Julie McDonald Commentary: More Farewells to the Greatest Generation

Posted

Last week the Lewis County community lost two members of the Greatest Generation who served their nation during World War II — one overseas at Iwo Jima and the other on the home front at the Chehalis Boeing plant.

The Rev. Paul Justice, who ferried wounded Marines from the shores of Iwo Jima to a hospital ship as a teenager and later fought in China as a Marine, died Wednesday at 87. I grew to love him and his wife, Violet, as he shared his stories six years ago for a book called “Transformed by Grace: Delivered from Hell to Heaven.”

He spent his early years in a North Carolina poorhouse and then at the Mills Home Baptist orphanage before enlisting in the Navy with a forged birth certificate at 15. He later entered the seminary and served as a pastor for six decades.

He and Violet attended most events at the Veterans Memorial Museum in Chehalis, where Paul and his three brothers, who also served in WWII, are honored. His memorial service will take place there at 10 a.m. Saturday, April 18.

Ethel Nelson, of Centralia, one of our treasured Rosie the Riveters featured in the book, “Life on the Home Front: Stories of Those Who Worked, Waited, and Worried During WWII,” and on the 2013 Women in Trades Calendar, died Thursday at 93. While her husband and brothers fought overseas, Ethel worked at Boeing in Chehalis as a riveter, sinking rivets into the wings of B-17 and B-29 bombers. 

The job shook her petite body so much it caused kidney damage and left her with a permanently raspy voice. After a book signing, we enjoyed such a fabulous dinner at Applebee’s, where she regaled us with a story about a spunky Halloween prank she pulled on her husband.

It’s hard to say goodbye to people we love. What a grand reunion we’ll all enjoy some day in heaven.

But we can treasure those who remain, honoring and learning from them, such as students from Seattle’s Northwest School did a week ago during a visit to the Lewis County Historical Museum. The half dozen students listened as three local Rosie the Riveters — Margaret Shields, Helen Holloway and Doris Bier — shared stories of working in the defense industry during WWII. These students experienced living history firsthand.

 

Veteran’s House



It was heartening to read in Saturday’s Chronicle about the renovated Onalaska house given to retired U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Mike McCallum, who lost both his legs below the knees while serving in Kandahar Province, Afghanistan, in December 2011. 

Kudos to Chase Bank and the Military Warriors Foundation, which has helped 650 wounded veterans and the families of those killed in action to find homes since 2007. Our veterans and their families sacrifice so much to serve our country.

 

Open Government

Whether it’s the nation’s secretary of state or the local school superintendent, government employees must keep their activities open to public scrutiny. Our constitutional republic relies on openness, and nobody should be hired or elected who is unwilling to allow the public to see everything he or she does while performing the job (paid for by taxpayers). Every public employee should be willing to provide correspondence, emails and paperwork relating to the job.

Hillary Clinton provided the U.S. State Department with 30,490 email messages after picking through all of her emails to determine which she would turn over for public review. Since when is that how our government operates? What gives her the right to decide which emails the public can access? Why can she delete any emails that might reflect poorly on her?

Sanitizing the truth is what dictators do. We don’t need a dictator.

•••

Julie McDonald, a personal historian from Toledo, may be reached at memoirs@chaptersoflife.com.