moment there was never really anyone else for either of them.

  IN the fall of 1942 came an announcement that eighteen-year-olds would be drafted in January. Bud thought that meant he would be drafted when he turned eighteen, and the idea of being drafted was anathema. When your country was in trouble, you voluntarily came to her aid. It was that simple.

  One day he heard Dick Skavhdahl say, “I’m joining the Marines next week,” and without thinking he said, “Me too.”

  When Bud told his parents he was dropping out of school to join the Marines, Ed exploded. “You haven’t graduated from high school,” he pleaded. “You get your diploma in a few weeks. Wait that long.”

  “I’m joining up,” Bud said.

  “You are disobeying me,” his father said.

  This is the painful moment when the boy becomes a man, when the father must step aside or be pushed aside.

  Because he was underage, Bud had to have his parents’ permission to join the Marines. Even though Ed did not want Bud to drop out of school, the men of Siouxland did not stand in the way of sons who wanted to fight for their country. Reluctantly, he signed the waiver.

  About the time Bud announced he was joining the Marines, Curly disappeared. Bud assumed someone had stolen the spaniel because of its reputation. But he was too wrapped up in details about joining the Marines to search for Curly. All things had to be put on hold while he readied himself for war.

  Bud was five foot two — not exactly what the Marine Corps had in mind when they went looking for a few good men — and weighed 114 pounds. For several days he stuffed himself with bananas, but when he walked into the post office, the Marine Corps recruiter took one look at him, gave him a dime, and sent him across the street to buy more. Bud returned with his stomach protruding. Yet when he climbed atop the scales, he topped out at 116 pounds. The minimum weight for a man joining the Marine Corps was 120 pounds. Nevertheless, the Marines granted him a waiver.

  Ironies abound here. The man who, more than three decades later, would become America’s most highly decorated military man had to have two waivers to begin his military career: a waiver from his parents because of his age and a waiver from the Marine Corps because of his size.

  Bud was sworn into the Marine Corps on December 10, a day that, for the rest of his life, would remain special.

  The day he left Sioux City to begin his training, Bud and his mother rode the streetcar down to the train station. (Ed was still angry that his only son was a high school dropout, so he stayed home.) At the station, Bud kissed his mother good-bye and walked toward the train. He looked over his shoulder to see his mother leaning against the tan brick wall, and as mothers always do when their sons go away to war, she was weeping.

  What is going on with this woman? Bud thought. This is not a thing to be crying about.

  And with that, the teenage River Rat boarded the train and headed off to become a Marine.

  2

  War and Peace

  BUD Day rode the train across Iowa to Des Moines, the collection point for recruits from Iowa, Illinois, and Missouri. After a physical examination, he boarded a troop train bound for California.

  Today troops travel by air, but in 1942 trains were America’s primary mode of mass transportation, and troop trains funneling recruits to training bases on the East and West Coasts were a common sight across Middle America.

  Pulling out of Des Moines, the slow-moving train dropped down through the corner of Nebraska and across Kansas and Oklahoma and trudged through the deserts of New Mexico and Arizona and then into California. Most of the young men aboard had never been away from home, and many were riding a train for the first time.

 
Through the carriage windows, the boys saw, some for the last time, the country they were about to defend. Bud Day was agog. New Mexico was barren and dusty, not at all like the green prairies of Siouxland, and the heat was stifling. When they opened the windows for fresh air, the young men often were covered with soot and stung by cinders. A dining car was available, but few aboard had the money to buy meals.

  Bud was excited the entire trip. Except for last summer’s visit to Chicago, he had never been out of Sioux City. Now he was crossing the America he had read so much about, and he spent hours staring out the window. His companions were all as young and green as he. They were homesick for much of the trip.

  After three days, they arrived in San Diego amid the organized chaos of the Marine Corps Recruit Depot, the MCRD.

  To understand the mood and atmosphere of the Marines at the time, a bit of background is necessary. When Pearl Harbor was bombed, the Marine Corps consisted of about 54,000 officers and men. A year later, when Bud Day joined the Corps, that number had risen to about 142,500. By the end of the war, the number would reach 475,604. Almost 87,000 of those Marines would be wounded or killed, most of them in the bloody island-hopping campaigns of the Pacific.

  Marine recruits, as was the case with recruits in other branches of the military, did not sign up for a two- or three-year hitch; they signed up until the end of the war plus six months or “for the duration.” The recruits found nothing unusual in this. America was in desperate trouble against fearful odds, and winning this thing might take a while.

  Training Marine recruits was an around-the-clock, seven-day-a-week business done at two bases. Recruits from the eastern half of America went to Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island on the coast of South Carolina. Recruits from the western half of America went to Marine Corps Recruit Depot San Diego. Parris Island, or PI, was the older of the two and had the reputation of being far tougher. Marines who went through Parris Island looked down their noses at their West Coast counterparts, whom they called “Hollywood Marines.”