SOUTHEAST MISSOURI VETERANS SERVED THEIR COUNTRY WELL

INDEPENDENCE, Mo. -- On this Veterans Day as the flags fly, some enjoy a day off and politicians give speeches, I recall two events that make me especially mindful of two very special veterans.

In early November 1998, while serving as a major in the U.S. Army, I found myself aboard a commercial flight to Germany headed for Bosnia-Herzegovina.

As we flew over the French countryside, the on-board virtual map tracked our flight over the Meuse River towards Frankfurt, Germany. As we neared the city of Stenay, France, I realized I was above the area where, exactly 80 years before, my Uncle Herman McIntyre and many thousands of other Americans knew the hell of the Argonne Forest.

In November 1918, far from the family's tar-paper shack in Allenville, Herman was in France with M Company, 356th Infantry Regiment, 89th Infantry Division. Twelve days fresh from its bloody initiation in the St. Mihiel Campaign, the 89th Infantry Division was preparing to participate in the Meuse-Argonne forest.

Unlike the St. Mihiel Campaign, the American Army would have to assault across a flat and open no-man's land into a German defensive chain that consisted of four belts, some 10 miles deep along the Meuse and double on the Argonne end. It would be the thickest and most elaborate defensive works ever assaulted by U.S. troops. These defensive works would be entrenched in a heavily forested area consisting of terrain that favored the Germans.

In the early morning hours of Sept. 26, after a three-hour bombardment, the Americans launched the Meuse-Argonne Offensive. Each day saw hundreds of Missourians killed or wounded in a front that was in a state of disorganization. Years later, Uncle Herman would recall being separated from his unit and fighting with another group of doughboys. The bitter fighting of Meuse-Argonne continued to the end.

As the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month approached, news of the armistice began reaching the soldiers in the trenches. Unfortunately, not everyone got the news. Uncle Herman and the rest of the 356th Infantry were involved in heavy fighting starting in the early hours of Nov. 10 as the 356th crossed the Meuse near Pouilly. As other doughboys celebrated the armistice, the 356th found itself in the fighting outside Stenay. It would be another 15 minutes before the firing stopped and another five months before the 89th Division would return home. The 89th Division served on occupation duty around the ancient city of Trier, Germany, near the Rhine valley.

Smile hid horrors of war

Uncle Herman was discharged at Fort Riley, Kan., in April 1919. In the years following the war, Uncle Herman married Victoria Smith and started a family in Jackson, Mo. His ever-engaging smile hid the horrors of war he experienced and the residual effects of poison gas that effected him the rest of his life.

I will always remember him sitting on his porch in Jackson, always there to greet the visitors and friends who stopped by. I equally remember him proud of his military service as reflected in his membership in American Legion Post 158. I have wondered often if, in those quiet moments on the porch as he gazed over the field across from his home, he ever returned to hell of the Meuse-Argonne. The peace that followed the War to End All Wars did not last long. The generation that followed found themselves in another war of even greater magnitude.

Shortly after returning home from Bosnia and experiencing the jet lag, I was up in the early hours of morning watching a television program discussing the Japanese attempts in World War II at germ warfare. In the days following Pearl Harbor, the Japanese army and navy quickly consumed the majority of the Pacific. Only a badly battered Navy fleet and a handful of soldiers and Marines stood between the Japanese and our West Coast. Somehow they managed to turn certain defeat into victory. Playing cat and mouse with the Japanese fleet, our Navy and other military services were able to turn the tide at Guadalcanal, Coral Sea and Midway into final victory in September 1945. Among those in the Asiatic-Pacific Theater was my father, Jesse McIntyre Jr.

Dad grew up in modest means in Jackson during the Great Depression. Like many in Southeast Missouri, he had to assist the family in scraping out a living during the rough turbulent period of the Depression. As America enter World War II, Dad lied about his age to get a job in a local handle factory doing defense work for the government.

In 1944, my father and his cousin, Lenvil Klob, decided to get their parents' permission to enlist in the Navy. After basic training in Texas, Dad went overseas to serve abroad a carrier and on several islands. The war was far from over. In 1945, in a desperate attempt to buy time, the Japanese had developed plans to bomb cities along the West Coast with biological weapons that had been perfected in China against live human guinea pigs. Only the dropping of the atomic bombs stopped this diabolical plan and the projected invasion of the Japanese homeland. In the years following World War II, the world has come to realize that not only did the Allies win the war, but also saved the world from Hitler, Mussolini and Tojo.

The spirit of service

Dad stayed in the Navy until 1950 when the peacetime Navy with its rules and regulations took the fun out of serving, He came home, got married and raised a family. He also took part in putting a man in space when he worked in the space industry in the 1960s.

Though he seldom talks of the war, Dad is proud of his naval service and instilled the spirit of service into us. The mental toughness and physical courage that he imparted in me as a young man enabled me to complete some of the toughest military training this country has to offer.

On this Veterans Day, in a small neighborhood of Independence, Mo., a flag will be flying to honor the service and sacrifice of two very special veterans from Southeast Missouri.

Jesse McIntyre of Independence, Mo., is a major in the U.S. Army serving in the 418th Civil Affairs Battalion in Belton, Mo.