Today is Veteran's Day, when we honor those among us who have sacrificed their time, energy, and blood to defend freedom in our nation.
In honor of those who served and are continuing to serve, we've published below an account from a Mississippi Convention of States volunteer, Harold Brummett. It's an amazing story that gives us a window into the hardships and pain our veterans suffer from their time on the battlefield.
I first met Joe Carmichael at a 35th Infantry Division Reunion. I went to the reunion in Atchison, Kansas, from school at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. Joe and his wife, Sue, were sitting with other veterans, and the old soldiers were trying to figure out the last time they met. Joe said that he was looking for the soldier that pulled him off the battlefield in France. That would have been my father, Audley, and a friendship began that continued until Joe passed away on July 1st.
It was on November 23rd, 1944, and A Company led by Captain Strong advanced on the French town of Hilsprich. Captain Strong knew the town was more heavily defended than he had been briefed and asked for artillery and tank support. The request was denied. Captain Strong was in the lead of A Company as he strode out of the tree line into the open fields toward the town. The after-action report said that a 30mm round killed Captain Strong. Dad and Joe years later said that the only thing left of Captain Strong was his smoking boots, everything else that was Captain Strong disappeared. The old veterans decided a mortar round must have hit Captain Strong.
A Company continued the attack until it fizzled out due to a lack of participants to continue the fight on the American side. Joe was wounded by several shrapnel wounds, with one entering his chest, passing through his lung, and exiting near his spine. Joe told me before he passed out that he remembered looking down seeing the entry wounds smoking. The hot shrapnel had cauterized the wounds in their passing. After a bit, Joe came forward to pray for his military brothers and sisters, his sisters, and his parents. Joe said that after he said the prayer, he had a sense that it was not his time to die, and despite his injuries, Joe was no longer afraid.
Joe was injured about noon, and as the day passed, all he could see around him was dead or wounded. Eventually, Joe was blinded by a scalp wound that bled into his eyes that he couldn't wipe away. Joe joined several others calling out for help. Sometime later, an American who had taken cover dashed out and grabbed Joe to take him to safety. The soldier was mortally wounded by rifle fire in the attempt, and Joe and his would-be rescuer fell back into a thicket. Joe said later that the man had an arterial wound, and Joe covered him with his own body as best he could to staunch the blood. In quiet tones, Joe said the man seemed to take a couple of hours to bleed out, though he couldn't be sure. The thing that Joe carried with him for the rest of his life was the fact that the man cussed Joe until he died, blaming Joe for his impending death, talking of his wife and children and plans they had made all gone now because he had tried to help Joe.
As darkness came, providing cover from snipers, another American came across Joe. That American asked Joe if he could walk, and Joe replied, "To get out of here, I can." These words were repeated 45 years later to identify the man who helped Joe off the battlefield. Despite wounded himself, Audley stood Joe up, and one leaning against the other made their way to help.
Audley was a walking wounded, and Joe was quickly triaged out to a field hospital, then on to England, his war over. Despite being shot through the leg, Dad was sent back to the line after a couple of weeks. He was bandaged and still bleeding, but men were needed with his expertise for the Battle of the Bulge. That was where he rejoined a reconstituted A Company.
Joe and Audley were close after finding one another again. Calling each other two and three times a month. Never speaking for long, just being assured the other was there. About a month or so after Joe and Audley found one another, Dad got a letter from Joe's daughter. In that letter, she thanked Audley for picking her father up off the battlefield. She wrote that her existence, the loving marriage of her parents Joe and Sue, her husband, and their children was due to one American reaching out to another and helping him to safety.
Except for my Father, A Company 137th Infantry Regiment of the 35th Infantry Division of the Second World War, as far as we know, is all gone now. Even the replacements have all passed on. Dad went from a no stripe private to staff sergeant with no intervening rank because, as he put it, "there wasn't anybody else left." At the end of the war, only Audley and two other men who went in at Normandy were still with the Platoon. The division itself ran about a 170% replacement rate. They were told they were going to be shipped to the Pacific for the invasion of Japan.
Again, Audley is the last man standing. His war and the men that fought it are on the cusp of passing from living history into the pages of books. A year ago, coming back from a visit to the VA in Jackson, we stopped in at a rest station on I-55. A young African American pulled in behind us, got out, and introduced himself to Audley. He was a First Sergeant in the Kansas National Guard, 35th Infantry Division, and seeing the stickers on Dad's truck, and he decided to meet him. The young man, a combat veteran himself, talked, and Audley replied as if old friends in a way that only comrades can, age and color unable to create a barrier that could overcome like experiences.
Goodbye, Joe.
