MEMBER: Whayland Greene

E-MAIL ADDRESS: Whjoanngreene@aol.com

SERVICE:  Co.B, 154th. Battalion

Publications by Whayland Greene - contact Whayland Greene for a copy of this publication at the email address above.

Memorial Whayland Greene has been heavily involved in:

Belcher Veterans Memorial - 314 Gray Street  Belcher, LA 71004

THE STORY OF THE MEMORIAL

This project began in the heart of W. H. Greene, a Purple Heart Veteran, who served in the South Pacific during World War II.  Mr. Greene has been in touch with many Veterans across the nation and a plan was formed and discussed informally among some local residents. The plan was then presented to The Village of Belcher, to Mayor Jennifer Fant and Aldermen David Strahan, Sandy Duncan, and Betty Crain. The Village voted to purchase the land and begin serious planning. Help and encouragement came from Architect Joey French, who donated his services for the lay-out and design of the project. An effort was launched to recognize Veterans, Men and Women, from all over the nation. The goal was to build a Memorial remembering our wonderful veterans in a beautiful park setting and through permanently inscribed bricks. Veterans from all wars and all branches of service were invited to participate. Many are no longer living and bricks were purchased by loved ones and friends, so they would not be forgotten. At this point in time, over 700 bricks are in place or on order. If you have ordered a brick in recent weeks and do not see it on display, please remember the time of five to six months from the brick manufacturer. Every brick is installed immediately upon its arrival. This memorial will continue to grow and other names may be added on out into the future. The modest cost of a brick is $50. You may order one by calling JoAnn Greene at (318) 378-4385. The committee wants to express it's appreciation to all who had a part in the fulfillment of this outstanding project. The flag flying over the grounds is one that flew over the Capitol Building in Washington, D. C. and was secured by Congressman Jim McCrery. Plans have been made for perpetual care of the grounds. The Memorial is available to visitors each day and well lighted each evening.

FOLLOWING ARE ONLY A FEW OF MANY

GOOD REASONS FOR THE

BELCHER VETERANS MEMORIAL

John Elmer Smith, 3^rd Squadron, 1^st Platoon, Company C, 126^th Regiment, 32^nd Division from Carthage, New York: You were only 19 when you were killed on Leyte on December 11, 1944. We had been fighting several weeks and you had proven yourself to be an outstanding soldier more than once.

You were from Carthage, New York. It took me 54 years to locate your family but I did not give up until I did. I visited with two of your' sisters and one brother on the phone. They appreciated so much that I would spend the time to contact them. Your brother Roy died about two years after I talked with him.

The Belcher Veterans Memorial is being built to let people, now 58 years after your death and people in the future, know that people like you gave so much so all of us could continue to live in freedom and that you will not be forgotten.

1^st Lt. Coolidge, Company C, 1^st Platoon, 126^th Regiment, 32^nd Division from New York: I'm not sure I am spelling your name right but just look over it please. You were only 25 years old and I was 19. You were my platoon leader and I was assigned to you as platoon runner. We were attacking a hill on Luzon Island. We were up against rifle fire, machine gun fire, and were being attacked with grenades. Just as I handed you the walkie-talkie radio a shell exploded near us. That shed killed you and destroyed the radio and knocked me out. I thought I was dead. My back was hurting so bad but soon I was okay. When you were killed you had a radio in one hand and 45 pistol in the other- You were torn up pretty bad but that did not matter since you were already dead.

The Belcher Veterans Memorial is being built with people like you in mind so you won't. be forgotten even after the people who fought with you are gone.

PFC Baker: 1^st Platoon Company C, 126h Regiment, 32^nd Division: You were So young, only nineteen, when you were killed early one morning in the battle for Leyte Island. I only knew you a few months and don't even remember your first name. You were the first man in the 1^st Platoon, that I knew who was killed.  The Jap that killed you was wounded and captured with your rifle. That happened in November or December 1944.

By the way, I was nineteen years old at that time. That's been about 58 years ago. If I could communicate with you, I would like for you to know that my wife and I are helping to build a veterans memorial in the small town where we live. You happen to be one of the many veterans who were on my mind when we first started planning this memorial. So you see you haven't been forgotten.

S/Sgt. Spencer: I was assigned to your squad in Aitape, New Guinea. I was only nineteen years old and had not had much training. You had been fighting about a year and a half and had been wounded once already. When the fighting started on Leyte Island I tried hard to benefit from your fighting experiences. I wanted so much to be the soldier who could carry my share of the load and be the kind o f soldier that you wanted me to be. You looked after us "young" guys the best you could. You were the first man that I knew, to be killed in my squad. I was near you when you were killed. The same Jap that killed you was shooting at me, too, and not missing but a few inches at times.  It did not scare me so much at the time because I was so busy trying to keep the Japs from over-running us.  They had already gotten so close they were throwing grenades over our heads.

We had to bury you up on the front lines because we were short on men and there were so many Japs around that we couldn't send men back to carry the bodies back to the rear area.  We did come back to get you and bring your body back to the rear area. You were killed the same morning Baker was killed. When things settled down after that battle I really got shook up. I was so close to you and all the fighting you had gone through and I was so new to the game and you were killed and I was not. Some people said it was just luck; others said it just wasn't my time, so I don't know.

Anyway it's about 58 years later and my wife and I are helping to build a veterans memorial in our little town. You were one of the many veterans on my mind when we started talking about building a veterans memorial in Belcher, Louisiana, a small town of about 272 people. This memorial will show you have not been forgotten and that we appreciate what you did to keep us free.

T/Sgt. Roy Johnson from Olivia, Minnesota: I met you first at Aitape, New Guinea. You had been fighting about a year and a half You had gone through the battle of Buna, New Guinea which was much worse than the Guadalcanal battle. The battle of Buna was an infantry battle and not a marine battle so it did not get the same amount of publicity. This was okay with you guys because in your hearts you knew you had gone through one of the worst battles of World War II.  All of us young guys that came in as replacements for the men who were killed and wounded in the Buna battle and a couple of battles after that, always looked up to you guys and why shouldn't we? You were some of the best.

I was told that after the Buna battle the division went back to Australia for a well- deserved rest. That's when you and Harold Sullivan were lead astray by two pretty Australian girls and went AWOL for about 30 days. Before it was time to go back to fighting in New Guinea you both returned to the division and did not miss one day of combat. 'I don't think the U. S. Army was too upset because they did not have to support you for that thirty days, However, you did get a little bad time on your record and had to spend two or three extra months overseas.

Since you were my platoon Sgt. I fought near you on lots of patrols and also in battles for different hills we had to take from the Japs. I never fought with anyone that I felt safer being next to than you. You always seemed so calm and level-headed. If I could have picked a soldier that I would like to have been like, it would have been you.

You made it through the war after fighting more than three and one-half years with the division that had more combat time than any U. S. Division in any U. S. war. I still don't understand how you survived.

You did not tell me this but I heard it from other sources that you received the Purple Heart, which was very common in the 32nd Division. There were about 11,500 of them but you also received one of the only 900 Silver Stars that the division received. My thought on that is that the U. S. Government did not give that Silver Star to a young Canadian who served in the U. S. Army before he even became a U. S. citizen. He received the Silver Star the old-fashion way; he earned it.

You lived in Minnesota and I lived in Louisiana but that long distance did not keep us apart after World War II. You and your wife, Jewel, came to visit JoAnn and me and we visited each other at least five times and wrote letters and had phone calls often.

You died in 1990 and I would have to say that Minnesota lost one of it's best veterans. It's too bad that everyone in Minnesota did not know you like I knew you or your name would be in a Veterans memorial there and it may be for all I know. I do know that the Belcher Veterans Memorial is being built with thousands of people like you in mind and your name will surely be on an engraved brick in our memorial. Your outstanding service and sacrifices have not been forgotten and may they never be.

S/Sgt. Arbon C. Hale, 1^st Platoon Company C, 126^th Regiment, 32^nd Division from Tennessee: You fought hard and long. What an outstanding soldier you were! You looked after us young guys and tried so hard to protect us but there was so much danger around that it was impossible. Still you did it as long as you could and were shot in the back trying to get some of us younger guys back to safety. You were killed on Luzon Island in 1945.  I saw you fall and dragged you up the hill.

My wife and I visited your mother and father and two sisters in Gates, Tennessee, not too long after World War II was over. Then a few years later your mother and one of your sisters visited us in Belcher, Louisiana. Your sister, Ann, and her husband, Rex, visited in our home in Belcher fifty years after World War II was over.

The Belcher Veterans Memorial is being built so that people like you, who saved so many lives and in doing so, gave up your own life, will not be forgotten even after your close friends are gone.

Dennis Hebert, Company A, 126^th Regiment, 32^nd Division, from New Iberia, Louisiana: I trained with you and Martin Hickman at Camp Fannin, Texas, when we were 18 years old. We shipped overseas on the same ship. You and Hickman went to Company A at the same time that I went to Company C. I didn't see you often after we shipped overseas. I did meet you on a trail on Leyte Island once or twice. I have pictures of you and me together at Camp Fannin. You and Martin Hickman stayed close together and at the age of nineteen, you were killed by a Jap grenade and Martin was wounded by the same grenade. Martin said you were an outstanding combat soldier. It seems so many of the outstanding soldiers were killed or badly wounded.

The Belcher Veterans Memorial is being built so that people like you who fought so hard and died young will not be forgotten when your close friends are gone.

Lt. Col. Bailey, 1st Battalion Commander, 126^th Regiment, 32^nd Division, from Indiana: Col. Bailey, of course you did not know me because you were a Lt. Col. and I was a nineteen-year-old PFC at that time. You did once ask me how old I was and another time you said to me "How are you making it, soldier?” To be called a soldier by someone like you was an honor to me.  I had been on more than one patrol with you and I admired you.

I would keep thinking that you, being a Lt. Col., did not have to be on the front lines as much as you were, and you were in danger so many times. But being the kind of officer you were, I guess you did not want to send your men places that you would not go yourself

You were killed at night when a Jap threw a grenade in your fox hole. I was with you that day on a patrol.

I found out fifty years after World War II that you left a beautiful young wife and a son that you never got a chance to see. I have received several letters from her and she has told me what a wonderful person you were. From what short time I knew you, I knew it was like she said. I just want you to know that not only your family thought of you in that way, but also many of the young men that served under you thought of you as a great leader.

I would like for you to know that the Belcher Veterans Memorial is being built so that people like you who gave their all will not be forgotten.

S/Sgt. Whayland H. Greene

3^rd Squadron 1^st Platoon

Company C, 1^st Battalion

126^th Regiment, 32^nd lnfantry Division

I would like to make a special tribute to the following seven (7) men who attended Belcher High School and were killed in World War II.  They too gave their all and will not be forgotten:

Monroe Crawford Jimmy Dixon Fred Graham

W. B. Kennedy Billy Land

Sterling Loyd Lloyd Weldon

Of course I could go on and on about people who came home alive. If you knew what some of them went through you would appreciate the Belcher Veterans Memorial even more. Not only the ones we served with and knew but hundreds of thousands of others that should never be forgotten.

The Belcher Veterans Memorial is dedicated to all who have served ... past, present and future.

We will never forget.

All of the names above will be among the engraved bricks in the Belcher Veterans' Memorial.

W. H. Greene P. 0. Box 149

Belcher, LA 71004

(318) 378-4385

The Formal Dedication

of the

BELCHER VETERANS MEMORIAL

WELCOME - Jennifer Fant, Mayor of Belcher

INVOCATION - Rev. Jim Van Hook, Pastor, Dixie-Belcher Presbyterian Church

Official Color Guard - Barksdale A.F.B.

Singing of National Anthem - Martha Hollier, Soloist Gayle Moore, Accompanist

Flag Raising Over The Memorial - This Flag flew over the Capitol Building - Washington, D.C.

Pledge of Allegiance - To The American Flag

Introduction of Special Guests: Neil Johnson

Roy "Hoppy"HopkinS, District One. LA House of Representatives

Major General A.M. Stroud, Jr. - Army, Retired

M/Sgt. Steven CadWell - Crew Chief, B52 Bomb Squadron Jim McCrery, Representative, 4th. Congressional District, U. S. House of Representatives, Washington, D.C.

Formal Dedication - Dedicatory Prayer

Rev. George Bailey, Pastor, Belcher Baptist Church 'America, the Beautiful' - Martha Hollier, Soloist,

Gayle Moore, Accompanist

Special Recognitions: Neil Johnson, Committee Chairman

Placing of the Wreath -Lt. Col. Robert Caldwell, Retired. M/Sgt. Wesley Browning, Retired.

The Playing of Taps - BarksdaIe A.F.B.

Benediction- Rev. Gilbert Ross, Pastor, Little Canaan Baptist Church