American Legacies Organization, Inc.

By Polly Mazariegos nee Wagaman

When I was very young, I remember how excited I was to spend either Thanksgiving and/or Christmas at Nanny's house. We called our grandparents Nanny and Pappy. Nanny was Emma Wike nee Feaster and Pappy was Charles Wike.

The soldier in this story can honestly say that he only enjoyed two meals during the 2½ years of his military service and they were both on Christmas day. The celebration at Moascar, Egypt was the most memorable, because of the relaxed atmosphere and warm weather. If everyday in the army was like Christmas in Egypt, there would be long lines of men attempting to enlist and they wouldn't have to bother non-believers like our hero.

Snow gently fell outside the window as my husband poured over our finances. "Well," he rubbed his eyes; "we have forty dollars for Christmas." He shrugged. "It's better than nothing."
I glanced out the window. "The kids need to know." Our children needed winter boots, and many other necessities. "I'll tell them." Our eleven and nine-year-old accepted the disappointment like battle weary troopers.

I had been hunting with Pa using just the pellet rifle, and had been lucky enough to get my first rabbit, that was a very good day, one that I'll never forget, but in order to get off the porch and run with the big dogs I'd need a real hunting gun.

"You look at the biography of Edward Flanagan, the word that comes to mind is incredible. Faced with perhaps our Nation's the darkest hour, America definitely needed for men to step up to the answer of our nations call. From 1942 to 1946 Ed Flanagan served our country. . . Ladies and Gentleman we are in the presence of a hero."

It was lucky indeed, for Al because he was born a "blue baby." A lot of blue babies were, born in 1919 due to the flu epidemic. "I was born with a bluish tint to my skin due to a lack of oxygen during my delivery," Al reports. "Sometimes blue babies would be born with heart defects. Dr. Lund told my folks that he doubted I would live to be 21 years old. Well, here I sit-84 years old-and I always say that I've been living on borrowed time since I was 21!"

As the saying goes, “It’s not the fall that kills you, it’s the sudden stop.” A great deal of ingenuity has gone into reintroducing someone to the ground gracefully, but no safety device is foolproof. Rockport resident Gilbert Weaver learned that lesson well enough during his service with the U.S. Army as a paratrooper, though he is among the relative few to walk away from a “failed” jump and live to tell the tale.

My grandfather Ellis built a log cabin. He cut the shingles for the roof out of oak. The first thing they did when he got back was to put those shingles on the roof. Of course, those oak shingles had cured and they were very hard to drive a nail into. He did mash his finger many times and Grandma had to carry the hammer back to him, after he kept throwing it away every time he would hit his fingers.

But like so many of them, though he seldom talked about it, he could have told you one hell of a story. He won the Distinguished Flying Cross and the Purple Heart all in one fell swoop in the skies over Germany on December 31, 1944.

On the 14th of January our battalion received orders that on the following day it was to undertake an attack on the small German town of Nennig, located near the Moselle river. This would be part of a coordinated attack with the other battalions of the regiment, hitting adjacent towns in an attempt to drive the Germans out of the Switch area.