My Father was Corporal Robert A. Wastler, U.S. Army, Co. A, 35th Infantry, 25th Infantry Division, Schofield Barracks. He was there on December 7 1941. He was assigned to G2 as S2 Recon 35th Infantry in August 1942. He was in the battles for Guadalcanal (Hill 27, Gifu Strong Point) and the northern Solomons – Vella Le Vella and New Georga.
Him and the men in the unit with him suffered sever malaria and were hospitalized in New Caledonia. They would have all received a Purple Heart for their illness except when Eleanor Roosevelt came to the hospital to present it to them they threw her out. I guess a Purple Heart didn’t mean much after what they had been through, or more like what they left behind.
I gasped at the beginning of the movie Saving Privet Ryan. That beach head was exactly what my father described to me as his experience in the Pacific long before that movie ever came out. The Higgins Boat he was in was hit and couldn’t make it to the beach. They had to bail out over the side into water over their heads and swim with full field pack and an M-1 Rifle. He talked about snakes, iguanas, snipers and a few things I can’t repeat here.
He came home in December 1943 with the U.S. Army’s emblem tattooed on his chest. Years later he was awarded a Bronze Star. He was a member of the Pearl Harbor Survivors Association, 25th Infantry Division Association, Cacti, VFW and The American Legion. As I recall he attended several 25th Infantry Division reunions.
As of July 2002 he rests with full honors in Willamette National Cemetery in Portland Oregon.
I contacted you about two years ago and sent you some photos. I never heard back from you and never saw the photos on your web-site. I’m attaching a photo of the unit he was in taken two months before the Japanese attacked Schofield Barracks. He is the 11th man from the left in the fifth row from the top with a great big smile on his face. I’m also attaching the names of all the men in the photo. I see your web-site has expanded. I may join in. I am emailing this post with the photo to the association. My email address is B-24 because I've been searching for my Uncle who has been MIA for over 60 years now.
Don Wastler