(Excerpt from his book, Soldiers, Space, and Stories of Life. This story was originally published in the June 4, 2004, Philadelphia Daily News)
“They were chosen by fate and circumstance to represent us on the beaches that day.” (Filmmaker and historian Charles Guggenheim)
On June 5, 1944, Dwight Eisenhower casually walked among the young paratroopers of the 101st Airborne Division who were preparing themselves for the D-Day invasion. He had just given the order for the invasion to commence early the next morning and the soldiers, with their blackened faces, rifles, and assorted equipment, momentarily stopped their preparations to talk to the General. The men were understandably apprehensive, and Ike tried to calm their fears. He told them not to worry, and that he had confidence in them. “We ain’t worried, General,” a young sergeant said. “It’s the Germans that ought to be worrying now.”
Eisenhower watched all of the big C-47 transport planes carrying the paratroopers take off that night. He often affectionately referred to the soldiers as “my boys”, and it was feared that the 101st would suffer 70 percent casualties. As the last plane left the runway, the General had tears in his eyes.
Although the Allies had meticulously planned every detail of the operation, the success of the invasion was by no means a given. Eisenhower and the other Allied generals knew that all of the planning in the world couldn’t compensate for the courage and improvisation necessary for the invasion to succeed. Ultimately, it would all come down to the performance of the various combat units and their soldiers that would decide the outcome.
The individual acts of bravery on that day were astonishing. Despite witnessing several soldiers die in failed attempts to cut through barbed wire that had his platoon trapped on the beach, Sergeant Philip Streczyk of the 16th RCT ran through a barrage of German machine-gun fire to cut the wire, and then waved the rest of his troops through. Paratrooper Sgt. John Ray landed in the middle of a Ste.-Mere-Eglise town-square full of alarmed German soldiers. Shot in the stomach and dying, Ray still managed to shoot a German soldier who was about to kill two other American paratroopers. Technician John Pinder, shot twice and terribly weakened by loss of blood, continually waded back into the surf to retrieve vital communication equipment. While struggling back out of the water, Pinder was shot for a third time and killed, but not before he had retrieved a workable radio.
Various allied combat units also performed brilliantly that day. The textbook capture of the critical Orne River Bridge by British paratroopers is still marveled at to this day by military strategists. The destruction of the German gun batteries at Brecourt Manor by the outnumbered 101st Division’s Easy Company was immortalized in the HBO miniseries, “Band of Brothers.” And the sacrifice of that day was epitomized by the 29th Division at Omaha Beach. Of the 35 soldiers in the 29th from little Bedford, VA, 19 died in the first 15 minutes and two more died later that day. Fittingly, Bedford is the site of the National D-Day Memorial.
These are just a few of the heroic individuals and military units that distinguished themselves that day. To list them all would surely require every page of this newspaper.
The grave of Charles “Dunnie” Keenan, Roman Catholic High School – Class of 1943, at the Normandy-American Cemetery
It’s so easy to forget and take for granted what happened on the Normandy coast 80 years ago. Had the invasion failed, the resulting consequences to civilization would have been appalling. Accordingly, most historians regard D-Day as the most important day of the 20th century. However, its true meaning to each subsequent generation of Americans has been gradually diminished by the passage of time. Sadly, this 80th anniversary reveals the steadily thinning ranks of “Eisenhower’s boys.” So, if you happen to know a veteran of the D-Day invasion, take a moment while you have the opportunity to thank them for what they did. They represented us on the beaches that day, and all of us should feel privileged to have known them and lived among them. We are obligated to preserve and honor their legacy for all future generations to come.
AFTERWORD
The inspiration for this D-Day essay was Steven Spielberg’s epic war film, “Saving Private Ryan”, and I wrote it shortly after seeing the movie for a second time on HBO. It is still the most intense experience I’ve ever had while watching a movie in a theater. I was so moved by the film that shortly after seeing it for the first time, I wrote a letter to the Philadelphia Daily News that was published in the August 8, 1998 edition. Parts of the letter follow, and it still sums up my feelings quite well: “I was unprepared for the intense and realistic depiction of the Normandy invasion in “Saving Private Ryan.” Throughout the first 25 minutes of the movie, my fists were clenched so tightly that my palms still have fingernail impressions. How, I thought, could those American soldiers face such a murderous barrage of machine-gun and mortar fire and continue to assault that beach? What was it that kept them moving forward? Fighting in a war thousands of miles from home, a generation of Americans was tasked with helping to liberate Nazi-occupied Europe. A madman, whose crimes against humanity were not yet fully known, had to be stopped. How well these men fought would determine our country’s fate. I wondered if they realized that that they were not only fighting for those alive then, but also for those yet to be born? I shudder to think of what might have been if Hitler had pushed the Allies back into the sea that day and the war had been delayed long enough for the Nazis to develop atomic weapons before the United States did. Most of us would not be here today.”
(Originally published in the April 6, 2017 Philadelphia Inquirer)
It was Thanksgiving Day, November 27, 1919, and the Solemn Military Memorial Mass for the doughboys of Philadelphia’s St. Columba parish had just concluded. The attendees, led by an armed guard and color bearers, two from the Army and two from the Navy, filed out of the beautiful church and gathered in the school yard at 24th and Lehigh.
The December 6, 1919 Catholic Standard and Times noted that during the Mass, seats were reserved in the middle aisle for the members of the families of the twenty seven boys of the parish who gave their lives during the Great War, and now these same family members were accorded the area closest to the cloaked structure now positioned at the front of the school yard. The late-autumn chill and overcast, sullen grey sky not only reflected the somber mood of the crowd, but many of the faithful likely believed that on this day, even God was sad. A ten year old boy stood next to the structure. A respectful silence fell among the crowd, and some wiped away tears, as the sorrowful eyes of the parishioners fell upon the boy. They knew why he had been chosen to unveil the large memorial tablet in honor of the St. Columba’s doughboys who fought in World War I.
—-
St. Columba’s parish was founded in 1895, and the beautiful Gothic church at 24th and Lehigh was constructed in 1904. The parish was primarily comprised of Irish immigrants from the surrounding neighborhood known as “Swampoodle.” I visited the church, now known as St. Martin de Porres, in March of 2014, and as I glanced up at its facade the Irish heritage of the masons and original parishioners was readily evident within the Gothic architecture of the building itself. High above the main entrance was a huge Celtic Cross, and just under it was a statue of St. Columba, the Irish missionary and Patron Saint of Derry. Statues of St. Brigid and St. Patrick also adorned the front exterior, and as I glanced up at them, I thought I heard my grandfather’s voice, with his thick Irish brogue, whispering in the wind: “Ya see…the saints are lookin’ down upon ya, lad.” Although I knew it was just the wind and my imagination, I smiled anyway and softly answered, “I hope so, Grandpop.”
My search for the Roman Catholic High School alumni who gave their lives in World War I had stalled, and it led me to St. Columba’s that day. My father, an alumnus of both St. Columba’s parochial school and Roman, suggested that I head down to the old church for some new leads. “There’s a big monument in the vestibule”, he told me. “It has the names of all of the guys from the parish who fought in World War I, and it also lists the ones who were killed. St. Columba’s was a big feeder parish to Roman back then. Some of them might have gone to Roman.”
I entered the church and was immediately struck by its beauty. Ornate stone, tiles, and brick trimmed in gold and green lined the walls and ceilings, with elaborate carvings, statues, and stained glass throughout the interior. I entered the vestibule and there, on the far wall, was the largest World War I Memorial tablet I had come across thus far. The December 6, 1919 Catholic Standard and Times described it as “a beautiful massive bronze tablet, 4 feet high and 6 feet wide, said to be the most elaborate of any erected in the city, and which is the gift of the parishioners.” Carved upon the tablet are the names of the 486 members of the parish who served in the armed forces during the Great War. A special section contains the names of the 27 boys who gave their lives. My father turned out to be right, as subsequent research revealed that one of the boys killed, Frank T. Schommer, was a Roman alum. However, there were two names among the 27 that immediately caught my attention: Charles J. Fischer and John J. Fischer. I couldn’t help but wonder if they were related.
—–
Ten year old Joseph Fischer stood at the front of St. Columba’s school yard that Thanksgiving Day in 1919, and unveiled the Memorial Tablet that held the names of the doughboys of St. Columba’s, including his brothers, Charles and John. A street parade of the parish soldiers who returned home under the command of Lieutenant Joseph Yates followed the unveiling ceremony, and the women of the parish held a banquet that evening for the doughboys. But for the parish families of the boys who never returned, the moment was bittersweet. The parents of St. Columba’s Daniel Lee wrote a poem about their son that was published in the Philadelphia Inquirer just one month before the unveiling of the Memorial tablet that conveys the deep sense of loss and anguish these families must have endured:
“A precious son from me was taken,
A voice we loved is still,
A wound within my heart is sealed,
Which never can be healed,
To France he went a volunteer,
His love, his life was given,
His body was not returned to me,
But his soul was sent to heaven.”
Private Daniel E. Lee, of Philadelphia’s 315th Infantry Regiment, is buried at the St. Mihiel American Cemetery in France.
AFTERWORD
After I obtained the names from the plaque of the 27 parishioners from St. Columba who gave their lives in World War I, I was actually quite surprised to find that only one, Frank T. Schommer, was a Roman alumnus. I expected that there would be several. The parish has been sending students to Roman since its founding in 1895, and, now known as St. Martin de Porres, that tradition continues to this day. In 2018, after I had concluded my annual presentation to the students that details my search for Roman’s WW I alumni, one of the students introduced himself to me and told me that he was from St. Martin de Porres, and he never really took notice of the plaque until my presentation. Indeed, it came as no surprise to the Alumni Association that the parish that had the most members on Roman’s 2015 list of “125 Persons of Distinction” was St. Columba.
Originally published in the June 13, 2012 Philadelphia Inquirer
“It fell to the floor, an exquisite thing, a small thing that could upset balances and knock down a line of small dominoes and then big dominoes and then gigantic dominoes, all down the years across Time. Eckels’ mind whirled. It couldn’t change things. Killing one butterfly couldn’t be that important! Could it?
Eckels moaned. He dropped to his knees. He scrabbled at the golden butterfly with shaking fingers. “Can’t we,” he pleaded to the world, to himself, to the officials, to the Machine, “can’t we take it back, can’t we make it alive again? Can’t we start over? Can’t we-“
He did not move. Eyes shut, he waited, shivering. He heard Travis breathe loud in the room; he heard Travis shift his rifle, click the safety catch, and raise the weapon.
There was a sound of thunder.”
(From “A Sound of Thunder” by Ray Bradbury)
As I read the final words of the story, my mouth was agape in astonishment as a chill ran up my spine. The written word had never had so profound an impact upon me. Although I was just 11 years old at the time, I knew that what I’d just read would somehow stay with me forever. The story was “A Sound of Thunder”, and I still regard it as one of the greatest science fiction short-stories ever written. It tells the tale of time travelers hunting a Tyrannosaurus Rex, but an arrogant hunter carelessly steps on, and kills, a butterfly with dire consequences for humanity. I read the story’s chilling ending over and over – at least a hundred times. I stared at the cool sci-fi cover art on the little paperback book for hours, and its title and author were permanently carved into my mind: R is for Rocket by Ray Bradbury.
To most, it was just another one of my big brother Jerry’s numerous $1.50 sci-fi paperbacks from the rotating book-display rack at Woolworth’s department store. But, to me, it was pure gold. I eagerly tore into the book’s other short stories and they captivated my imagination: astronauts fight for their lives after crash landing in the swampy jungles of Venus, an ancient sea creature rises from the depths of the ocean, drawn to the sound of a lighthouse fog horn, and astronauts come to the realization that the paradise planet they discovered has hidden dangers they never anticipated. These were just a few of the brilliant stories written in Bradbury’s unique poetic prose – a wondrous mix of science fiction, fantasy, suspense, and horror.
After that day, I was hooked, and if Jerry couldn’t find his other Bradbury books in his bedroom bookcase, he knew where they’d be. I read Bradbury’s other short story collections found in “S is for Space”, “The Illustrated Man”, “The October Country”, and “The Golden Apples of the Sun” so many times that I cracked the spine of the books. Over the years, Jerry and I would often talk about our favorite Bradbury stories, and whenever he had a new book released we would make sure we let each other know about it.
Although I had always liked to write, and would often tell my family and friends that “one of these days I’m going to write about that”, I never took it seriously until I read Bradbury’s book on writing, “Zen in the Art of Writing.” In it he wrote, “What are the best things and the worst things in your life, and when are you going to get around to whispering or shouting them? You fail only if you stop writing.” I remember feeling that he was speaking directly to me. I started to write on a regular basis shortly after I read that.
When I heard the news that Ray Bradbury had died, I felt like I had lost an old friend. I knew who I had to contact first, and I thanked Jerry for introducing me to Ray.
In his seminal novel “Fahrenheit 451”, Ray Bradbury wrote, “It doesn’t matter what you do…so long as you change something from the way it was before you touched it into something that’s like you after you take your hands away.”
A Ray Bradbury paperback book is such a small, exquisite thing, and it can change things all down the years and across time. And the stories within that book can touch and change lives forever – including the life of a kid for whom those stories resonated like a sound of thunder.
The Twilight Zone is regarded by many as one of the greatest television series ever produced, certainly the best anthology series, and made a star of its creator, Rod Serling. The show became deeply entrenched in American culture, and the SyFy Channel’s annual New Year’s Twilight Zone Marathon is watched by millions. As an unabashed Twilight Zone fanatic, for what it’s worth, the following are my top 15 TZ episodes.
#15 – Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up? Great episode written by Rod Serling featuring a ‘double-twist’ ending as just after the actual three-armed Martian was finally revealed, another alien from Venus, and with three eyes to boot, shocks the viewers at the very end. Interestingly, in the original story, Serling had a stray dog adopted by the owner of the diner as the hidden alien. And, if you think that wouldn’t have worked, remember that the original form that the alien took in the 1982 movie remake of The Thing (starring Kurt Russell) was a dog.
#14 – Living Doll. Based on an idea by the great Charles Beaumont (who would write many classic TZ episodes) and written by Jerry Sohl, the creepy Talky Tina doll says things like, “I don’t think I like you”, and “I’m going to kill you!” to nasty stepfather, Erich (played by Telly Savalas, later to star in The Dirty Dozen as wacky A.J. Maggott, and after that as famed TV detective, Kojak). The ending is great as after the doll intentionally trips the stepfather on the stairs, causing him to fall and die, the girl’s mother picks up the doll and it eerily says, “My name is Talky Tina, and you’d better be nice to me.” A Fun Fact from The Twilight Zone Companion by M.S. Zicree – The voice of the doll was done by June Foray, also the voice for Rocky the Flying Squirrel on the epic Bullwinkle cartoon show.
#13 – To Serve Man.The teleplay was written by Rod Serling, but it is based on the short story by the great Damon Knight (if you’ve never read Damon Knight’s short stories, you should go on Amazon and order one of his short story anthologies immediately!) Many TZ fanatics regard the twist-ending of this episode to be the most shocking as the supposedly altruistic aliens are revealed to really only have one purpose for humans – to put them on the menu! A book with the title “To Serve Man” was ultimately decrypted and discovered to be a cookbook on the different ways that humans could be served as a meal!! The Twilight Zone Companion by M.S. Zicree reveals that Damon Knight would later say that “I thought the adaptation was kind of neat – it made me famous in Milford, Pennsylvania, suddenly everyone knew who I was.”
#12 – Five Characters in Search of an Exit.The teleplay was written by Rod Serling, but it was based on the short story The Depository by Marvin Petal. Great episode that leaves the viewer focusing on, and subsequently trying to guess, exactly where these five characters are, and by doing so, the viewer never focuses on actually what they may be. And what’s with that freaking bell they keep hearing!!?? The classic ending reveals that the five characters are actually toy dolls in a Christmas toy donation barrel. The unimaginative among us, upon watching this episode in 1961, might have said, “Well…that was a dumb premise.” But, who would have guessed that 34 years later a Disney film about toy dolls that come to life, Toy Story, would take the world by storm and become a multimedia franchise with 3 record-setting sequels?!
#11 – Eye of the Beholder.Written by Rod Serling. One of the most iconic of all TZ episodes, this particular one absolutely scared the living sh** out of me when I was a kid! My older brothers set me up and said I could take my hands down from covering my eyes as the supposedly horrific-looking woman under the bandages was finally revealed to be the beautiful Donna Douglas (Ellie May from The Beverly Hillbillies). Unfortunately, my relief was short-lived as the camera quickly cut to the horrible, terrifying, and truly scary faces of the surrounding doctors and nurses. I couldn’t sleep for days. Apparently, I wasn’t the only one for whom this episode left an impact. As recounted in The Twilight Zone Companion by M.S. Zicree, Producer Buck Houghton wanted to see what the viewers might think of the episode, and he screened it for a guy named Lud Gluskin, head of music at CBS, before it was televised. Houghton said that Lud was “a very imperturbable old German…sixty-five, and pretty hard to move. And at the end of that he said, ‘Jesus Christ!’…”
#10 – Nightmare at 20,000 Feet.Written by the great Richard Matheson. “Who’s that?”, you may ask – While Matheson wrote many TZ episodes, he is also one of the great sci-fi/fantasy/horror writers of the 20th century in his own right. He wrote I Am Legend, Duel, The Night Stalker, Stir of Echoes, What Dreams May Come, and Prey (that crazy 1970’s TV episode in which that terrifying Zuni Warrior doll attacks actress Karen Black), just to name a few. Again – grab a book of his short stories if you see one. This was another episode that frightened me as a kid, even though, as I look back on it now, the gremlin-monster on the wing of the plane that terrified William Shatner was pretty lame-looking by today’s standards. It’s still a very scary episode, and it was one of the episodes that was remade for The Twilight Zone Movie in 1983, with a much scarier gremlin thanks to a bigger budget and modern special effects. A funny story regarding the episode from The Twilight Zone Companion by M.S. Zicree – a few weeks after it aired, Rod Serling had worked with Western Airlines to set-up having a life-size poster of the gremlin secretly placed on the outside window of the plane seat that Matheson was going to sit in. The idea was that Matheson would take his seat, open the window curtains, and shockingly see the gremlin looking in at him. So, they had it all set up, Matheson was in his seat, the plane’s engines start up, but the propellers of the plane blew the poster off the window before Matheson opened the curtain! Oh well…it would have been funny.
#9 – The Howling Man.Written by Charles Beaumont. Again, like Damon Knight and Richard Matheson, Beaumont was a superb writer, although not as prolific. In this episode, a lost European traveler comes upon a seemingly kooky order of monks who have what appears to be a normal, sane man imprisoned because they claim he is actually the devil himself. The only thing weird about the imprisoned man is that he howls like a wounded wolf. The traveler eventually frees the man, only to realize the mistake he has made – for the monks were right!! With the limited resources of an early 1960’s TV show, they did a great job with the special effects in showing the freed man gradually transforming into the hideous devil. A shout-out to Beaumont for recognizing the often-forgotten Korean War in his script. When the traveler realizes the enormity of what he had done just prior to World War 2 and the evil he had released onto the world he says: “The evil that soon took the shape of the Second World War, the Korean War, the hideous new weapons of war. I swore I’d find him again, as Brother Jerome had done.” My Dad was a Korean War veteran, and too often it’s not mentioned in historical context, almost as if it never happened – a disgrace to the men who fought and died there. So, kudos to Beaumont for remembering that war in his script.
#8 – Mirror Image.Another classic episode written by Rod Serling in which a woman causes a stir at a bus depot claiming that she is being stalked by another woman, and that other woman is….herself! Actually…her double from a co-existing reality that wants to take over for her. A sympathetic man at the bus depot, played by Martin Milner – later of Adam-12 fame, pretends to believe her but instead ends up calling the police to have the “crazed woman” taken away to get psychiatric help. The ending is classic Serling as the man chases someone who has stolen his briefcase. As he is running after him down the street, the thief turns his head, and the man horrifyingly sees that he is chasing….himself! As revealed in The Twilight Zone Companion by M.S. Zicree, Serling got the idea for this story when he was at an airport in London and noticed a man who had his back to him, but was eerily dressed exactly the same as Serling, with the same height, and holding the exact same leather briefcase. When the man turned around, Serling said, “…he was ten years younger….but this did leave its imprint sufficiently to write a story about it.”
#7 – The Monsters are Due on Maple Street. Written by Rod Serling. After a meteor is spotted overhead by the residents of Maple Street, inexplicable things start to happen: lights flicker on and off, cars start by themselves, and phones ring for no reason. A young boy says it’s the start of an alien invasion and one of the residents may be an alien. This starts paranoid-driven and senseless suspicions among the neighbors that ultimately leads them to violently turn on each other. The classic ending reveals that the cause of the flickering lights and other malfunctions was, in fact, aliens who then conclude that the conquest of Earth should be easy: “Throw them into darkness for a few hours and then just sit back and watch the pattern…They pick the most dangerous enemy they can find…and its themselves. And all we need to do is sit back…and watch.” The episode was Serling’s commentary on prejudice in our society and he summed it up eloquently in his closing narration: “For the record, prejudices can kill, and suspicions can destroy, and a thoughtless, frightened search for a scapegoat has a fallout all its own – for the children, and the children yet unborn. And the pity of it is that these things cannot be confined to the Twilight Zone.”
#6 – Time Enough at Last.The teleplay was written by Rod Serling but it is based on a short story by Lynn Venable. Bookworm Henry Bemis, with extremely thick eyeglasses for his poor eyesight and played by the great Burgess Meredith, sneaks off into the vault of his bank employer during lunchbreak to engage in his favorite activity – reading. While in the vault, there was an all-out nuclear war. When Bemis emerges from the vault and searches the ruins, he realizes that he may be the last man on Earth. As he is about to take his own life he notices the ruins of the public library, and believes that instead of hell, he may have just stepped into paradise as now he has all the time in the world – “time enough at last” – to read for the remainder of his days! In one of the greatest endings of all Twilight Zone episodes, the nearly blind Bemis has his thick glasses fall from his face and break on the rubble. “It isn’t fair”, a weeping Bemis says into the camera as he stands among the ruins of the library. As written in The Twilight Zone Companion by M.S. Zicree, the episode had such an impact on the American public that Meredith would say many years later that “I don’t suppose a month goes by, even to this day, that people don’t come up and remind me of that episode.”
#5 – Deaths Head Revisited. Written by Rod Serling. A sadistic former Nazi death-camp guard returns to Dachau prison to fondly remember his days there, just 15 years prior, where he tortured and killed thousands of the inmates. However, the former guard has a terrifying surprise awaiting him at the camp – the ghosts of the inmates he killed, who then put him on trial for his crimes. He is found guilty, and his sentence is that he will now experience all of the physical pain he inflicted on the inmates. This renders the former guard permanently insane. The doctor who finds the now incoherent, babbling guard angrily asks the question: “Dachau…why do we keep it standing?” Serling answers the Doctor’s question in what I believe is his greatest ending narration. It should be noted that Dachau was liberated by American soldiers, and Serling, a World War II veteran himself, knew that many of those liberating soldiers, only in their 30’s and 40’s when the episode first aired, would be watching. Quite a few suffered debilitating PTSD from what they found at Dachau, and I interviewed one of them for one of my essays, Don Greenbaum, as well as a survivor of Dachau, Ernie Gross. The ending narration stands the test of time and is now a great way to address the increasing and nonsensical claims that the Holocaust never happened. “There is an answer to the doctor’s question. All the Dachaus must remain standing. The Dachaus, the Belsens, the Buchenwalds, the Auschwitzes, all of them. They must remain standing because they are a monument to a moment in time when some men decided to turn the earth into a graveyard. Into it, they shoveled all of their reason, their logic, their knowledge, but worst of all, their conscience. And the moment we forget this, the moment we cease to be haunted by its remembrance, then we become the gravediggers. Something to dwell on and to remember, not only in the Twilight Zone, but wherever men walk God’s earth.”
#4 – I Shot An Arrow Into the Air.Written by Rod Serling but based on an idea by Madelon Champion. The Arrow One, the first manned spacecraft, suddenly disappears off the radar screens after launch, and all contact is lost. It turns out that Arrow One crashed on an uncharted asteroid. Three of the eight astronauts have survived the wreck, but their precious remaining water is in short supply. One of the astronauts, Corey, played by Dewey Martin, intends to kill his fellow astronauts for the remaining water. One of the astronauts he attacked and left for dead cannot speak, but still indicates that he saw something over the hill before he died, and he scrawls a symbol of it in the sand before he dies. Corey, now the last astronaut remaining after he kills Commander Donlin, heads to the hill with the strange symbol. In an absolutely killer ending, Corey, to his horror, discovers the meaning of the strange symbol – it was a telephone pole. The Arrow One had not crashed on an asteroid…it simply fell back to the Earth and crashed into the Nevada desert. One of the highlights of the episode is Serling’s sudden mid-episode narration in which he mockingly urges “Corey, yeah, you better keep moving. That’s the order of the moment: keep moving.” I can still remember my older brothers hysterically laughing at Serling’s mocking of Corey, as they clearly wanted to see him get what was coming to him. Per The Twilight Zone Companion, Serling and Champion were in a social setting when Champion pitched the idea to Serling, who then paid Champion “$500 on the spot. But it never happened again.”
#3 – The Purple Testament. Written by Rod Serling. The setting is during World War II on the Philippine Islands in 1945. Lieutenant Fitzgerald, leader of an infantry platoon, realizes that whenever he sees an eerie glow in the face of one of his soldiers, that soldier ends up being killed. Fitzgerald is relieved to hear that he is being sent back to division headquarters so that he will no longer have to look at the faces of the men in his platoon. However, while he is looking into the mirror when shaving before his trip back to headquarters, he sees the eerie glow in his own face. He then sees the same glow in the face of his driver. After the two of them leave in their Jeep, the men of the platoon hear a distant explosion in the direction that the Jeep traveled. Nothing more needed to be said of their fate. Serling clearly drew upon his own experiences when depicting the men of the platoon as he was a World War II paratrooper who fought and was wounded in the Philippines. A crazy story associated with this episode from The Twilight Zone Companion is that on the day that it was first set to air, the actor who played Lieutenant Fitzgerald, William Reynolds, and the director of the episode, William Bare, were on a small plane flying from Jamaica to Miami. The plane’s engines died, and it went down in the ocean, killing one of the five people on board. Bare had two broken legs, but he and Reynolds decided to try and swim, on their backs, the 4 miles back to the Jamaican shore. While they were swimming, Bare said to Reynolds “You know what’s playing tonight?” Reynolds replied, “Yeah, The Purple Testament.” Bare said, “Bill, please don’t look at me.”
#2 – One For The Angels. Written by Rod Serling. An old man, Lewis J. Bookman (played by Ed Wynn), is confronted by Mr. Death, brilliantly played by veteran actor, Murray Hamilton (he later played the sleazy mayor in Jaws). Death informs sidewalk-salesman Bookman that his time on this Earth is up, but Bookman does not want to go until he makes his final “Big Pitch – a Pitch for the angels.” He convinces Death to let him live until he does this ‘Pitch’, but he actually has no intention of ever giving it. Unfortunately, Death has to take someone else in Bookman’s place, and after a little girl from the neighborhood is hit by a truck and left fighting for her life, Bookman terrifyingly realizes that she is the one chosen by Death in place of Bookman. He also learns that the time that Death will be taking her is midnight. Bookman realizes that if he can prevent Death from making his “appointment at midnight”, then the little girl will live. He then proceeds to try and distract Death from his appointment by selling him his various street merchandise. Bookman gives the pitch of a lifetime, and the distracted Death then misses his midnight appointment. The little girl lives, but it also means that Bookman must now accompany Death. In what many regard as The Twilight Zone’s most beloved episode, the emotional ending as Bookman and Death walk down the deserted street together always leaves a lump in the throat. Interestingly, per The Twilight Zone Companion, Serling actually wrote One For The Angels many years prior, just after college. In the original story, “an unsuccessful sidewalk pitchman tries to save his two-bit punk brother from a couple of hitmen by giving a pitch so beguiling that they will always be surrounded by a crowd.” Serling specifically wanted a story for the much-admired Wynn and re-wrote his old Angels story just for him. The re-written story proved superior to the original.
#1 – Walking Distance. Written by Rod Serling. An advertising executive, Martin Sloan, weary of his fast paced, busy, and unfulfilling life stops at a gas station outside of his boyhood home and decides to take a nostalgic walk to his old hometown, commenting that it is within “walking distance.” While walking through the town, he gradually realizes that he has somehow miraculously been transported back in time to when he was just a child. He confronts his parents, but they think he is some crazy kook and angrily shut their door in his face. He then tries to talk to himself as a young boy, to simply tell the boy to enjoy this wonderful period of his life. But, the frightened child runs from him, trips off of the merry-go-round and injures his leg, a pain that the elder Sloan immediately feels. In what many regard as one of the greatest scenes in Twilight Zone history, Sloan’s father confronts Sloan after reading through the contents of his dropped wallet. The father knows that this man is actually his son, Martin, who has somehow traveled back in time. Despite the fact that Martin is now the same age as his father, he still seeks his counsel – the same way, and with the same respectful deference that he always had in their father-son dynamic. After Martin reluctantly agrees with his father that he must go back, his father says, “Martin, is it so bad where you’re from?” Martin responds, “I thought so, Pop. I’ve been living on a dead run, and I was tired. And one day I knew I had to come back here. I had to come back and get on the merry-go-round, and eat cotton candy, and listen to a band concert. To stop and breathe and close my eyes and smell and listen. His father wisely advises, “I guess we all want that. Maybe when you go back, Martin, you’ll find that there are merry-go-rounds and band concerts where you are. Maybe you haven’t been looking in the right place. You’ve been looking behind you. Try looking ahead.” The episode is deeply personal for Serling, and most regard the character of Martin Sloan as Serling himself who was clearly suffering from the enormous responsibilities associated with maintaining the production and quality of The Twilight Zone. As revealed in The Twilight Zone Companion, Serling got the idea for this episode “while walking on a set at MGM when I was suddenly hit by the similarity of it to my hometown. Feeling an overwhelming sense of nostalgia, it struck me that all of us have a deep longing to go back – not to our home as it is today, but as we remember it. It was from this simple incident that I wove the story Walking Distance…”
Edward A. Duff hailed from St. Francis Xavier parish and graduated from Roman in 1903.
After graduating from Roman, he was ordained a priest and later served in Europe as a Naval Chaplain during World War I aboard the USS Nevada. He was also aboard the U.S.S. Olympia during its famous voyage from France to the United States in 1921 to deliver the body of the Unknown Soldier. Duff was also decorated in 1920 by the king of Italy with the Chevalier of the Crown of Italy for his service aboard the Italian battleship Puglia in the Adriatic, and was promoted to captain in 1925. In 1937 he was named Chief of the Navy Chaplain Corps, the first Catholic to hold that position. His lectures on the Unknown Soldier were estimated to have been heard by over 300,000 people. Unfortunately, a heart ailment forced his early retirement and he died in Philadelphia at the age of 58 in 1943.
John R. Corkery – Class of 1936
John R. Corkery hailed from St. Anne’s parish and following graduation from Roman in 1936, he served in the U.S. Army during World War 2.
During the Battle of Rapido River in 1944, Corkery courageously battled under furious artillery, mortar, and machine gun fire for more than 10 hours, to establish position so he could maintain constant communications with his battalion. Over 1,300 U.S. soldiers would lose their lives in the battle with more than 600 captured. Corkery was later wounded in Italy. For his actions in battle he was awarded 2 Bronze Stars, an Oak Leaf Cluster, and a Purple Heart.
Following the war, Corkery would go on to raise a family of 11 children with a highly successful career with the VA. He also established himself as a great CYO basketball coach with St. Anne Parish in Port Richmond, and was founder of what became the Port Richmond Boys Club by starting their football program. He died at the young age of 52, and is beloved by a generation of boys in the neighborhood who to this day speak with love and reverence for him.
Bernard Donahue – Class of 1941
Bernard Donahue grew up on Park Avenue in North Philadelphia, hailing from St. Malachy parish. He graduated from Roman in 1941.
After high school, Bernard worked at John Wanamaker’s before enlisting in the Army as an Aviation Cadet. Ultimately, he earned his wings as a B-17 pilot and flew 26 combat missions over Germany and Austria. Among other honors, then 1st Lieutenant Donahue was awarded the Distinguish Flying Cross for returning his crippled bomber from a raid over Berlin.
In 1944, he married Rosemary Kirwan, a Hallahan graduate. He returned to Rosemary, Philadelphia and Wanamaker’s after the war. Bernard and Rosemary had 7 children, including an Air Force Colonel and a Navy Chief Petty Officer. Bernard later became vice president of a men’s’ clothing retailer here in Philadelphia. He died at age 54 from complications from diabetes. He was buried with full military honors in Holy Cross Cemetery in Yeadon.
Francis J. E. Ampthor – Class of 1942
Francis Ampthor hailed from St. Mary of the Assumption parish in Manayunk and while at Roman he was a member of 1942 city championship crew team, as well as the school band and Cahillite staff. He attended St. Joseph’s College for one year, then enlisted in the U.S. Navy during World War 2.
He served on the battleship U.S.S. Missouri in the Gunnery Department, witnessing the surrender of Japan in Tokyo Bay on September 2, 1945. He received the Victory Medal, the American Theater Ribbon and the Asiatic-Pacific Theater Ribbon with 2 Stars. After the war, he was part of the U.S.S. Missouri’s goodwill tour of the Mediterranean Sea region.
Following the war Ampthor was a chemical engineer at Rohm & Haas for nearly 44 years, helping farmers to formulate herbicides and pesticides, and later helping to develop fiberglass panels for Ford and Chevrolet cars. For many years, he taught Organic Chemistry Lab at night at St. Joseph’s University, was active in Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts, and in retirement drove the Roxborough Hospital patient shuttle and volunteered at St. Bridget’s Church in East Falls. He died in 1993.
Charles Fuller – Class of 1956
Charles Fuller hailed from North Philadelphia and graduated from Roman in 1956. Following Roman, he then studied for two years at Villanova University.
Fuller joined the U.S. Army in 1959 and served for 3 years overseas in Japan and South Korea.
He later graduated from LaSalle University and was a co-founder of the Afro-American Arts Theater in Philadelphia. Fuller became a noted playwright and in 1982 he won the Pulitzer Prize for drama for “A Soldier’s Play” that centered on the murder of a Black Army sergeant and the search for the culprit. The play would later make it to Broadway and win two Tony Awards. The movie version received three Oscar nominations. He was a member of the Writers Guild of America and wrote numerous short fiction and screenplays, as well as worked as a movie producer.
In 2015, Fuller was named one of Roman Catholic High School’s 125 Men of Distinction. He died on October 3, 2022.
Al Zimmerman – Class of 1965
Al Zimmerman graduated from Roman in 1965, hailing from St. Bridget’s parish. Following graduation, he joined the U.S. Army in 1966 and was selected to attend Officer Candidate School.
During the Vietnam War, Zimmerman served as a Helicopter Pilot, Platoon Leader, and Operations Officer with the 1st Air Cavalry Division. In 1969, during an operation to rescue wounded U.S. soldiers, Zimmerman’s Cobra helicopter was hit by enemy fire and forced down. He was later picked up by another helicopter crew, where Zimmerman manned a gun and placed suppressive fire on the enemy and called in air strikes against the enemy positions. The action resulted in the decimation of a large enemy unit, and Zimmerman was awarded the Silver Star for his actions. His other awards include: four awards of the Distinguished Flying Cross for heroism, the Bronze Star, the Purple Heart, and 27 Air Medals. Zimmerman is believed to be one of the most decorated alumni in Roman’s history and he was recently inducted into the U.S. Army Ranger Hall of Fame.
Edward Seeburger – Class of 1940
Edward Seeburger was born in Philadelphia and was a member of Our Lady of Mercy parish. He graduated from Roman in 1940. Following graduation, he immediately enlisted in the Marines and fought in the Pacific during World War II.
Seeburger also served as a First Lieutenant in the 1st Marine Division during the Korean War. During the Battle of the Chosin Reservoir, in temperatures that plummeted to minus 20 degrees, Seeburger was leading the remains of his Unit as they desperately fought their way south. Of the 220 Marines originally in his Company, only about 20 were still fit to fight. Out of seven officers, only Seeburger remained. His unit was ambushed by the enemy and, although bleeding profusely from a bullet wound in his leg, Seeburger was able to direct his tank gunners as to where to fire at the enemy positions which wiped out the enemy and enabled his convoy to escape. For his selfless act of courage during the battle, Seeburger was awarded the prestigious Navy Cross, just one grade below the Congressional Medal of Honor.
Following the war, Seeburger retired from the Marines and returned to Philadelphia, where he and his wife, Helen, raised a daughter, Dolores. Seeburger worked as a park police officer and then as an engraver for 32 years at Becks Engraving Co. He died in 2007 at the age of 85.
(Edited version originally published in the November 27, 2016 Philadelphia Inquirer)
“The darkest night is often the bridge to the brightest tomorrow.” (Jonathan Lockwood Huie)
I was barely awake on that recent mid-summer morning as I started to read the text from Ed, one of my closest childhood friends. It had been sent hours before, while I slept. My heart raced faster as I read each word. “Oh my God!”, I uttered. My wife sat up in bed, alarmed by the pained expression on my face. “What?! What is it?!”, she asked. I was still trying to comprehend what I was reading and couldn’t respond. “It’s….it’s Ed’s little daughter, Julia. She was rushed to the hospital. She’s really sick. Something in her brain.” I immediately called Ed, completely forgetting that it was 5am in Los Angeles. As we spoke, for the first time in the 48 years that I’ve known him, I sensed fear in his voice.
In the days and weeks following that call, I couldn’t stop thinking about the terrible anxiety and heartache that Ed and his family were enduring, and how life, at times for all of us, can seem so difficult and unfair. I was occasionally overwhelmed with feelings of helplessness in knowing that my friend and his family were struggling and there was nothing that I could do.
It was also during this time that “The Bridge” seemed to be reaching out to me. Although I’ve driven over the bridge at Henry and Valley Avenues in Roxborough hundreds of times in the last 40 years, I hadn’t really given much thought to the teenage years that I’d spent there with Ed and the other guys from our “crew”. But now it seemed that each time I drove over it, something seemed to seep within my sub-conscience, a faint message tantalizingly close to clarity, yet elusive as the wind. Maybe it was just simple nostalgia, or perhaps little Julia’s struggle triggered in me that innate desire, shared by many of us, to return to a simpler time when there was no fear, a time when the pressures wrought by the complexities of life didn’t seem to exist, a time when Ed and I had yet to cross over the threshold from adolescence into adulthood. I cannot say. But something linked to the bridge seemed to be calling out to me with an indistinct message that lay just beyond the periphery of my understanding. I decided to go back to the bridge to see if I could find what that message may be.
As I walked towards the bridge on that hot summer day I wasn’t really sure of what I was looking for or what I’d find, but the memories of my days there suddenly flooded back. I remembered that people in the surrounding neighborhood thought that it was strange that my buddies and I “hung out” under a bridge, and called us “trolls”. We weren’t offended by the name, and actually reveled in the unique identity it created for us. The bridge had a 50 foot x 15 foot leveled, compacted-dirt ledge directly underneath its northern side with a 9 foot floor to ceiling headroom. It became our sanctuary that not only shielded us from the wind, rain, and snow, but also temporarily safeguarded our carefree teen spirit from the ever encroaching world of adulthood and responsibility.
I bounded down the old path that led underneath the bridge and my nostalgic visit to the past quickly became a sobering meeting with the present. It seemed darker and colder than I remembered. Spray-painted, bubble-letter graffiti, commonly found on old Philadelphia warehouse buildings, now adorned the walls. It also appeared that someone was living there as a chair was positioned in front of a still-smoldering fire-pit. There was an old coat, fast-food trash, jugs of water, and a large plastic container strewn around the dirt ledge. All remnants of our days there were gone, and my positive memories of the place where lifelong friendships had been forged were now tarnished by what it had become. It felt strange, yet oddly familiar, and as I looked at the empty chair, I couldn’t help but view it as an ominous warning of a life that may have been.
I walked up the path from underneath the bridge that day, convinced that there was no hidden message to be found there, but as I looked out onto Henry Avenue, I immediately noticed something very odd – there were no cars on the usually bustling roadway. In that silent, surreal moment, I looked across the empty bridge towards the other side, and realized for the first time just how sharply it curved around the bend. You couldn’t see what was on the other side of the bend, or where the road led – just like life.
It was then that I finally understood the elusive message: rather than being a sanctuary, the bridge was akin to a damp cellar in which we hid. It was only when we emerged from underneath it, and traveled on the road above it, did all of us finally reach the unique destinations that awaited us. Many of us were fortunate enough to bring new lives into this world, which brought great joy and meaning to our journeys. But Julia’s plight embodied the fear and heartache that can sometimes accompany us as we travel on the road of life. The key is to confront and overcome these obstacles, rather than try to escape from them.
Thankfully, the news from Julia’s doctors gradually improved with each passing day. It turns out that she has an AVM, a tangle of abnormal blood vessels connecting arteries and veins in her brain, but Julia’s case is highly treatable and she’s expected to make a full recovery. The last time that I spoke to Ed, the fear in his voice was gone and I was proud of the way he and his wife, Adrianna, bravely confronted what has to be every parent’s nightmare.
I drove over the bridge recently, and noticed thin wisps of smoke drifting up from below. It curled up and over the bridge, momentarily morphing into the ghostly apparitions of young boys and drifting far up into the sunlit sky until gradually fading away. I watched it disappear as I crossed the bridge, and rounded the bend, towards whatever destination awaited me on the other side.
AFTERWORD
As I write this in January, 2020, I’m happy to report that Julia has recovered quite well over these last 3 ½ years, and, now a vibrant, young teenager, is doing just fine. In regards to the Bridge, some of my friends thought that I was a bit too harsh in my assessment of it (ie:”…rather than being a sanctuary, the bridge was akin to a damp cellar in which we hid.”), as they have many fond recollections of our days and nights spent there. I have great memories of it as well, but metaphorically speaking, I still believe that the Bridge represented the path that we had to take in order to cross that sometimes scary gulf separating adolescence and adulthood. My friends and I temporarily stopped our journey, and went under the Bridge until we were ready to cross it. Looking back, perhaps I was a bit harsh – because we sure did have a lot of fun there before it was time to go!
More stories of growing up in Philadelphia, as well as the harrowing stories of America’s war veterans, and the triumphs of space exploration can be found in the new book by Philadelphia writer, Chris Gibbons: “Soldiers, Space, and Stories of Life”. Amazon.com link is below:
By Chris Gibbons – Originally published in the Philadelphia Daily News, August 7, 2007
I recently walked along a deserted beach, momentarily lost in my thoughts until I suddenly came upon a lifeguard stand. It was unoccupied, but as I looked up at the empty wooden seat my thoughts drifted back in time, and in my mind I could still picture the lifeguard.
It’s been over 35 years, but my memory of him hasn’t faded. I can still see him sitting on his stand, with long blond hair and white sunscreen on his nose, slowly twirling a silver whistle around his finger. And I’ll also never forget what he did on that hot summer day in 1972.
For a young kid from Philadelphia’s Roxborough neighborhood, summer was the smell of a freshly mowed lawn, or the squeak of high-top Chuck Taylor’s skidding on the asphalt during a game of wire-ball. Summer was the taste of a hand-me-down baseball glove as you chewed on its frayed laces during a little-league game. It was throwing rocks in the Wissahickon creek, playing wiffle-ball in the driveway, burning cap-gun ammo with a magnifying glass. It was looking up at the stars and wishing that life would always be this good.
To many Philadelphians, summer also meant the Jersey shore.
In July of 1972, my family vacationed in Ocean City. I remember running to the beach as soon as we arrived. The expanse of ocean that greeted me was overwhelming. I was one of 11 children and our home was crowded, but the ocean represented room, and freedom, and possibilities.
That was also the day I first saw the lifeguard. His incessant whistling, and arm-waving was the start of my disdain for him He reminded me of my teachers as he continually interrupted the fun with his shrill whistle: move over, come in closer, and stop throwing wet sand at your little brother.
One day, my little brother Pat and I were bodysurfing. The waves were unusually rough, with the two of us frequently getting tossed around by the surf. After getting pounded by a huge wave, I stood up, cleared the water from my eyes and noticed that I couldn’t find Pat.
I thought he’d been right next to me before the wave hit. Finally, I saw him. He was farther out than he should’ve been. I quickly realized that he was in water well above his head, and he was struggling. He was definitely struggling.
I started to swim out to him, but the water was too rough, and my skinny body wasn’t making any headway. Pat was being pulled out into deeper water as he must’ve been caught in a riptide. I began to panic and started to scream for help. I was thrashing around, and swallowing the salty seawater. Pat was clearly in trouble, continually going under and resurfacing. I was trying to scream, but was gagging so badly that I couldn’t.
I looked out again, and for the first time, I didn’t see Pat. My God, I thought to myself, my little brother has drowned!
Suddenly, something shot over my right shoulder. It knifed into the water just ahead of me, barely making a splash. It quickly emerged, arms and feet flailing like a powerful machine. It was the lifeguard, and he was moving like a torpedo toward my brother. I’ll never forget how quickly he got to Pat.
The lifeguard got Pat out of the water and back to the beach. Pat was OK, but he was spitting up water. A few people gathered around him and I knelt down next to him. We looked at each other and didn’t say anything.
We both had tears in our eyes, but for different reasons. He was a pain in the neck, but he was my little brother and I loved him, and he’d come within seconds of losing his life. You’re supposed to look out for your little brother, but I failed. I looked up at the lifeguard and hoped he could understand what I wanted to say, but couldn’t. I think he did.
In a heartbreaking twist of fate, just a few days after we returned from our vacation, my oldest brother Jack drowned in the Schuylkill River while swimming with friends. Nothing would ever be the same again for my family.
A house in a Philadelphia neighborhood wailed in sorrow that night, and the awful sound of it drifted across the hills of Roxborough. Some of the other houses heard it, and they began to sob as well. It was during that terrible night that a wishful image first came to my mind and continues to haunt me to this day.
It’s an image of a lifeguard stand. It sits on the banks of the Schuylkill River. Sitting atop the stand is a young kid, with long blond hair and white sunscreen on his nose, slowly twirling a silver whistle around his finger on a hot August day in the summer of ’72.
Chris Gibbons is a Philadelphia writer. gibbonscg@aol.com
More stories of growing up in Philadelphia, as well as the harrowing stories of America’s war veterans, and the triumphs of space exploration can be found in the new book by Philadelphia writer, Chris Gibbons: “Soldiers, Space, and Stories of Life”. Amazon.com link is below:
