Never Forget
Army veteran Elmer Glenn will never forget April 10, 1945 — the day his “foxhole buddy” Beverly Graham died in World War II.
“I was with him 'til he got killed,” said Glenn, 95. “The war ended May 8. It wasn't even a month until the war ended. That was hard to take. I didn't know his home address. For years, I fought with that.”
The two fought together for about six months, and grew to be like brothers.
“Only thing, I was Glenn and he was Graham,” Glenn quipped.
Years passed until Glenn's daughter's stepson tracked down Graham's family in Virginia.
Seventy years had passed before Glenn had the chance to tell them he was with him when he was killed. He traveled there to see Graham's wife, the son Graham never saw before his death, and his brothers and sisters.
“If you lose a child like that, you'd like to know how it happened,” Glenn said. “I always thought I wanted to tell them I was with him. That was a big load off my mind; I don't know why. We lost men every day. Our company was 400 percent casualties and he was one of them.”
Before the 75th anniversary of D-Day and Memorial Day, Glenn recalled his years in an Army Combat Infantry at the Battle of the Bulge in Germany during World War II.
Glenn was born March 4, 1924, in Freeport and was adopted by Sam and Anna Glenn at age 3. He was the oldest boy and had two brothers and a sister. Growing up, he lived on a small farm in Cadiz, Ohio, where he did farm work, helped with the harvest, plowed corn and hunted groundhogs, which was his favorite past time.“We were a little dot in history,” he said. “We were just an average family.”Glenn graduated high school in 1943 with dreams of becoming an airplane pilot. He failed the test by one point and planned to return in a week to retake the test.“But I never got back, and they came around and drafted me,” he said. “I got in the Infantry, and I'm still living today to tell about it. If I'd been a pilot, I might have been shot down a long time ago.”He was drafted into the Army at age 20 and did not think he would live to be 21.“You fight a war like I did and you don't live very long,” Glenn said. “I was one of the blessed ones. I got through that with my livelihood. I wasn't what you'd call afraid of dying.”He received his basic training in Oklahoma with the 42nd Rainbow Division as a heavy machine-gunner. Later, he was sent overseas to England, where he was in every campaign from northern France to Normandy.
“I carried an M1 all the way across Europe,” he said. “I had a lot of memories. I have a hard time forgetting a lot of them.”Glenn had a brush with death in the Hürtgen Forest along the Belgian-German border. It was there that a series of fierce battles were fought in the late fall of 1944. It was also there that Glenn said it was so dark that he could not see his hand in front of his face.“I was lying on a grenade. The pin was still there — barely,” he said. “That there was some of the funny things, I wouldn't say funny, but strange.”On Thanksgiving Day, Glenn was sent to a hospital in England for two months because he had trench foot in both his feet. The condition develops as a result of extended exposure to cold, wet conditions.“Imagine out in the weather in two or three inches of snow with no protection,” he said. “We didn't hardly have tents because we moved too much. We were in different positions every day.”His right foot was worse than his left, and still is. It still does not have feeling today, Glenn said.“I'm still suffering consequences of that time I spent over there. A lot of guys are,” he said.Glenn was one of the first replacements of the 4th Division in France for the Invasion of Normandy as a rifleman.“You know what they say, 'War is hell,'” he said. “The only thing left in Saint-Lô was a chimney standing. The rest of the houses were gone. Everything was destroyed.”His sergeant and squad leader drew a picture of the town square for Glenn, down to the bullet holes in the church. It is one of his greatest treasures.Glenn recalled that one of the best moments in his life was landing in New York Harbor after the war ended.“That ship I think went like that,” he said as he tilted his hand and head to the right. “Everyone went to the side to see the Statue of Liberty. We had just won the war and came home.”After the war, he was honorably discharged on Jan. 18, 1946, and went back to Ohio.Glenn did not have a job or wife at the time, so he helped his father, who was a plumber. He later moved and worked in Freeport where he lived with his aunt.He met his wife, Norma, at a Sunday school picnic and married her in 1948. The couple had three children. Now, Glenn has grandchildren, great-grandchildren and a great-great-grandchild.Like so many American soldiers from The Greatest Generation, Glenn returned to France on D-Day's 50th anniversary.“I went down to the beach and took a plastic bag and got a handful of sand from the beach and took it home,” he said. “You take a month after the invasion, that place stunk of all the blood that had been shed there during the invasion.”Glenn's daughter, Linda Rodriquez, said the family created Glenn a shadow box featuring his original basic training cap, dog tags, medals and photos.“I didn't want to do it,” he said as he looked at the display. “I feel like I'm lucky I'm alive today. I went through 14 months of war. I've seen a lot of guys (who) weren't as lucky as I was, fortunate or blessed or whatever you want to call it.”Rodriquez gathered Glenn's collectibles from the war, including a belt from a Frenchman, his rainbow patch, a watch his father bought him that he carried through the war, German and French money, his rifle cleaning kit and sack, a Nazi armband and other trinkets that were in a tool box and Xerox box.
“I'm proud to say at least that Dad's still here to tell his story,” said Rodriguez. “I think people today just don't really understand. I wish they would teach more of the reality of it in the schools, not just World War II, but military.”The graves at Omaha Beach are a reminder of how he could have been in one of them, Glenn said.“A lot of things I went through you can't brag about. You were there and had a part in it, not anymore a part of it than any other soldier,” he said. “I don't like to boast about the things I've done. I didn't do them by myself.”Glenn said he is blessed to have had a family and no health complications. He plans to celebrate Memorial Day with his family and make a call to Graham's wife.“Memorial Day is important, just like the day the war ended,” he said. “We couldn't do much to celebrate. I think people should remember all these years and milestones that come with history.”
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