One Last Mission for a WWII Veteran
By: Phil McCombs Source: AARP Bulletin Today Date Posted: April 2004
He remembers Manila burning, 59 years ago. Gen. Douglas MacArthur had returned to the Philippines, and Paul Arsenault was a wide-eyed 19-year-old Army private whose job was to unload cargo and troops with an amphibious vehicle. Just another dogface GI doing his duty with honor, perseverance and—yes—valor.
Now, white-haired and tanned at 78, with a winning grin and a portable oxygen tank slung over one shoulder, Arsenault steps carefully into the interior plaza of the new National World War II Memorial on the Mall in Washington. A major dedication ceremony takes place Memorial Day weekend, but Arsenault is getting a rare sneak preview.
He and his wife, Ann, are visiting from Texas with their daughter, Debra Arsenault, a U.S. Navy commander. Also on hand is granddaughter Sidney Briski, age 3. Navy Cmdr. Ted Briski, who will soon go back to Iraq, had to stay home working at Fort Sam Houston.
In wonderment, Arsenault looks around at the memorial's elegant expanse of light gray granite. Its elements are arranged in a circle, 100 yards in diameter, located in a place of honor halfway between the Lincoln Memorial and Washington Monument.
He gazes at the victory arches marked "ATLANTIC" and "PACIFIC," at the giant soaring bronze eagles, the tall pillars with wreaths representing states and territories all connected by a sculpted bronze rope signifying the nation's unity in war.
Everywhere Arsenault looks, workers in hardhats are busy wrapping up final details. It's still a construction site, cluttered and noisy as the Pacific beachheads where he served. Arsenault and his daughter wear hardhats, too.
"What's all this, Italian granite?" he asks Betsy Glick, his escort from the American Battle Monuments Commission.
"All the stone is from the U.S.," she tells him—out of South Carolina, Georgia, California. (Actually, a bit of green stone used for accents comes from Brazil.)
Off to the west, a wall of gold stars honors the more than 405,000 Americans who gave their lives in the war. Another 671,000 were wounded. Arsenault looks toward it.
"HERE," the inscription says, "WE MARK THE PRICE OF FREEDOM."
"All those stars," he muses. "My mom had a star in the window. A blue star." That meant she had a son or daughter in the service, Glick says. Gold stars were for those who died.
Nearby, just behind Arsenault, Gen. MacArthur's words are chiseled in stone:
"TODAY THE GUNS ARE SILENT. A GREAT TRAGEDY HAS ENDED. A GREAT VICTORY HAS BEEN WON."
The Japanese surrender—the end of World War II—was Sept. 2, 1945. Arsenault was still in the Pacific. Most vivid among his memories is that of the voice over the camp loudspeaker on Aug. 6, 1945, announcing the atomic obliteration of Hiroshima and the impending end of the war.
He remembers everyone cheering because they'd be going home, they wouldn't have to invade Japan. He remembers the free beer that was passed out.
Now, he turns and considers words cut in the nearby stone: "LEYTE GULF * LUZON * MANILA * ... JAPAN." All places he served.
"It's huge," Debra Arsenault says of the site, almost under her breath. She sticks close by her dad, who encouraged her to choose a military career.
"Oh," Paul Arsenault replies quietly, "this is going to be one great memorial."
During an hour's tour, his positive impression only deepens. His straightforward soldier's opinion may, perhaps, lay to rest some of the doubts and raging controversies from the years it took to approve and plan and build this tribute to America's World War II generation.
Some critics called Rhode Island architect Friedrich St. Florian's plan a mar on the Mall, an unsightly splotch in a pristine park. Yet a gent named Paul Arsenault, whose troopship took a kamikaze hit, who sweated on the beaches and in the jungles answering his country's call, he happens to like it.
Maybe that's the ultimate verdict. [Check out the Memorial for yourself in our exclusive online photo gallery, then share your thoughts on the design in our special message board.]
Arsenault just wonders what took so long. "This was slow in coming," he tells Glick. "The Korean and Vietnam veterans have memorials. I myself thought we'd never have one."
Indeed, after Congress authorized the memorial in 1993 and 1994, boards and commissions endlessly debated the details. A lawsuit sought to halt construction.
Meanwhile, the World War II generation was passing on at the rate of more than 1,100 a day. Of 16 million Americans who served, fewer than 4 million remain.
The May 29 dedication and weekend "Tribute to a Generation" is expected to draw 800,000 veterans and their families. Although only 117,000 can be seated for the dedication itself ("We've turned down requests by White House staffers," Glick says. "The World War II vets have priority"), the Smithsonian will turn much of the Mall into a huge veterans reunion with themed tents, unit reunions and exhibits. Other events sponsored by Washington museums and organizations will extend through the summer in what's being called the Last Great Gathering of the Greatest Generation.
Arsenault, proud to be a member of that generation, calls himself an everyday kind of guy who has had what he recalls with a smile as a somewhat "mixed-up life" following jobs at sea and on land. Born in Maine in 1925, the middle child of a paper-mill worker and housewife, he left home at 16, joined the Merchant Marine and worked as an able-bodied seaman until being drafted into the Army in 1944.
Trained as an "amphibian truck driver" and shipped to the Pacific early in 1945, Arsenault unloaded equipment and troops at the wheel of a Duck—the ubiquitous workhorse that could carry a couple of dozen troops or 5,000 pounds of cargo.
He worked on so many islands—fortunately for him, always "a day or two behind the combat"—that he can scarcely remember their names. He saw Bob Hope perform in Manila ("He had beautiful girls with him. Oh, man, he sure could pick 'em."), took a bus tour of Hiroshima ("Flattened. Ashes. Nothing left. I couldn't believe what had happened."), and arrived in Tacoma, Wash., in time for Christmas, 1945.
There, in a corner grocery store where she worked, he met Ann Bergstrom. She was 15. He got out of the Army, went to sea and made ports from Alaska to Korea, returning to marry Ann in 1950. Arsenault retired in 1991 after 28 years as a vehicle mechanic and foreman with the Port of Seattle. He and Ann toured the country by RV for a few years before moving in with their kids to help babysit.
Ann Arsenault watches little Sidney in the car while her husband and daughter tour the memorial. "When I met Paul," she says, "we didn't talk about what he did in the war. He was a nice young man, and he'd had a real rough time. My brother was in the 5th Army in Italy and Sicily, and all my mother did was cry."
Her brother survived World War II but has since passed on. The Arsenaults sent his picture and a donation to the memorial to make sure he's included in its electronic database. They sent Paul's picture, too, and are looking for a snapshot of another deceased relative who served. Their total donation: $300.
"I'm a poor, little guy," Arsenault says. "I can't give $5,000. But I wanted to donate something for those that passed away. They should be part of it also."
His tour complete, he stands by the car watching his napping granddaughter while his wife gets her own brief viewing of the memorial.
Arsenault has seen a lot of war museums and memorials in his time, but this one "tops 'em all. It's something to see, I'll tell you," he says. "This is a magnificent memorial and tribute to the servicemen and women of World War II. I hope all of us who are left, who served in the war, can come down and see it."
His wife returns, removes her hardhat and pronounces the memorial "beautiful, gorgeous!"
Her husband beams at her.
"Now," says Paul Arsenault, "we've got to get some coffee."
Phil McCombs was for many years a writer on the staff of the Washington Post.
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