Monday, May 29, 2006

Remembering my Uncle Theo


Uncle Theo, my father's younger brother, was my favorite uncle growing up. He owned a couple of bars in Dallas where he would give me all the free potato chips I wanted. But more than that, he was just plain interesting. He had been a soldier in the great World War II, which wasn't all that far in the past when I was a child.

Uncle Theo had served with General Patton in North Africa and Sicily as a medic with the Second Armored Division ("Hell on Wheels") and later took part in the invasion of Normandy, France, where he waded ashore on D-Day+1.

Once when my brother and I stayed with him, he showed us the bullet scars in his neck and back and told us stories of skies lit up with tracers, flaming planes falling from the sky, and German soldiers killed or captured. But we were really too young to understand that war wasn't like in the movies. It was nasty business.

There is a famous Life Magazine photograph that shows several dead American soldiers lying on Omaha Beach, with a medic crouched over them. The medic was Uncle Theo.

Uncle Theo won both the Silver Star and the Bronze Star in France, and finally the Purple Heart which sent him home, causing him to miss the Battle of the Bulge. Years later, after Uncle Theo had joined his comrades on the other side, we received some of his belongings. They included a black Nazi helmet, with an emblem of an eagle sitting on a swastika; several German medals and wallets, complete with German family photographs and regiment photographs, and identification papers; three rifle bullets, one of which was loaded with a wooden bullet painted red; and German and French money. I still have most of these artifacts, carefully preserved. But the ones I treasure the most are the typed pages, brown with age, from the U.S. Command that describes my uncle's heroic exploits that earned him his medals. Here is the one for the Silver Star:

Headquarters of the 2nd Armored Division

Office of the Division Commander, 7 September 1944

The Silver Star medal is awared to Private First Class Theo Chomper

Citation

At approximately 0800, 29 July, 1944, a huge German armored column engaged Pfc Chomper's company in battle. Courageously disregarding enemy and friendly artillery, mortar and small arms fire, Pfc Chomper gave medical aid to wounded of his platoon and an attached tank platoon. He remained at the task alone until help arrived, then aided with the evacuation of the wounded. Pfc Chomper is credited with saving many lives with his prompt aid during the heat of battle.

by command of Major General Brooks

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

I was named after him because our father loved him so. Theodore Chomper

Stogie said...

Yeah, he was the greatest.

Stogie said...

And bless you too, Eyes! Uncle Theo was a Texan by the way. Both my mom and dad were Texans. I missed my chance to be one because of Adolph Hitler: my dad was stationed in New Mexico during the war and so I was born there instead.

Mayden' s Voyage said...

Wow...awesome tribute to a brave soldier, and a wonderful man.
Thank you for posting this bit of history-- and I love that name...
"Theo Chomper"! :)

civilian-at-arms said...

Outstanding. Just outstanding. It makes me think not only upon the heroism of patriots past, but of those fighting right now - stories of heroism which most of our "Citizens of the World" press are loathe to acknowledge.

By the by, I saw the Washington flick on the History Channel as well. I was dreading it, truth be told, and I did catch a bit of modern cynicism regarding Washington's motives woven into the narrative but, all in all, it seemed to be a fair portrayl.

Aunty Belle said...

Howdy Stogie--very fine tribnute to yore Uncle.

Here's mah question: What was it about America then that fomed those men? Such fellas doan so easily crop up nowadays...

Stogie said...

Aunty,

The difference between them and what we have now was this: moral clarity. They believed in themselves, their country, culture and mission. Democracy against Nazism was a clear cut case of good vs. evil. There was no debate, internal or external. It was civilization vs. barbarism.

Today we have all been given a lot of moral ambiguity rather than clarity, have been told over and over that every evil that exists in the world is our own fault, that we deserve what we get, etc, etc. That good and evil are relative terms. Our mission is not to survive the current onslaught of barbarism, but to acquiesce to its demands, to apologize for whatever we did to stoke it, and take what's coming to us.

Because of this, there is nothing worth fighting for.

In other words, we are being taught to commit national suicide.

Anonymous said...

moral clarity oh so true. As our uncle "Happy Chomper" used to say "If you dabble with crap you're gonna get some on your fingers"
The men and women of ww2 knew this was true and you had to make a choice early in life.

"Ye cannot drink the cup of the Lord, and the cup of devils; ye cannot be partakers of the Lord's table, and of the table of devils" 1 Corinthians 10:21.

Anonymous said...

Incredible post.

Anonymous said...

Looks nice! Awesome content. Good job guys.
»