Last Flag Flying

News that Warrant Officer Hershel “Woody” Williams, who died last week at the age of 98, will lie in honor at the Capitol couldn’t come at a better moment. The Gallup poll is reporting that the percentage of Americans who are extremely proud of their country has fallen to a record low. Let us all study the story of the Quiet Dell, West Virginia, farm boy turned Marine, who lived to be the last person to wear the Medal of Honor from World War II.The announcement that Williams will lie in honor at the Capitol was made by Senator Manchin of West Virginia, where Williams was raised on a farm. The first time Williams tried to get into the Marines he was rebuffed for being too short. When combat put a premium on men willing to fight, he got a second chance and signed up. He went into Iwo Jima as the first of our 6,000 Marines killed in action were being stacked, he later said, like cordwood. He was with the Third Marine Division — sometimes known as the Caltrap — when, according to the official citation, our tanks were maneuvering “vainly” to open a lane for the infantry through a network of reinforced concrete pillboxes, buried mines, and volcanic sands. Williams volunteered to go forward in an attempt to suppress the machine gun fire with a flamethrower, which was strapped to his back. He was covered by only four riflemen.Williams fought “desperately,” as the citation put it, for four hours, repeatedly returning to his own lines to prepare demolition charges and obtain serviced flamethrowers. On one occasion, he mounted an enemy pillbox, inserted the flamethrower nozzle through an air vent, and injected a fatal fire that finally silenced the enemy gun. He was “directly instrumental” in neutralizing “one of the most fanatically defended” enemy positions in the battle.We have often wondered where America finds men like Williams, and over the years we have come to the conclusion that they find America. Williams, as we read the history, always made a point of crediting his fellow Marines, including two riflemen who fell in the war after covering him in his epic assault on the Japanese pillboxes. Williams himself went on to finish 20 years as a jarhead, 17 in the Marine Reserves and decades more in veterans work.It is a wonderful thing for Congress to bring this war hero to lie in honor under the Capitol rotunda. Forgive us, but it reminds us of the movie “Last Flag Flying,” about aging Marine veterans who help a wartime buddy bring home the body of his son, killed in Iraq, and insist upon him being buried in his uniform. We understand that war is Hell, but it has its own way of bringing out a heroism of which all Americans can be proud.

Last Flag Flying

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