{"id":862,"date":"2008-09-22T08:08:50","date_gmt":"2008-09-22T08:08:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.uakron.edu\/nojh\/?p=862"},"modified":"2014-01-06T12:50:54","modified_gmt":"2014-01-06T12:50:54","slug":"shines-the-name-rodger-young","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.uakron.edu\/nojh\/2008\/09\/22\/shines-the-name-rodger-young\/","title":{"rendered":"“Shines the Name, Rodger Young”"},"content":{"rendered":"

By: Carl Becker and Robert Thobaben<\/em><\/h3>\n

He was but five feet, two or three inches tall and weighed only 125 to 130 pounds. He\u00a0had poor hearing and poor eyesight. Bespectacled, he was timid in appearance. He\u00a0dropped out of high school after his junior year; his grades sprinkled with F’s, and took\u00a0employment as a menial laborer. Seemingly, he hardly had the right stuff, physically or\u00a0mentally, for becoming a hero in combat. Yet Rodger Young proved his mettle on a\u00a0South Pacific island during World War II and, for a while, was more than an unsung\u00a0hero, his name on the lips of thousands of Americans as a synonym for bravery.<\/p>\n

Born in 1918 in the town of Tiffin in northwestern Ohio, the son of Nicholas Young, an\u00a0automobile mechanic, and Esther Young, a homemaker, Rodger had the nourishing\u00a0affection of his parents, three brothers\u2014George, Richard and Nicholas\u2014and a sister,\u00a0Betty. His father moved the family to the village of Green Springs, about ten miles\u00a0north of Tiffin, when Rodger was ten years old, opening a small gas station and service\u00a0garage there.[1. One may read of Rodger Young as an adolescent in several sources:\u00a0 CWO E. J. Kahn, Jr., \u201cA Boy Named Rodger Young,\u2019\u00a0\u00a0Saturday Evening Post,<\/em>\u00a0Vol. 218, No. 13 (September 29, 1945), 11, 50-54; Edward Linn, \u201cThe Ballad of Private Rodger Young,\u201d\u00a0Saga,<\/em>\u00a0Vol. XI,\u00a0 No. 6\u00a0 (March, 1956),\u00a0 12-14, + 80:\u00a0 Mrs. Joseph Banta,\u00a0 \u201cRodger Young,\u00a0 1918-1943,\u201d Typescript in Rodger Young File, Archives, Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Center (hereafter abbreviated as RHPC).]<\/p>\n

At Green Springs, the boy moved through adolescence in prosaic but diverse activities.\u00a0Norman Rockwell, the contemporary painter of everyday life in the United States, could\u00a0have found many scenes in Rodger\u2019s life worthy of his brush. With no professional\u00a0instruction, he learned to play the guitar, banjo and harmonica. With his mother\u00a0playing the piano, his father the clarinet and his brothers and sister other instruments,\u00a0often he joined them to form a family orchestra for their own entertainment. He was\u00a0interested in photography and attained some competence in the art. \u201cNow and then\u201d\u00a0he attended church services. Though a little shy and no \u201cdashing\u201d boy, he did court\u00a0several girls, none becoming his \u201csteady,\u201d though. He played poker and pinochle at\u00a0home and with boys in the village. Boyish to the core, he was a prankster; on one\u00a0occasion, he broke a fresh egg over Richard\u2019s head, and then laughed as the yoke and\u00a0white streamed through a mass of hair. Infrequently, to his mother\u2019s distress, he lit up\u00a0a cigarette.[2. Kahn, \u201cA Boy Named Rodger Young.\u201d]<\/p>\n

Certainly, Rodger did not lead a sedentary life as a boy. He enjoyed hunting and
\nfishing with his father. On one day in the field, seeing a cottontail virtually explode\u00a0when shot, he exclaimed, \u201cGee, look at the fuzz fly\u201d; thereafter, he was known as\u00a0\u201cFuzzy,\u201d a nickname that he readily embraced.[3. Kahn, \u201cA Boy Named Rodger Young\u201d; Linn, \u201cThe Ballad of Private Rodger Young.\u201d] He was an avid swimmer and ice skater.\u00a0Though not physically gifted, he tried his hand in several competitive sports,\u00a0with unfortunate results in one. He was a fair bowler and played baseball with a pickup\u00a0nine in the village. Playing basketball with high school boys – – he was a good passer – – he fell and struck his head on the floor, suffering temporarily double vision\u00a0and permanent impairment of his hearing. He had a newspaper route for the Toledo\u00a0News-Bee and won several prizes for signing up new customers, including a bicycle and\u00a0a trip to Chicago. At his parents\u2019 encouragement, if not insistence, he took on various\u00a0odd jobs, one picking raspberries in the summer at five to ten cents a box.<\/p>\n

Rodger set childish things aside, as it were, when he was sixteen years old. His\u00a0schoolwork falling off, apparently because of his hearing problem, he left high school at\u00a0the end of his junior year. Years later, one of his teachers, Mattie Steffanni, bristling at\u00a0reports that he was a poor student, insisted that prior to his injury \u201che was a good\u00a0student.\u201d[4. Linn, \u201cThe Ballad of Private Rodger Young.\u201d] He went to work as a spot-welder for the Davidson Enamel Company, where\u00a0his father was an engineer. Soon he bought a flimsy Model-A Ford and then a\u00a0turtleback Chevrolet that he converted into a rumble-seat roadster. Stuffing six or\u00a0seven girls and boys into it, occasionally he drove to Toledo for dances featuring big-name\u00a0bands.<\/p>\n

In January of 1938, Rodger took a step clearly separating him from his adolescent life.\u00a0At the suggestion of his friend Walter Rigby, who had recently enlisted in Company B,\u00a0the \u201cFremont Company,\u201d of the 148th regiment of the Ohio National Guard, he\u00a0followed suit. His oldest brother, George, also joined Company B, as did several other\u00a0young men from Green Springs. Surely, they did not enlist out of a need for money,\u00a0receiving as they did but one dollar for each weekly meeting. They underwent training\u00a0in summer encampments at Camp Perry, Ohio, in 1938 and 1939, and participated in\u00a0military exercises throughout the state in the fall of 1939. The next year they joined\u00a0thousands of guardsmen from the Midwest for maneuvers out of Camp McCoy in\u00a0Wisconsin.[5. Robert L. Daugherty,\u00a0Weathering the Peace: The Ohio Nation Guard in the Interwar Years, 1919-1940<\/em>\u00a0(Dayton:\u00a0 Wright State University Press, 1991), 200.]<\/p>\n

At Rodger\u2019s enlistment in 1938, war for the nation did not seem imminent. However,\u00a0by the summer of 1939, the European war had begun and in the spring of 1940, German\u00a0armies swept into France and were threatening to invade Great Britain. The nation\u00a0started to mobilize resources for war against an expansive enemy, even accepting a\u00a0peacetime draft. That fall the Department of War federalized the Ohio guard as the\u00a0Thirty-seventh Division.[6. Ibid.<\/em>, 197.] Rodger was then living with his parents in Clyde, a small\u00a0town about four miles from Green Springs, his father having taken a position as the\u00a0chief engineer of the Clyde Porcelain Steel Company, which had a government contract\u00a0for the production of tank treads. Now Rodger had to say farewell to his family and his\u00a0life as a civilian, his home now the Thirty-seventh. Commanding the division was\u00a0Colonel Robert Beightler, an able officer who had served with the famous Rainbow\u00a0division in France during the Great War; he would lead the Thirty-seventh throughout\u00a0the war and eventually wear a general\u2019s stars.<\/p>\n

For the next nineteen months, the Thirty-seventh trained at Camp Shelby in Mississippi\u00a0and the Indiantown Gap Reservation in Pennsylvania. Only a few months before the\u00a0Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, it participated in the massive war games in Louisiana\u00a0and Texas that saw Colonel George Patton emerging as a champion and leading\u00a0tactician of mechanized warfare. At the other end of the spectrum in rank, Rodger met\u00a0the demands of training and despite his poor eyesight became an expert shooter on the\u00a0rifle range. Receiving plaudits as a \u201cconscientious and \u201cdependable\u201d soldier, he rose in\u00a0the ranks as a corporal and then a sergeant leading a squad.[7. Elizabeth Bobbit, \u201cYoung\u2019s courage remembered in songs, stories,\u201d\u00a0The News- Messenger<\/em>\u00a0(Fremont, Ohio), July 19, 1976; Kahn, \u201cA Boy named Rodger Young.\u201d] He remained in Company\u00a0B of the 148th Regiment at the reorganization of the division early in 1942 at the\u00a0conversion of the division from a four-regiment division–a \u201csquare\u201d division to a three-regiment\u00a0division–a \u201ctriangular division.\u201d The regiments comprising the Thirty-seventh\u00a0were the 145th, the 147th and the 148th.<\/p>\n

In May of 1942, the Thirty-seventh shipped out to the South Pacific, one of the first\u00a0American infantry divisions to enter a war zone. One regiment, the 145th, disembarked\u00a0in New Zealand, the 147th and 148th in the Fiji Islands.[8. An account of the 148th and Company B is in Stanley Frankel,\u00a0The 37th<\/em>\u00a0in World War II<\/em>\u00a0(Washington, D. C.: Infantry Journal Press, 1948), 49-59.] Lying astride the line of\u00a0communication between the United States and Australia, the islands were important to\u00a0American strategy in the Pacific war. The regiments took up defensive positions on\u00a0Vita Levu, one of the two main islands in the Fiji group. The regiments also prepared\u00a0for an offensive against the Japanese, taking advanced training in stream-crossings,\u00a0map reading, scouting and other tactics of combat.<\/p>\n

Roger found Vita Levu rather pleasant despite the rigor of training and the prospect of\u00a0combat. Writing to Margaret Henry, a first cousin, he noted that the weather was warm\u00a0and that he and his comrades often swam and played baseball, bingo, monopoly an\u00a0cards. The natives were \u201cmostly dark,\u201d he said, and were \u201cfriendly\u201d towards the\u00a0soldiers.[9. Rodger Young to Margaret Henry, October 23, 1942,\u00a0 in Young File, RHPC.] He struck an amusing note in a letter to his brother-in-law, Charles \u201cChuck\u201d\u00a0Young, as he wrote on the day that he knew was the first day of the hunting season in\u00a0Ohio. \u201cWe have bigger game over here,\u201d he explained as he referred to the Japanese,\u00a0\u201cand it don\u2019t [sic] cost us anything for the license, [sic] the only thing about this kind of\u00a0hunting this damn game can shoot back and therefore you become the game.\u201d[10. Rodger Young to Chuck Young, November 15, 1942, in Young File, RHPC.] Almost\u00a0alone in his company, he liked powdered eggs, the subject of nearly universal scorn.<\/p>\n

After spending ten months in the Fiji islands and New Zealand, the Thirty-seventh was\u00a0nearly ready to hunt the \u201cbigger game\u201d that might shoot back. In the spring of 1943, it\u00a0moved to Guadalcanal, where in an epic battle the Marines had finally driven the\u00a0Japanese off the island before moving on to the Russell Islands. Here the division\u00a0engaged in more training in preparation of combat against the Japanese in the\u00a0campaign code-named Operation Cartwheel.[11. One may read the planning and execution of Cartwheel in John Miller, Jr.,Cartwheel: The Reduction of Rabaul<\/em>\u00a0(Washington, D. C.:\u00a0 Department of the Army, 1959); See also Ronald Spector,\u00a0Eagle Against the Sun\u00a0<\/em>(New York: The Free Press, New York, 1984), 220-251.]<\/p>\n

Cartwheel sprang indirectly out of the decision of the American Joint Chiefs of Staff to\u00a0divide the Pacific into two theaters of command: the Pacific Ocean Area, with\u00a0subordinate areas, the North, Central and South Pacific areas, and the Southwest Pacific\u00a0Area. They appointed Admiral Chester Nimitz chief of the Pacific Area, General\u00a0Douglas MacArthur chief of the Southwest area. Early in 1943, they directed\u00a0MacArthur and Admiral William \u201cBull\u201d Halsey, commanding the South Pacific Area, to\u00a0develop a plan for driving the Japanese out of the Solomon Islands and the Bismarck\u00a0Archipelago. Meeting in April in Brisbane, though both were mercurial, they worked\u00a0harmoniously together in drafting Cartwheel.[12. Spector, 225-226.] The plan called for Halsey, using\u00a0Guadalcanal as a staging base, to lead units of the Army and Navy up the ladder of the\u00a0Solomons, a double-chain of islands running northwest for about six hundred miles due\u00a0east of New Guinea. In the central Solomons were the New Georgia islands, a group of\u00a0fourteen islands. He expected to drive the Japanese from the main island of New\u00a0Georgia and seize the Japanese airfield at Munda Point; then American forces could\u00a0move to Bougainville and initiate air attacks on Rabaul, the huge Japanese air and naval\u00a0base on New Britain. Meanwhile, MacArthur had the task of directing American and\u00a0Australian divisions westward along the coast of New Guinea to the Huon Peninsula;\u00a0once outflanking Rabaul, he also could orchestrate air attacks on the base.<\/p>\n

After surmounting numerous problems in preparing his legions, Halsey was ready in\u00a0June of 1943 for an assault on the Japanese at New Georgia–Operation Toenail. His men\u00a0faced no easy task. New Georgia, in statute miles about forty-five miles long and five to\u00a0ten miles in width, was like all the islands in the Solomons; wet, hot, pest-ridden jungle\u00a0terrain, and the host of various tropical diseases like malaria. Reefs and barrier islands\u00a0protected the shoreline at many points. Guarding it were about ten thousand Japanese,\u00a0who had constructed hundreds of log pillboxes, and their leader, General Noboru\u00a0Sasaki, an able and determined man.<\/p>\n

Very late in June and early in July, Halsey\u2019s New Georgia Occupation Force, consisting\u00a0initially of the Forty-third Division–with the First and Second Battalions of the Thirty-seventh\u00a0momentarily held in reserve–a Marine defense battalion, a Marine raider\u00a0regiment and supporting units numbering about sixteen thousand men, effected three\u00a0landings on New Georgia and one on Rendova, a small island near the southwestern\u00a0end of New Georgia.[13. The landings on New Georgia are described in Miller, 67ff; See also Frankel, 79ff.] At Segi Point, Marines went ashore, soon followed by a naval\u00a0construction unit that started building an airstrip. Marines and the Third Battalions of\u00a0the 145th and 148th regiments of the Thirty-seventh in their first action landed at Rice\u00a0Anchorage north of Munda to block Japanese reinforcements that might come from the\u00a0island of Kolombangara. Elements of the 169th and 172nd regiments from the Forty-third\u00a0descended on Zanana Beach. Companies of the same regiments brushed 120\u00a0Japanese soldiers aside on Rendova, which became a platform for artillery strikes on\u00a0Munda; about five miles away, and a staging area for moving soldiers to New Georgia.<\/p>\n

For the entire campaign, the 145th, 148th, and Rodger Young\u2019s Company B, Zanana\u00a0Beach translated into crucial combat. Commanding the Forty-third, General John\u00a0Hester had the option of moving his men to Zanana Beach, about five miles from\u00a0Munda, or at Laiana Beach, only two miles from Munda. Believing that the Japanese at\u00a0Laiana were there in force and that they were not defending Zanana, he decided for the\u00a0latter beach. Later, Samuel Eliot Morison, the distinguished naval historian, asserted\u00a0that the decision was \u201cperhaps the worst blunder in the most unintelligently waged\u00a0land campaign of the Pacific war.\u201d[14. Samuel Eliot Morison,\u00a0History of United States Naval Operations in World War II:\u00a0 Breaking the Bismarcks Barrier<\/em>\u00a0(Boston:\u00a0 Little, Brown and Company, 1950), 177.] Inexperienced, the 169th and 172nd regiments\u00a0proved slender reeds. They moved torturously toward Munda through a hilly jungle\u00a0against crack Japanese infantrymen. Hundreds of men, as many as 1,500, suffered or\u00a0believed that they suffered from \u201cwar neuroses.\u201d Not a few interpreted the sound of\u00a0slithering land crabs as the approach of Japanese, and many fired their rifles\u00a0indiscriminately at imaginary targets. Hester\u2019s superior, General Oscar Griswold, soon\u00a0sent word to Halsey that the division would \u201cnever take Munda . . . and was about to\u00a0fold up.\u201d[15. Quoted in Spector, 236.] Then, late in July, Halsey ordered the First and Second Battalions of the\u00a0145th and 148th regiments\u2019 now on Rendova, to move to Zanana.and then Laiana. By\u00a0that time, the regiments of the Forty-third had finally reached Laiana after nearly a\u00a0month of a snail\u2019s advance. However, hard fighting awaited all of the regiments.<\/p>\n

Earlier in July, Rodger Young had made a fateful decision for himself and his company.\u00a0Fearing that because of his deficient hearing, he might misunderstand an oral message\u00a0and thus endanger his squad, he asked his platoon leader, Lieutenant Stanley Frankel,\u00a0to relieve him of his position and demote him. Frankel sent him to the company\u00a0commander. Young explained to him to that he did not \u201cwant to leave the outfit. I\u00a0want to go – – but as a buck private, so I\u2019m only responsible for myself. I don\u2019t want\u00a0anyone to get hurt because of me.\u201d[16. Mike Tressler, \u201cMemories of a war hero,\u201d\u00a0Toledo Blade<\/em>, July 31, 1993.] A medical examination proved that Young\u2019s\u00a0hearing was failing so the commander reluctantly acceded to his request.<\/p>\n

Rodger soon learned that his decision did not spare his company and squad from an\u00a0agonizing experience. On the second day at Laiana, after the Japanese had killed four\u00a0men from Company B on a patrol, the 148th was attempting to link up with the 161st\u00a0Regiment of the Twenty-fifth Division (the regiment had recently entered the battle).\u00a0Rodger was in a platoon attempting unsuccessfully to clear Japanese troops blocking a\u00a0supply trail.[17. Frankel, 101.] Frankel, commanding Young\u2019s platoon, then received an order to\u00a0disengage from the enemy and withdraw to a new perimeter. Sergeant Walter Rigby\u00a0passed the order to the men; but a Japanese machine gun crew on high ground about\u00a0seventy yards from the crouching riflemen had them pinned down. Under any condition, a withdrawal could be dangerous and now was more hazardous as the night\u00a0was drawing near.<\/p>\n

Perhaps understanding the precarious position of the company, Rodger called out to\u00a0Rigby that he could see the machine gun nest and was going for it and slowly crawled\u00a0toward it. Frankel, grabbing his leg, screamed at him. \u201cCome back here, it\u2019s suicide – –\u00a0that\u2019s an order.\u201d Apparently using his hearing impairment as a reason to disobey the\u00a0order, Rodger turned to him and said, \u201cI\u2019m sorry, sir, but you know I don\u2019t hear very\u00a0well\u201d and continued to creep up a slope.[18. Tressler, “Memories of a war hero.”] Almost immediately, he suffered a shoulder\u00a0wound and then wounds to his chest and right hand. Still he moved forward, with two\u00a0hand grenades in his blouse. Within throwing distance, he heaved one grenade,\u00a0crawled some more and finally was within ten yards of the gunners, in a defilade with\u00a0the Japanese fire skimming over his bleeding body. Then he pulled the pin of his last\u00a0grenade, rose, leaned back and hurled it as a burst from the Japanese gun struck him in\u00a0the head, killing him instantly. However, the grenade fell into the emplacement and\u00a0vanquished the enemy gunner. Now the platoon was able to withdraw safely to a new\u00a0position.[19. Frankel, 101.]<\/p>\n

The next day, after driving the Japanese from positions near the hill, men of the platoon\u00a0recovered Young\u2019s body. Wrapping him in half a canvas pup tent, they buried him\u00a0where he fell and marked his grave with a crude wooden cross. The regimental\u00a0chaplain spoke a prayer as the men bowed in reverence–and to duck enemy fire. A few\u00a0days later, the American regiments cleared Munda of the Japanese, those surviving\u00a0evacuating the island. Soon Rodger was interred in a military cemetery on the island.<\/p>\n

Soldiers often complained that legitimate heroes did not receive their due and that men\u00a0not deserving medals somehow received them. No one had any such doubts about\u00a0Rodger Young. Certainly, Walter Rigby had no reservations about it. \u201cIf it had not\u00a0been for his heroism,\u201d he said, \u201cour platoon could not have successfully withdrawn.\u00a0The machine gun was in such a position that it could well have covered the whole front\u00a0of our position. We were under rifle fire, and all of a sudden this machine gun opened\u00a0up. Rodger Young started firing back at it. Then the machine gun picked him up. He\u00a0fired a couple more rounds, and then he was hit. He kept on going forward, throwing\u00a0grenades and firing his rifle.\u201d[20. Banta, “Rodger Young.”] Writing to Roger\u2019s father about the action, a private\u00a0recalled, \u201cIt happened in a very critical moment, and if that bit of strategy had failed,\u00a0we would all have been sunk.\u201d[21. Kahn, “A Boy Named Rodger Young.”]<\/p>\n

Rodger was one of 235 men in the Thirty-seventh who died as the Americans captured\u00a0Munda and drove the Japanese from New Georgia. The division, bloodied but better\u00a0prepared for combat, continued its movement up the Solomons. They joined other \u00a0divisions to defeat Japanese forces on Bougainville in 1944. MacArthur accomplished\u00a0his complementary mission on New Guinea and Rabaul was isolated and neutralized.\u00a0The Thirty-seventh later proved a sterling force in the fighting on Luzon in 1945,\u00a0distinguishing itself particularly in the battle for Manila.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the Army mill ground out a posthumous award for Rodger Young, the
\nMedal of Honor. Praising him for his heroism, the commander of Company B
\nrecommended him for the medal. Walter Rigby wrote the principal affidavit
\nsupporting the recommendation, which moved from higher to higher authority before\u00a0finally winning the approval of the Department of War. On January 17, 1945, at Fort\u00a0Knox in Kentucky, a general, following a traditional ritual, hung the medal around the\u00a0neck of Esther Young; and an officer read the official citation issued by the \u201cdirection\u201d\u00a0of President Franklin D. Roosevelt and signed by Henry Stimson, the Secretary of War.\u00a0The text, though conventional boilerplate, must have given some solace to the mother.\u00a0Rodger received the medal \u201cfor distinguishing himself conspicuously by gallantry and\u00a0intrepidity above and beyond the call of duty. Private Young\u2019s bold action in closing\u00a0with this Japanese pillbox and thus diverting its fire permitted his platoon to disengage\u00a0itself, without loss, and was responsible for several enemy casualties.\u201d[22. Copies of the citation are in the Young File, RHPC.]<\/p>\n

A few months later, Esther Young shared the memorialization of her son with the
\ncommunities where he had lived and worked. A committee of representatives from the\u00a0towns of Green Springs, Clyde, and Fremont organized a Rodger Young Day to honor\u00a0him. As many as twenty-five thousand people gathered at various sites in Fremont \u201cto\u00a0pay homage to him, both as a hero and as a symbol of the thousands of other men, both\u00a0living and dead, who [were] fighting to preserve a civilized world.\u201d[23. Various accounts of the Rodger Young Day appear in several newspaper clippings in the RHPC. See sxpecially \u201cPark Dedication To Honor Hero Young,\u201dToledo Blade<\/em>, March 23, 1945; \u201cComplete Plan For Young Day Outlined,\u201d (undated clipping),\u00a0The News-Messenger<\/em>; \u201cImpressive Service Heard \u2018round World,\u201d\u00a0The News-Messenger,\u00a0<\/em>March 26, 1945.] The First Combat\u00a0Infantry Band played the national anthem at the high school auditorium. Esther Young\u00a0gave brief remarks for the Army Hour broadcast, and General Beightler spoke on the\u00a0broadcast from Manila. Frank Lausche, governor of Ohio, was present and issued a\u00a0proclamation reciting the heroic action that had brought fame to Rodger Young. At a\u00a0ceremony in the Water Works Park, the park was renamed the Rodger Young Memorial\u00a0Park, with a large bronze plaque prominently displaying the new name.<\/p>\n

Giving the program an unusual dimension was the song Rodger Young, which became\u00a0known as The Ballad of Rodger Young. The First Combat Band played it, a chorus of two\u00a0hundred men harmonized it, and several thousand schoolchildren sang it as a parade\u00a0passed them. The composer was Frank Loesser, who had already made his mark in the\u00a0world of popular music as a lyricist.[24. A biographical sketch of Loesser appears in Albin Krebs, \u201cFrank Loesser, Composer, Dead,\u201d\u00a0New York Times<\/em>, July 29, 1969.] Private First Class Loesser, serving in the Special\u00a0Services of the Army as a song-sheet editor, had earlier turned out a batch of \u201cmoraleboosting\u201d\u00a0songs for military shows. In his first attempt at composing music and lyrics,\u00a0he won acclaim for Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition, which became quite popular \u00a0among civilians. Late in the war, he had accepted the assignment for creating a song\u00a0celebrating the infantry\u2014the Army Air Corps and Navy already had their songs of\u00a0glory. He decided that he had to have a hero as his subject, preferably a dead hero, and\u00a0that the \u201cswing\u201d of Rodger\u2019s name was simple and would set well to music. In 1945, he\u00a0created the music and lyrics honoring Rodger and the infantry. At Fremont, his song\u00a0had special meaning.<\/p>\n

For all of the bravery of its subject, Rodger Young was ponderous to the extreme, in both\u00a0lyrics and the melody. Paul Fussell, an incisive commentator on popular culture during\u00a0the war, lamented that it \u201cproved too embarrassing for either the troops or the more\u00a0intelligent home folks to take to their heart.\u201d[25. Paul Fussell,\u00a0Wartime: Understanding and Behavior in the Second World War<\/em>(New York: Oxford University Press, 1989), 185.] Even Loesser had reservations, indeed\u00a0was cynical, about it and the other popular songs that he composed during the war. Of\u00a0them he said, \u201cYou give her [the housewife] hope without facts, glory without blood.\u00a0You give her a legend with the rough edges neatly trimmed. . . . you don\u2019t tell her:\u00a0\u201cMadam, it is highly probable that your son is coming home a basket case, or at least\u00a0totally blind.\u201d[26. Quoted in Richard R. Lingeman,\u00a0Don\u2019t You Know There\u2019s a War On?<\/em>\u00a0(New York: G. P. Putman\u2019s Sons, 1970), 212.] Despite that cynicism, the \u201chousewife\u201d and folks back at Green Springs\u00a0and the vicinity long counted Rodger Young as a song of their own, celebrating one of\u00a0their own. A woman who sang it as a Fremont schoolgirl long remembered it as a\u00a0\u201cmarvelous\u201d tribute to all American soldiers.[27. Interview with Charlotte Mort by Carl Becker, December 1, 2006.\u00a0 Mort was one of the children in a chorus singing\u00a0Rodger Young<\/em>\u201d on Rodger Young Day.] Nonetheless, it had but brief popularity\u00a0in the nation and soon fell into the dustbin of musical history.<\/p>\n

If Loesser had created a wooden song, he gave the lyrics honesty in one important\u00a0respect: the motivation for men in combat. In the view of many historians, the\u00a0American soldier in World War II (and other wars) fought in an ideological vacuum.\u00a0He did not see himself as a bearer of the flag, liberty and democracy. In contrast, the\u00a0Japanese soldiers would give blood for his family and the Emperor, the German soldier\u00a0for the Reich and the Fuhrer. On the eve of battle, the American soldier did not speak of\u00a0patriotism, but of the \u201cjob\u201d that he had to do to return home. Once in combat, he\u00a0fought out of a commitment to other members of his squad or platoon\u2014out of \u201cprimary\u00a0group cohesion.\u201d With the survival of each man of the group, the squad, dependent\u00a0upon others doing their duty, each man faced contempt, ostracism and loss of selfrespect\u00a0if he failed. In every verse of Loesser\u2019s ballad, Rodger Young \u201cFought and died\u00a0for the men he marched among,\u201d not for God and country.<\/p>\n

The ballad had no place in the somber ceremonies attending the return of Rodger\u00a0Young\u2019s body to Ohio for permanent interment in 1949. After a brief military funeral\u00a0service in Green Springs, Rodger was buried in McPherson Cemetery in Clyde. There\u00a0he lay near another soldier, General James Birdseye McPherson, the Civil War general\u00a0who had fallen at Atlanta in 1864.<\/p>\n

Rodger Young (The Ballad of Rodger Young)<\/em><\/h4>\n

1. Oh, they\u2019ve got no time for glory in the Infantry,
\nOh, they\u2019ve got no use for praises loudly sung,
\nBut in ev\u2019ry soldier\u2019s heart in all the Infantry
\nShines the name, shines the name of RODGER Young..
\nShines the name- – RODGER YOUNG,
\nFought and died for the men he marched among, To the everlasting glory of the
\nInfantry \u2013
\nLives the story of Private RODGER YOUNG<\/p>\n

2. Caught in ambush lay a company of riflemen,
\nJust grenades against machine guns in the gloom,
\nCaught in ambush till this one of twenty riflelmen \u2013
\nVoluntered, volunteered to meet his doom.
\nVolunteered – – RODGER YOUNG,
\nFought and died for the men he marched among.
\nIn the everlasting annals of the Infantry \u2013 Glows the last deed of Private RODGER
\nYOUNG.<\/p>\n

3. It was he who drew the fire of the enemy,
\nThat a company of men might live to fight,
\nAnd before the deadly fire of the enemy \u2013
\nStood the man, stood the man we hail tonight. \u2013
\nStood the man \u2013 RODGER YOUNG,
\nFought and died for the man he marched among.
\nLike the everlasting courage of the Infantry \u2013
\nWas the courage of Private RODGER YOUNG.<\/p>\n

4. On the island of New Georgia in the Solomons \u2013
\nStands a simple wooden cross alone to tell
\nThat beneath the silent coral of the Solomons
\nSleeps a man, sleeps a man remembered well,
\nSleeps a man \u2013 RODGER YOUNG
\nFought and died for the men he marched among.
\nIn the everlasting spirit of the Infantry \u2013
\nBreaths the spirit of Private RODGER YOUNG.<\/p>\n

5. No, they\u2019ve got no time for glory in the Infantry,
\nNo, they\u2019ve got no time for praise for loudly sung,
\nBut in ev\u2019ry soldier\u2019s heart in all the Infantry \u2013
\nShines the name, shines the name of RODGER YOUNG,
\nShines the name \u2013 RODGER YOUNG,
\nFought and died for the men he marched among,
\nTo the everlasting glory of the Infantry \u2013
\nLives the story of Private RODGER YOUNG.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By: Carl Becker and Robert Thobaben He was but five feet, two or three inches tall and weighed only 125 to 130 pounds. He\u00a0had poor hearing and poor eyesight. Bespectacled, he was timid in appearance. He\u00a0dropped out of high school after his junior year; his grades sprinkled with F’s, and took\u00a0employment as a menial laborer. … Continue reading “Shines the Name, Rodger Young”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1622,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[39906],"tags":[42006,41842,41938,41942,41946],"class_list":["post-862","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-volume-5-issue-1-spring-2008","tag-5-1","tag-article","tag-carl-becker","tag-rodger-young","tag-wwii"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uakron.edu\/nojh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/862","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uakron.edu\/nojh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uakron.edu\/nojh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uakron.edu\/nojh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1622"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uakron.edu\/nojh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=862"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uakron.edu\/nojh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/862\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":874,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uakron.edu\/nojh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/862\/revisions\/874"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uakron.edu\/nojh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=862"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uakron.edu\/nojh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=862"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uakron.edu\/nojh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=862"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}