Bob Whelan – World War II Vet, Storyteller and Friend
I can still see him staring at me from across the conference table with that mischievous glint in his glacial blue eyes and conniving grin on his face. It’s hard to believe he is gone, but his words echo in my mind.
Though our narrative styles differed — he much more philosophical – nevertheless, I always listened to him share the glimpses of his life and the wisdom that comes from many lessons learned along the way.
He grew up in Buffalo, N.Y. during the Depression. Life for most Americans back then was a constant struggle to put bread on the table, and maybe that’s were Bob became a bit of a scrapper. When the war came, he answered the call, enlisting in the Army. He served as an infantryman in the 59th Armored Infantry Battalion of the 13th Armored Division.
Through Bob, we learned of the last bitter fighting of the war in Europe as Allied forces enveloped Wehrmacht units in the Ruhr valley, an operation referred to as the “Ruhr Pocket.” The year was 1945. Casualties were heavy and life was a bit grim with death beckoning at every street corner, abandoned building, and home. Despite those dark days of fighting and dying, Bob spoke with great compassion, never uttering a bitter word of what he endured. He often recalled life’s lighter moments with officers saying one thing and noncommissioned officers doing another or facing disciplinary action for missing a curfew. In all of his stories, I heard that recurring thread of a deep regard for all of humanity. His war narratives are priceless to me now.
And, he made me wonder whether life has moments of serendipity. Bob once recounted the time he and a friend were leaving his church on one wintery Sunday morning and saw a woman slip on a patch of ice. Ever the man of action, Bob dashed over to help her back up. They talked for a bit and Bob asked her where she was from. When she told him of a small town in the Ruhr valley, Bob knew it immediately. His battalion fought and secured that town. The woman was only five years old at the time. Bob made a new friend that day.
Bob had a comment for everything and sometimes I had to think for a moment about his words before realizing his point. In everything, he advocated unity over discord, prejudice, and ignorance. He took the time to listen deeply to the other writers in the group and always had an uplifting word to say to them. His friendship was infectious.
I admired Bob for his candidness of thought, his courage to speak up and be heard, and his beguiling smile before moving on to the next story. I realize now that is what I need to do in my own life…say something that makes people stop and process what you just said, wait a moment, and then smile.
Tim Hansen
09 November 2020
*****
Remembering the Marines killed in the Beirut Bombing –
23 October 1983
ROCHESTER, New York – As the sun broke through clouds on a crisp October morning, a small group of veterans, family members and friends gathered at the Riverside Cemetery to honor two Marines killed in the bombing of their barracks in Beirut, Lebanon 37 years ago. The blast killed a total of 241 service members from the Marines, Navy and Army.
Former Marine Michael Zawacki coordinated the ceremony since his annual trip to a Marine base in North Carolina was canceled due to Covid travel restrictions. Nevertheless, Zawacki, a survivor of the Beirut bombing, garnered the support of the Marine Corps Coordinating Council of Greater Rochester to orchestrate the event in Rochester.
Three Marines from Rochester died that day in Beirut: Lance Cpl. John McCall, 20, Pfc. Craig Stockton, 19, and Staff Sgt. Alexander Ortega, 25. McCall and Stockton are buried side-by-side in the veteran section of the cemetery. Ortega is buried in Pennsylvania.
Wearing an olive drab baseball cap, a matching olive drab t-shirt, and worn jeans, Zawacki stood among the gravestones and led the ceremony. McCall’s mother and Stockton’s uncle stood behind him and behind them stood a row of flag bearers from the Patriot Guard Riders.
In front of Zawacki, stood a small wooden cross, crowned with a Vietnam era combat helmet between McCall’s and Stockton’s headstones.
On battlefields, Marines traditionally honor their fallen by placing the helmet atop an M-16 rifle with the muzzle pointing downward and its bayonet lodged into the ground between a pair of combat boots.
“I think of October 23d everyday,” Zawacki said. “I could be driving past McCall Road in Greece; it could be 6:22 a.m. on the clock – the time a Hezbollah-backed bomb truck drove into the Marine Barracks in Beirut. All of these different triggers bring me right back.”
Zawacki worked and slept in the communications tent, located about 200 feet from the barracks. His memory of the blast is as vivid in his mind as on the day it happened.
A yellow Mercedes flatbed truck, loaded with 18,000 pounds of gasoline-saturated explosives, plowed through three Marine guard posts and a barbed-wire fence and into the lobby of the barracks. The explosive force leveled the entire building. According to the FBI, it was “the largest conventional blast” on record.
Zawacki described the horrific aftermath of surviving Marines desperately digging through the debris to rescue fellow Marines. He paused and then embraced Stockton’s uncle and McCall’s mother.
Next, the Rev. Gary Sauer, the chaplain for the Marine Corps Coordinating Council of Greater Rochester, walked over to Zawacki and offered a closing prayer for McCall and Stockton and all the American servicemen killed that day with the intention that their sacrifice will never be forgotten.
A rifle squad then took action, firing a 21-gun salute and members of a local VFW post and a Marine staff sergeant in dress blues lowered the flag to half-mast.
After the ceremony, television news reporters jockeyed into position to get a few soundbites from Zawacki, McCall’s mother and Stockton’s uncle. The crowd disbanded and within minutes, the veteran section of the Riverside Cemetery fell silent.
Tim Hansen
23 October 2020
*****
Remembering Our Friend Kurt
I came to know Kurt through the monthly writing workshops of our Rochester Veterans’ Writing Group. His stories and anecdotes of his time in the Army during World War II held me spellbound because he captured the rawness of life and the tremendous humanity displayed during war. His words were true and resonated with me.
Kurt became a regular within our writing group and always came with a portfolio of papers, pad and pen. He enjoyed the company of the other members and his words lifted the spirits of everyone at the table. And, he would write, listen to the writings of others and then read from his own work. As he read, I could picture myself marching along with him and his buddies in Italy along Highway 65 to Bologna. Through his eyes I saw the beauty of alpine meadows in the Appenines suddenly rocked by the bombarding shells of German artillery. His stories always drew additional questions because there was so much historical context that went along with his stories. In one sense, Kurt for me was a walking multivolume history of the American Army campaign in Italy.
Kurt was always faithful to our literary celebrations of Veterans Day we held in the second floor theater of Writers & Books. He and Judy always added a charm and elegance to our celebrations. And, of course, Kurt came ready to perform and share with us from one of his many Army narratives.
In fact my wife Eran and I still recall the one year he read to us his account of fishing without fishing poles on a beautiful mountain lake in Italy and using a couple of sticks of dynamite and det cord to hasten the process of a good catch. Listening to Kurt describe his self-made IED, tossing it into the lake, and then watching the giant white plume of water and the boat lifting out of the lake was something like a modern day Huck Finn if Mark Twain had lived long enough to write about the war. His audacity in the face of uncertainty, originality, and the need for a break from the tedium of the front makes this tale a classic which we will cherish and remember forever.
Kurt shared many instances of the lighter side of Army life during the war and from them we came to appreciate his joie de vie: of betting $4,000 of winnings from poker matches and losing it all to waking up in a haystack and being found by his buddies after they thought he had gone missing in action from a firefight the previous day to the intense drinking bouts in Rome.
I also used to like watching Kurt sketch in the margins of his work while others read from their works. It wasn’t until much later that I discovered Kurt the artist was well regarded not only in Rochester but around the world. He never said a word about his art until one day when one of our writers mentioned that she bought a print with his name on it. I have come to appreciate his art and particularly his caricatures of birds. I see something of ourselves in them that makes me smile and enjoy what I am seeing.
One day while visiting Kurt at his home, he gave me a copy of his memoirs of World War II. I was humbled and honored to receive it and it is a book that I keep within reach on my shelf. It is a tremendous condensation of love, war, death and rebirth as seen through the eyes of an 18-year-old kid who through it all becomes a man. Kurt captures the gamut of human emotion from depression to intense happiness as his unit progresses from outside of Anzio northward to the Dolomite Mountains as par to the offensive campaign in May 1944. His narrative is made more searing as a first-generation German American and his thoughts of being executed on the spot if captured. His story is daunting yet there is perseverance in the end.
I must also note that one of Kurt’s stories is in the Rochester Verterans’ Writing Group’s first anthology of memoir writing: United in Service. United in Sacrifice. His trip across the Atlantic on a Liberty ship is essential reading to understanding what servicemen endured just to get to the battle fronts of World War II.
I consider myself privileged and blessed to know such a talented and generous man as Kurt. His Bronze Star for Valor for his actions during combat in Italy, his talent as an artist and teacher, his love of life have touched all in the Rochester Veterans Writing Group very deeply and in ways we are yet to realize.
Tim Hansen, 13 June 2020
*****
Mike, you left way too soon!
I remember the morning I first met Mike. He was sitting at the table of the conference room on the first floor of Writers & Books. He spoke with a soft Texan accent and said that he had moved with his wife and daughter to be closer to his wife’s family. I think he had a big heart and was very sensitive to others.
Mike quickly became a regular and loved the chatter before we started writing.
He had worked as a NASA engineer in his daytime job and the characters of his stories often reflected his penchant for analysis and a common sense approach to solving life’s problems.
Mike loved to write in excruciating detail and then read back to us what he wrote. One year at our annual Veterans Day celebration, he read from his selected works for at least ten minutes. Some of the members sighed and thought he would never end, but, I didn’t mind. He was having fun and deserved his time on the stage.
He loved to talk about his time as an enlisted soldier. He was a driver and drove everything from jeeps to two-and-a-half-ton trucks. He wrote of his tour in Pleiku during the Vietnam War at the end of the 60s. I don’t think the war haunted him, but he thought about it a lot.
Mike loved miniature dioramas and spent hours setting them up. He often shared photos of his latest projects to us before we started our workshops.
He was also into genealogy and I think he knew by heart all the names of his ancestors for the past three generations. He worked diligently and never let anything go unchecked.
Mike was a quiet man, and as always, silent waters run deep. I always wanted to know what part of the space program he worked on and what a Texan thought of living in Rochester, New York.
Mike’s passing was hard news to take for me. My siblings and I had just buried my dad and the mourning had not quite worn off. Mike had become a good friend to all of us in the writing group.
All of us will miss him.
TJH, February 2019
*****
Rochester Veterans Writing Group 