Iwo Jima Vets

Lake area plays host to reunion of proud combat heroes

by Jerry Hale

Until a few months ago, Bill Ondo of Huddleston hadn’t spoken to anyone about his horrifying experiences during the 1945 assault on the Pacific island of Iwo Jima.

“For 61 years, nobody seemed interested,” he said. “Besides, people who weren’t there could never understand. They’d think I was making it up.”

Ondo had even kept his family in the dark. “My daughter was 15 before she knew I had lost my left eye,” he said. 

Like other Iwo Jima veterans, Ondo feared talking about the landing and the weeks of bloody fighting that followed might seem boastful. “Plus, there was always the ‘survivor guilt’ thing.” Tragically, 6,824 valiant Marines were killed during the 30 days of fighting on Iwo Jima where troops were tasked with establishing a safe-haven airstrip for bombers that were unable to limp back to their departure bases.

But over the past year, Bill and five other area Iwo Jima veterans have gathered every few weeks at the Westlake Dairy Queen to share their wartime memories. Besides Ondo, the group includes Warren Tuck of Huddleston; John Fowler of Moneta; Jahue Mundy of Vinton; James “Swanson” Rigney of Penhook; and Wes Dixon of Roanoke. All six experienced the horror of the beach landing at Iwo Jima — strangers at the time but forever united by the Marine “Semper Fi”(Always Faithful) spirit they share. Don Temple, a Park Place resident who met Warren Tuck at Radford Baptist Church, facilitated the nostalgic reunion of these WWII veterans.

“I joined the Marines in 1950 precisely because of guys like Warren. They were my heroes,” Temple recalled. When he subsequently encountered Rigney at Carilion Roanoke Memorial Hospital, he invited him and Warren to for a breakfast chat. Serendipitously, Temple later spotted John Fowler wearing a Marine cap at the Westlake CVS. Someone else from church met Jahue Mundy at a showing of ‘Flags of Our Fathers’ and alerted Temple. And a neighbor’s friend had served at Iwo as a Navy corpsman attached to a Marine platoon. That added Wes Dixon to the group.

“Marines had the highest regard for Navy corpsmen because they risked their lives to save so many injured,” Temple explained.

Don Temple’s patriotic match-making was more recently inspired by a visit to Russia where he saw veterans being “truly honored.” He emphasized his point with a favorite quotation: “Poor, indeed, is the country that has no heroes; poorer still is the country that has them and forgets them.”  

With arrangements made by Dick Beatty, another of Temple’s neighbors, the Iwo Jima veterans recently enjoyed a VIP tour of the new Marine Corps Museum in Quantico. Dick and his wife Susan are intensely proud of their career Marine son Scott, who has served overseas tours in both the African Horn and Felujia, Iraq. Currently posted to the Naval Post Graduate School in Monterey, Calif., Capt. Beatty’s Marine experience has shown the family how deeply the “Semper Fi” spirit permeates Marines.

Dick also observed that spirit at work as he escorted the vets during their visit to the museum — a destination of great importance to them.

“A young Marine captain was also there with his troop — part of the mental preparation for an approaching deployment,” Beatty said. “They were absolutely thrilled to meet these Iwo Jima veterans, men who survived the battle generally regarded as the defining moment for the Marine Corps.”

As a result of their museum visit, the “SML DQ Veterans Group” has come to the attention of the Marines. Bob Taglianetti, an Oral Historian with the Marine Corps University’s History Division – who met SML’s Iwo Jima veterans as they toured the museum – recently traveled to the Beatty’s SML home to record their stories.

In one-on-one interviews, Taglianetti heard Wes Dixon tell of getting wounded at sundown on landing day (Feb. 19, 1945), being ferried to the hospital ship a mile off shore, and returning six days later – after the famous hilltop flag raising — to help tend wounded from the ongoing fight for the airfield.

He listened intently to John Fowler, who proudly wore a 1952-issue dress uniform that still fits his trim frame. Besides his Master Gunnery Sgt. stripes (the highest Marine NCO rank), the uniform displayed several Distinguished Marksmanship medals that testify to Fowler’s place among the Corps’ most proficient pistol and rifle marksmen.

The Marine historian also heard Jahue Mundy describe his remarkable survival of four beach landings: Iwo Jima, Guam, Okinawa and Peleliu. He recorded Medical Corpsman Wes Dixon’s tale of scurrying from one fallen Marine to the next, surviving the shelling only because duty took him where shells had already landed. He heard Warren Tuck describe watching the first crippled B29 land while a skirmish with a holdout Japanese patrol was still underway.

Their stories, finally told after so many years of being bottled up, were all different. But each reflected the same sense of patriotism and the proud Marine tradition of “Semper Fi.” And each veteran offered high praise and respect for the dedicated men and women who today are carrying on the proud tradition of military service to their country.

Breakfast with the President

Another recent visit — this time to the White House – held extra special for Swanson Rigney who, as a member of the platoon that raised the American Flag on Iwo Jima, was invited to breakfast with President George W. Bush and First Lady Laura Bush. Tears well in Rigney’s eyes as he reflects on the honor of being thanked for his service by the current Commander in Chief – and being saluted by the Marine Corps Commandant. On a side note, President Bush personally intervened to help Rigney begin receiving disability benefits he had previously been denied.