As I write this, it is the first week of July and I'm feeling patriotic. I'll be talking about a Medal of Honor war hero, born and buried in Northern Ohio, and the unusual ways he has been remembered since he gave his life in battle.
The heroic event occurred on July 31, 1943 on New Georgia in the Solomon Islands of the South Pacific. It reverberated through the early 1950's, inspiring a popular patriotic song, but it began to be forgotten. Then, in 1959, this soldier's sacrifice was commemorated in the popular science fiction novel "Starship Troopers", by Robert A. Heinlein. Although it is one of Heinlein's most popular books, over time, the novel and the original event again began to fade from memory. In the late 1990's, "Starship Troopers" was made into a movie, and while the movie was not very faithful to the book, our WWII hero was remembered yet again. Now, his story has been picked up on the web. The name of Rodger Young, the soldier who died on New Georgia, seems destined to live, if not forever, then at least for another generation.
The most complete version of the story of Rodger Young that I've found on the web is at dwrighsr.tripod.com/heinlein/ryoung.html. This page is adapted from a posting to the Usenet group alt.fan.heinlein. There are a number of pages which add details not found in other pages. Here is a brief summary of what I found from the web sites I visited.
Rodger Young was born in 1918 in Tiffin, Ohio. He was injured in a high school basketball game - while he seemed to fully recover at the time, his vision and hearing began to seriously deteriorate shortly after the injury. Although unfortunate, if this injury had not happened, we might never have heard of Rodger Young.
Rodger joined the Ohio National Guard shortly before Pearl Harbor. When hostilities commenced, the National Guard units were federalized and he became a soldier in wartime. He apparently was enthusiastic enough to be promoted to Staff Sergeant, in spite of his physical limitations - along with his sensory difficulties, Rodger Young was physically quite small. He was soon trained and bound for Fiji, as the leader of a rifle squad.
Rodger quickly found that under the conditions of fighting in the South Pacific, his hearing loss was a dangerous handicap and would risk the men under his command. He requested and was granted a demotion without prejudice to Private, sacrificing personal status to insure the safety of others.
Within a few weeks, Rodger's unit was engaged in combat. He was part of a patrol that was searching for the enemy in front of the battle line. They found no activity, but on the way back, they ran into a machine gun emplacement on high ground. Two men of the twenty were killed before anyone could take cover. There was no way past the machine gun nest. The Japanese were superior night fighters, so waiting was not an option as night rapidly approached. The lieutenant commanding the patrol attempted a mass movement which resulted in two more deaths with no improvement in the unit's position. At this point, Rodger Young began to crawl forward toward the machine gun nest. Ignoring orders to return, he was hit twice by fire from the enemy position before reaching a slight depression a few yards from the enemy. Although he was safe there, he chose to expose himself to fire once more, throwing a grenade that destroyed the machine gun nest and killed the five soldiers manning it. In this effort, he was again hit by machine gun fire. These wounds were fatal.
Rodger Young was quickly awarded the Medal of Honor at his rank of Private. His family requested that he be posthumously promoted back to Staff Sergeant - wishing his cemetery monument to reflect his previous rank, which he had surrendered voluntarily. His commanding officers made the request - they were strongly in favor of it - but the Army refused to consider it, even for a Medal of Honor winner. This action, combined with another bit of Army rigidity, probably ensured that his name would shine brighter than most American war heroes.
One of the Army's songwriters, Frank Loesser, had been assigned to commemorate the heroism of a Medal of Honor winner, but his instructions were to only consider Privates who received the honor. Upon his first reading of the story of Rodger Young, Loesser decided that he had his man, and wrote "The Ballad of Rodger Young". The song was recorded by a number of artists, including Burl Ives and Jim Reeves. You can find snippets of the song on several of the Rodger Young web sites.
Robert Heinlein's familiarity with Rodger Young probably came from the song. He wrote a segment of Edward R. Murrow's "What I Believe" radio show which mentioned Rodger Young in the early 1950's. You can find the text of his article at www.wegrokit.com/believ.htm (follow the "Shines the Name...." link at the bottom of this page find more information about Rodger Young.) There are parallels between Rodger Young and the hero of "Starship Troopers", Juan Rico. The book "Starship Troopers" honors Rodger Young directly. In the future, military starships are often named after past war heroes, and Rodger Young earns this honor in the 22nd century, being remembered as one of the greatest wartime heroes in history. At the end of the book is a historical note about Rodger Young. You can find a copy of this at www.wegrokit.com/rybio.htm.
Catherine and I went to McPherson cemetery, located at the intersection of Ohio 101 and US 20 in Clyde, Ohio, last Sunday and visited Rodger Young's grave. In a few weeks, shortly after you read this, it will be the 58th anniversary of his death. If you're ever in the vicinity, about 20 miles south of Sandusky, you might want to stop by.
CATBAR - Brain Candy #48 - "To the Everlasting Glory of the Infantry..." / Brian Rock / Aug 7 2001