War Veterans Speak to Mayfield Students

A group of seven war veterans spoke to local students at Mayfield Intermediate School in Manassas Friday morning, sharing their experiences fighting in American wars and successfully integrating back into the community afterwards.

Many veterans went on to have successful careers after the military, said VFW VA Post 7589 Commander Ron Link, who served with the Army in Desert Storm. We wanted to bring the veterans into schools to talk to children about how they were able to go on and be successful, he said.

Link went on to have a successful career as a vice president of a corporation in Reston and Spec. Pete MacLead, retired Vietnam US Army, currently works with Voice of America. 

The group included three World War ll veterans: Merel Hancock, Garland LeRoy and Perry Andrews.

"These men are history," Retired US Marine Corps Col. Jerry Martin said. "There are no WW l vets anymore in the country. This is a unique opportunity that you are not going to have ever again."

Col. Martin, who fought in the Vietnam War, arranged the meeting between the middle school students and veterans. Martin went on to become a teacher after serving in the Marine Corps.

"We are citizens first...we come back into the community...and make a positive difference," he told the students.

Merel Hancock, who served in the US Air Corps, told the students how his plane "got hit" and he "had to bail" at 23,000 feet. He said he went out a little door in the nose of the plane with his parachute and landed in "the biggest tree in Germany."

He ran free in enemy territory for nearly six hours before he was captured and taken as a Prisoner of War (POW). One of the students asked what it was like to be a POW? Hancock described it as a complete loss of freedom. He told the students it was like  being stuck in their room with no TV, phone or internet for days, but 100 times worse.

He recalled sleeping in a 15 by 15 foot room with three or four other people. He was given two slices of bread per week to eat. There was no hot water, so you did not take a shower, he said. He had lice and no change of clothes.

"Life as a POW was miserable," he said. He was wounded, but forced to walk  and sleep in the snow. "There was no food," he said.

Hancock said the best part of being a POW was when he was liberated by the British.

Hancock talked candidly about his team shooting down 53 enemy aircraft during the attack, but told the students the most beautiful thing in life is an education.

"Being a good citizen means having a good education," he said.

 WW II US Marine Corps Veteran Garland LeRoy, said he joined the military at age 18 after Pearl Harbour. He participated in five landings in four years and recalled being blown out of the water by enemy soldiers while operating an amphibious military vehicle referred to as a 'Gator.'

LeRoy recalled losing a lot of men, but said the soldiers learned a lot to help at the Battle of Tawara—the first American offensive in the central Pacific region during WW ll and  the first time the United States faced serious Japanese opposition to an amphibious landing. Previous landings met little or no initial resistance, according to Wikipedia.com.

.  This year that tradition continues with a special tribute to Vietnam veterans.