D.C. trip for veterans shows power of one

ONLEY

Mark Williams got the idea one Sunday morning in October.

He was watching TV, a report about a North Carolina town sending its veterans to see the war memorials in Washington, D.C.

"I told my wife we could certainly do that here - they don't care more about their vets than we do," Williams said last week.

So he asked his friends and neighbors to help send Eastern Shore vets on the same kind of trip. Donations poured in - checks and doughnuts and artwork and music and fried chicken and flags. And veterans signed up - 10 and then 12 and then 20 and then 40 and then 90 - until on Sunday morning they met at the Four Corners Plaza on U.S. 13 for a bus ride to the nation's capital, and realized just how much one man can do.

Only gulls were in the parking lot when Williams arrived to set up, around 7 a.m.

"I don't know where VDOT is with my cones," he said, "but if we have to pull it off without cones, we will."

A friend pulled in towing the flatbed trailer that would serve as a stage.

"Hey, Mark, stand on the other end there and give me some weight," he said, as he tried to lower the platform.

"It won't be much," Williams said, but he hopped on the end, slight and tan in denim and cowboy boots, cigarette pack in his breast pocket. "Somebody said to me, 'Mark, why are you doing this?' I said, 'It's because I know these guys.' "

On Veterans Day each year, Williams buys coffee for the former servicemen. One said to him, as he recalls it: "That's one of the first things anybody's done in public to acknowledge our service. 'I thought, when he said that, that's a shame.' "

Williams is not a veteran. He's a real estate agent. Business has been slow. The North Carolina community put together a trip, but Williams wanted to put together an experience.

Shortly after 7, the Rev. Albert Crockett drove into the parking lot with his notepad and list of veterans. He was a chaplain during WWII. He is the chaplain for VFW Post 2296 now.

"We have a lot of World War II vets that are heroes going with us today," he said. "Silver Stars. Bronze Stars. Twenty-six missions flown. Ace pilots."

He helped contact local vets to tell them about the free Washington trip and the opportunity it would offer.

"To reminisce," Crockett said. "Not with pleasure. You don't remember a war with pleasure. It's something that's lodged in the hearts of every one of them.

"I would say 75 to 80 percent of the guys that will be with us today were combat veterans. Combat veterans, not just veterans like myself. Some shot, some crippled. I class them as heroes."

Nationwide, 1,500 veterans of WWII die each week, he said, because most are in their 80s and 90s now. Many of those on the Shore have never been to the memorials in Washington.

"This is the chance of a lifetime for some of them."

 Williams has two dogs, two cats, a wife and three stepdaughters. The girls were raised to value what Williams calls the two R's: respect and responsibility. Veterans need the same, he said.

"If you knew them, you would want to celebrate them," he said. "We didn't send them off in the '40s, we didn't send them off in the '50s, we didn't send them off in the '60s, and we certainly didn't welcome them back."

He wanted a celebration that would show respect. He took the responsibility on himself.

 Harold J. Goldstine, "Goldie" to his friends, is, at 95, the oldest veteran on the trip.

"I'm legally blind and deaf, but I work at the hospital one day a week," he said. "I'm one of those guys that likes to work."

He has never been to the war memorials. He was hoping the cherry blossoms would be in bloom, and the president might come to speak to them.

The Rev. Crockett zoomed past and said: "He's a hero."

 For weeks and then months, Williams sought donations and lined up participants. He had ballcaps embroidered for every vet, and had a poster designed that shows the Eastern Shore from above, with its inlets and necks and barrier islands, and over it all the portraits of four servicemen, and a farm tractor without a driver, and a workboat with no one at the helm.

He came up with a name: "Valor Not Forgotten."

 Joe Vermeal stood quietly chatting with Welton T. Ashby, both wearing caps that proclaimed them WWII vets.

Ashby, an Army quartermaster in Europe, has never been to the memorials in Washington, but his daughter has.

"I'm going to take a look," he said. "She says it's very beautiful."

Vermeal and his four brothers were all combat veterans, in the Army, Navy and Air Force. He was in the Pacific theater.

"I was a coxswain," he said. "He's the guy that drives the little boats, that drives them up to the beach."

What beaches?

"Iwo," Vermeal said. "Okinawa."

Then he choked up, and couldn't name any more.

 In the week before the trip, Williams drove around collecting donated door prizes. He had paintings, a crab-adorned floorcloth, a Smith Island cake, two bronze miniatures from Turner Sculptures, a bald eagle from noted carver Billy Crockett.

"I've never, ever raised any kind of funds," Williams said. "I haven't organized three people to do anything before in my life, unless it was to help me move."

Now he had two charter buses full, church ladies cooking, senators helping him arrange parking space on the National Mall, state agencies involved and he had asked for a Navy flyover. He also was hoping for hundreds of spectators to show up on Sunday morning, to see the veterans off.

 Warner Hargis, 25 years in the Virginia National Guard, arrived wearing a tie adorned with an eagle and a flag. His son pulled in separately, wearing his Cub Scout leader's shirt. Small boys gathered around them.

"I need dignified behavior out of you two," one dad instructed.

"Why are we here?" David Hargis asked Pack 313 from Onancock. "What did the vets do for us?"

"They fought in the war," the Cub Scouts answered.

"Very good."

 Three days prior, Williams started cooking country hams. Two days out, he started collecting donated food for the Eastern Shore picnic he would throw for the veterans, right there next to the monuments - sweet potato rolls and baked corn and homemade cookies and sweet tea and ambrosia and chicken. The night before, he was up until midnight slicing roast beef and ham.

He planned to drive to Washington ahead of the buses and set up the picnic so it would be ready when the veterans arrived. He invited TV celebrity Willard Scott, but he couldn't come. That was about the only person who didn't.

 The Virginia Department of Veterans Services set up a table and posted signs: "Honorary High School Diploma. Apply Here."

Carlton J. Byrd was the first in line.

"I have my GED," he said. "I finished my high school after I got in. But I never got my diploma."

Instead, Byrd served in the Air Force from 1957 to 1965.

"I was in during the Vietnam crisis, the Cuban crisis, the Vietnam War time and the Cold War," he said. "I've always wanted to go to The Wall. Never got to go."

Diplomas will be presented during a ceremony this summer at Nandua High School.

Byrd's father was a Norfolk police officer killed in the line of duty in 1952. Byrd made it out of the service alive, but 100 percent disabled. On Sunday?

"Gonna honor our fellows that did the ultimate. Gave their lives," he said.

 The Accomack Community Band set up. History students from nearby schools arrived, earning extra credit. A Coast Guard color guard appeared. The Cub Scouts lined up, solemn and still. About 8:30 a.m., the band struck up "America the Beautiful," followed by "Battle Hymn of the Republic," then a song for each branch of the service, about the halls of Montezuma and caissons rolling along and anchors weighing and trips into the wild blue yonder.

Two buses pulled in and parked in front of the Peebles store. They had American flags flying and signs in the windshields: "Proudly Transporting America's Vets."

A man on a walker moved slowly toward them, followed by a man using two canes.

Williams, in his golden-brown suede cowboy boots, got up on the trailer. "The premise was simple and overdue," he said. "This day we recognize each of you for a job well done."

State Sen. Ralph Northam gave a little speech. Black Elvis sang "The Star-Spangled Banner."

"After photos, we're gonna cheer these boys to Washington, D.C.!" Williams announced, then he started breaking down tables, putting the last items in his pickup truck, ready to scoot ahead with the picnic.

He hopes that other communities will decide to honor their vets, too. He suggests that other less busy Realtors use their time to organize trips to the war memorials. He hopes some young person will arrange, someday, a similar trip for vets of Iraq and Afghanistan.

A sheriff's deputy pulled in front of the buses, blue lights flashing, to escort them to the state line. A state trooper pulled up, his lights on as well. A fire truck brought up the rear.

They tooted horns, tapped the sirens. The crowd in the parking lot, a couple hundred people, fluttered flags on sticks and cheered. Black Elvis shouted, "Whoo!" and waved both arms in the air.

"Have a nice day," read the scrolling electronic sign in a bus windshield.

"God Bless America," read the back of the community band trailer.

"Thank you for your service," read the banner on the registration table.

Williams leaped into his pickup truck, on his way to Washington, D.C.

Diane Tennant, (757) 446-2478, diane.tennant@pilotonline.com