Veterans Day - Draft Dodger in My Family

A Greenwood,SC man doesn't regret decision to fight. Growing up as a boy here, Thomas Cheatham saw a lot of his friends come back as Marines. He wanted to be just like them. Originally from Belton, Cheatham's family moved to Greenwood months after he was born. He graduated from Greenwood High School In 1942. but was still too young to enlist in his beloved Corps. "I had to wait until I was 17 until 1 could enlist in the Marine Corps," Cheatham said. But that wouldn't happen until April 1944. "I joined the Marine Corps in March, before 1 turned 18," Cheatham said. Like millions of others, Cheatham was just the right age for the draft, and with the country only about a year into World War 11, the Greenwood youth could see the writing on the wall. He wanted to avoid the draft, a sure ticket into the Regular Army. "I kind of wanted to be an individual," Cheatham said. "I loved the Marine Corps, I still love the Marine Corps."

Cheatham was a private on the troop transport USS Highland when he and his comrades got word that they would be hitting the beach at nearby Iwo Jima two hours after the first Marines landed. "H-hour was 0900, by 1100 we were on the beach," Cheatham said. "Everybody was prepared, but nobody knew we were going to go until we went." The Japanese didn't put up much of a fight when the first Marines landed. Cheatham said, but by the time his unit arrived, it was a different story. That was the modus operandi for the Japanese Army defending an island, Cheatham said. They would allow troops just enough room to cause a bottleneck before opening fire. And they opened up.
CHEATHAM SAID his unit just barely escaped catching an artillery shell on its landing craft. The sailors piloting the craft weren't so lucky. We didn't get 50 yards. As we left our landing craft I looked back and a shell went right off in the middle of it," Cheatham said. Cheatham said his mission was to seal caves on the island, either trapping enemy soldiers inside or just making them inoperable. He and another Marine had another close call when they went to check on a severed telephone line, which resulted in a break in communications between his unit and their company. Cheatham said they found the break. "We were fixing the wire and a sniper cut loose on us," he said. "We just backed off about 50 feet and got out of there."

Cheatham was on the island for 33 days and said it's hard to describe what that month was like. "IT'S HARD to describe to you. Nobody will ever be able to describe how it was," he said. "You don't even know what day it is. You're just glad to see that sun come up." Cheatham said he was also glad to see the American flag go up on Mount Suribachi. "We thought the whole thing was over then," he said. "We didn't know it, but it was just beginning."

The following story is reprinted from the Feb. 18, 2000, Marine Corp Tri-Command Tribune of Beaufort. BY SGT. KENT INNIS Tribune Staff
The morning of Feb. 19, 1945, 18-year-old Pvt. Thomas L. Cheatham entered a landing craft full of Marines for what he was told would be a three-day exercise. "It was as quiet as a mouse all the way from the ship to the shore," said the Greenwood native. "I think we were all in a state of shock. We knew we had a job to do, and we were all focused on it." The first Marines had hit the beach of the small volcanic island known as Iwo Jima about 9 a.m. that day. "I remember looking down at my watch," recalled Cheatham. "It was 11 a.m. when we landed on Red Beach one." The island had already experienced eight months of the most intensive shelling of any Pacific Island during World War II. Air raids started in June 1944 and Naval gunfire bombarded the island for three days prior to the invasion. "We watched the shelling from the ship just before we landed," said the tall, lanky Southerner. "Sometimes you couldn't even see the island because of all the debris kicked up by the shelling." As the Marines continued to land on the beach, they encountered little enemy resistance. "I think they were waiting until most of us landed," said the 73-year-old Bluffton resident
That beginning marked the end for a lot of Marines, such as the one who saved Cheatham's unit from six Japanese soldiers hunkered down in a foxhole. Cheatham said his unit was lost it turned out they were only about 100 yards from its company when the Marines heard enemy soldiers about 50 yards away. "We started hearing a lot of this mumbo jumbo of course we-were trying to keep quiet," Cheatham said. A MARINE swung around mid took out all the Japanese soldiers with a BAR, or Browning. The Marine died in the, assault, Cheatham said.
By the next day, the Marines had secured the Southern end of the island and moved to take Surubachi, but the fighting was far from over. "The fighting was continuous," recalls Cheatham of his experience on Iwo Jima. "Some days were heavy, some were light. Other days we didn't even move. We were simply trying to hold what we had." The Japanese were dug in deep in their seemingly endless maze of underground tunnels and caves, according to Cheatham. "They were hiding in pillboxes and caves all over the island," said Cheatham. "We would use flame throwers to get them out (of the pillboxes), or blow the caves shut when we found them. There was no telling how many Japanese were killed in those caves."
The fighting continued for more than thirty days and Cheatham remembers many things that the history hooks don't tell. 'The island was literally covered with body parts," he recalled, almost matter-of-factly. There is nothing worse than the smell of the dead."
Admiral Chester W. Nimitz immortalized the Marines bravery at Iwo Jima by saying, "Uncommon valor was a common virtue." Cheatham concurs. "There could not have been a better mold of men." he recalls. "We were all the same. We didn't think about dying, or losing. We did what we had to do."
On the fifth day of the campaign, an event that is synonymous with Iwo Jima occurred. "Most people don't know there were two flag raisings," said Cheatham. "The first was just a , small flag from one of the vehicles, I believe. The second one was a larger flag. That was the one Joe Rosenthal shot the photo of. the one everybody remembers." The sight of the flag raising is something Cheatham will never forget. "There was screaming and yelling," said Cheatham. "Marines were shooting off flares, you would have thought the war was over right then." But the war was not over, and the fighting on Iwo Jima continued.
With the fall of Suribachi and the capture of the islands airfields, the Japanese knew they could not stop the Marines from taking the island. But they would make them pay for every inch they would take. The Japanese fought fiercely and their miles of interlocking caves, concrete blockhouses and pillboxes seemed almost impenetrable. The Marines mission was to drive the enemy from the higher ground.
A particularly difficult spot was Hill 382, also known as the "Meat Grinder," (he highest point on the northern portion of the island. This part of the island was reinforced with concrete and was home to a large Japanese communications center. The method used to take Hill 382, as with most of the fighting on Iwo Jima was frontal assault. Historians described the Marines' attacks against the Japanese as "throwing flesh against reinforced concrete."

sorry guys. that is what my dad would say. that is based on the campaign. he wouldn't have supported Hillary either. i knew him and we would have had a good laugh over it. i probably should have left it off.

in light of the fact our national sense of humor is gone i will delete the comment.

president elect Trump has a lot of work to do. we will see if he can pull things together.

Note: My house was PTSD intensive all my youth. Killing other humans in hand to hand combat has a very serious impact on you. When you return home you have to adjust to that. The VA is still failing our veterans mental issues.

As a child a sense of humor is essential to surviving that. And in the present laughing at what was said on the campaign trail is how my family dissipated the hateful campaign we just endured. I personally have never seen that and my extended family is having to do a lot of work to get the children to understand that is not the way to treat other people in a civilized society.

Yes times are not what they should be. Dad would be the first to tell you this is not what he fought for.

If any of this seems political to you, I apologize. Support our president elect and let's hope it all works out.