Clearing the Fog of War

At 94, D-Day veteran is a survivor

Retired Army Master Sgt. Henry Willmann stood on the deck of his transport ship off the Normandy coast, a pair of binoculars in hand.

Raising them, he saw soldiers swimming the length of a football field from their landing craft, stumbling forward out of the beach and running for their lives.

“You had about 100 yards to go from the water up to the cliff,” he said, “and on this beach you could see these people get out of the water on the beach and start running to this cliff, and all the sudden they'd just slump down.”

Willmann made it onto the beach and soon had other chances to die after D-Day. Later, in Korea, he did it again, but when the Army began sending GIs in his unit to Vietnam, there was a decision to make.

On Sunday, family and friends gave a surprise birthday party for Willmann, who turns 95 next week. The lights were off as he entered a darkened party room, and when they snapped on a crowd of more than 35 relatives and friends cheered and applauded.

He surveyed the room, smiling.

“This is great,” he said. “I sure didn't expect this, I guarantee you.”

The tale of how he made it to Grady's Bar-B-Q on Bandera Road in sound mind and body starts after graduating from Fredericksburg High School in 1935. He quit after a few weeks into his first job as a gas jockey because an Army recruiter had a good pitch: Work for Uncle Sam and you'll make 25 cents more an hour, and we'll also pay the rent.

Read more: http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/military/article/Hey-sergeant-Surprise-3799822.php#ixzz249J2pEbh

 

The 'perfect soldier'

Retired Maj. Clarence Sprouse was a soldier who never worried about dying and never got hurt, even in hand-to-hand combat.

As one war blurred into three, the legend grew. Gen. William DuPuy, a highly decorated veteran who played a key role in restructuring the post-Vietnam Army, called him the “perfect soldier.”

“He told me I was the bravest guy that he's ever seen and, really, I wasn't,” said Sprouse, who received a battlefield commission from DuPuy while serving as the 1st Infantry Division's command sergeant major in Vietnam. “I was just as scared as everybody else. I didn't show it at all, but I didn't hesitate.”

A paratrooper who was the first soldier in the 11th Airborne Division to make 100 static line jumps and held more than 80 decorations when retiring here in 1968, Sprouse received two Silver Stars, five Bronze Stars for valor, 18 Air Medals for assault landings and three Combat Infantry Badges.

He's still fit at 86, and his memories of war in the Pacific, Korea and Vietnam are as clear as if they happened yesterday. His voice is that of a soldier given to using colorful language that includes politically incorrect references to old enemies.

Read more: http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/military/article/The-perfect-soldier-2518105.php#ixzz1ykdi4OUJ