Carl E. Votti was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1924. After graduation from High School, Carl enrolled in the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia where he had a scholarship to play on the football team. While downtown one day with a friend, Carl saw a paratrooper and said he could not believe that any branch of the U.S. military could or would dress a soldier in such a stunning uniform, especially, the glistening paratrooper boots. They both decided to choose the parachute branch of service. Carl entered active duty on March 16, 1943 and after basic training was soon going through jump school at Fort Benning, Georgia, where he was assigned as a machine gunner...
Korea
ED GARR – Army – Korea
Ed Garr lives in Ocala, Florida, but he chose to join the Military Order of the Purple Heart Chapter in Austin, Texas. He did that just to renew his ties with two fellow Marine Corps veterans whose connections with him came out of two different wars. Ed Garr was a machine gunner with 3rd Platoon, Company D, 2nd Battalion, 7th Marines, 1st Marine Division, in Korea in 1951 when Gonzalo Garza was the Platoon Sergeant (see the feature article about Dr. Garza). Gonzalo received the wound that put him out of the war on May 29, 1951. Ed was wounded twelve days later, on June 10th, when 3rd Platoon, while in the attack, came under artillery and 120mm mortar fire. Ed soon returned to...
JACK B. WARDEN – ARMY – Korea
Jack saw 222 days of continuous action in Europe and had advanced from being the youngest man and the junior Private to being the battlefield commissioned Platoon Leader, in the same Platoon; all without a scratch. Until just before war's end, his men had believed he could not be hit by German fire. Before returning home after the war, he had the exceptionally rare experience of having gone from Private to Company Commander in the same company with no other assignments outside that unit. Jack B. Warden was born in 1923 in Collin County, Texas. When he was four years old, his family moved to Abilene where he spent all his school years. The Wardens lived three blocks from the...
GONZALO GARZA
Called the Horatio Alger of education, this is the story of Dr Gonzalo Garza. The Austin American Statesman did a feature (January 1999) that was titled The Namesakes For Austin High Schools, complete with photos (inset) which we have excerpted here. Of course, Travis County is named for Colonel William Barret Travis, and the City of Austin is named for Stephen F. Austin, also known as the father of Texas. Like Travis, Davy Crockett and Jim Bowie also died in the Alamo. In that rare company, and centered in the assemblage of pictures, is a photo of Dr. Gonzalo Garza, Phd. and Patriot of Chapter 1919, the only living member of the group. Here is what the American -...
RUFUS DYE, JR.
This is a fighter pilots story, shot down behind enemy lines, parachuted into the middle of a major German withdrawal, and pedaled to safety by a French boy on his bicycle. In WWII, Lieutenant Rufus Dye was a 9th Air Force fighter pilot in the 392nd Squadron, 367th Fighter Group. The 392nd was a squadron of P-38 Lightnings that normally flew missions of Bomber Escort, Armed Reconnaissance, Interdiction, or Close Air Support. On the evening of September 8, 1944 his unit had been ordered to do something unusual, that was to conduct a very late in the day raid into Germany. Normally the 367th Fighter Group was a daylight operations unit. The squadron bombed a rail marshalling...
WILLIAM H. DECKER, JR. – Army – Korea
William H. (Bill) Decker, Jr. entered service in the Marine Corps, June 29, 1948. He served in Korea in the 5th Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division. They were part of the summer offensive in 1950 that carried all the way to the Manchurian border. Bill Decker was part of the fighting at Inchon, Kimpo Airfield, and Seoul. In Seoul on September 26, 1950, Bill was wounded by mortar shell fragments. He was in the Wonsan landing and at Hamhung, where the 5th Marines continued to advance. At Chosin Reservoir, the Marines dug in on November 3rd, only 36 miles south of Manchuria. They held that position until the Chinese Army came swarming down on November 25th. Then began a long and...