{"id":2818,"date":"2012-05-07T10:00:16","date_gmt":"2012-05-07T10:00:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/americainuniform\/?p=2818"},"modified":"2012-05-03T18:24:49","modified_gmt":"2012-05-03T18:24:49","slug":"france-honors-war-veteran","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/americainuniform\/2012\/05\/france-honors-war-veteran.html","title":{"rendered":"France Honors War Veteran"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Today\u2019s feature is from The Baton Rouge Advocate newspaper about a young man, Leon Standifer, going to war in 1942.\u00a0 As Professor Standifer states, \u201cEverybody in the community expected men to go and fight, because we were in a war we could lose. I don\u2019t know whether I wanted to go or not. I didn\u2019t have any choice. Young men who were physically able went in to fight.\u201d\u00a0 Times have certainly changed.\u00a0 Do read the article to the end where Standifer outlines his instruction and how he dealt with the fact that killing is a part of war.<\/p>\n

French Legion of Honor Medal Given during Navy Week<\/strong>
\nBy Carol Anne Blitzer<\/p>\n

\u201cThey taught us to look at (the enemy) as capable people fighting on the other team.\u201d LEON C. STANDIFER, about military training<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Leon C. Standifer does not consider himself a hero, even though on April 18 he received the French Legion of Honor Medal for his service during World War II. He was recognized during Navy Week on the visiting French frigate Germinal berthed at the Esplanade Street Wharf in New Orleans.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am representing a lot of skinny little kids who died,\u201d said Standifer, 87.<\/p>\n

Standifer learned through his military division newspaper that the French government had authorized its embassy in Washington, D.C., to give a few Legion of Honor medals to promote the French and American relationship.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe primary requirement was that you were wounded fighting in France,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

In active duty, Standifer achieved the rank of private first class with a Purple Heart and a combat infantry badge. His work after the war was considered as part of the recognition. He has written two books on his war experiences and participated in a symposium on the Battle of the Bulge at the National World War II Museum in New Orleans.<\/p>\n

The ceremonies were attended by some 18 people from St. James Place, the retirement community where Standifer lives. He received the decoration in a replica of his Army uniform.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I was discharged, I was wearing a 38-long. This one is a 50-long,\u201d he said with a laugh.<\/p>\n

The ceremony had all the pomp and circumstance of an official military event with Standifer receiving medallions from the commanders of other Navy ships \u2014 American, British and Canadian.<\/p>\n

\u201cI told them I didn\u2019t do a lot, but I represented the people who did,\u201d Standifer said.<\/p>\n

Standifer was born in Gulfport, Miss., and lived in several south Mississippi communities as his parents moved about during the Great Depression. After graduating from high school in Clinton, Miss., he went into the military. It was 1943, at the height of World War II.<\/p>\n

\u201cEverybody in the community expected young men to go and fight, because we were in a war we could lose,\u201d Standifer said. \u201cI don\u2019t know whether I wanted to go or not. I didn\u2019t have any choice. Young men who were physically able went in to fight.\u201d<\/p>\n

Standifer made a high score on the Army entrance exam and was assigned to the Army Specialized Training Program, a program at several universities to develop young officers by allowing them to get a college education along with their military training. He completed basic training and was set to go to the University of Arkansas to study engineering when the program was cut.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey were planning for the landing at Normandy,\u201d Standifer said. \u201cThey estimated the number of casualties to be very high. They said they didn\u2019t have enough infantry.\u201d<\/p>\n

So instead of going to college, Standifer ended up in the 94th Infantry Division on the way to the European front. He landed on Utah Beach three months after the initial invasion at Normandy.<\/p>\n

He was stationed at Lorient in Brittany with an assignment to surround a group of Germans holding a submarine base. \u201cThere were 5,000 of us and 30,000 Germans,\u201d Standifer said.<\/p>\n

In December 1944, while attacking a fortification, Standifer was wounded in the arm and leg. His buddies carried him to an ambulance, which took him to a hospital where he stayed for a month.<\/p>\n

In the meantime, Standifer\u2019s division was replaced in Brittany and moved to the Ardennes, where the Battle of the Bulge had begun.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey got me there the day after my company had made an attack,\u201d Standifer said. \u201cIt had taken 70 percent casualties.\u201d<\/p>\n

Because Standifer was the only experienced scout in his company, he was sent out at night crawling in ditches. \u201cThe temperature dropped to 10 degrees every night,\u201d he said. \u201cI crawled up to the German lines to see what they were doing.\u201d<\/p>\n

After three days and nights of scouting, he was sent to a hospital in England with pneumonia and frozen feet.<\/p>\n

He returned to his company a few days after Germany surrendered and was assigned as a guard at a prisoner of war camp. Finally in 1946, Standifer returned to Mississippi. After graduating from Mississippi State University in 1950 with a degree in soil chemistry, Standifer worked for a couple of years, returned to Mississippi State and then went to the University of Wisconsin, where he earned his doctorate in plant physiology.<\/p>\n

A friend in the Botany Department at LSU offered Standifer a job without an interview. \u201cI really didn\u2019t know Louisiana at all,\u201d he said. \u201cI thought I was going to stay for a while and leave, but I had such a good time here that I stayed.\u201d He retired in 1990 after teaching botany and horticulture.<\/p>\n

Standifer had served two terms on the faculty advisory committee for the LSU Press. \u201cI knew how to write for scientific journals. I knew how a book had to be written to be accepted by an academic press, so I wrote a book about the war,\u201d he said. The book, \u201cNot in Vain: A Rifleman Remembers World War II,\u201d was published by the LSU Press in 1992. \u201cBinding Up the Wounds: An American Soldier in Occupied Germany\u201d followed in 1997.<\/p>\n

\u201cI talked to psychologists and historians about what the war was like, what it did to young kids,\u201d Standifer said. \u201cThe concept is that you grow up in one society and go to another one where your family is 12 men. You live by new rules simply because you have no choice.\u201d<\/p>\n

Standifer said that his training taught him something very important about war. It taught him not to be mad at the enemy.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey taught us to look at them as capable people fighting on the other team,\u201d he said. \u201cIf you can get the other team mad at you, they are going to make mistakes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Because he grew up hunting, Standifer was a good marksman. He learned quickly that killing was a part of war.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnfortunately you have to kill them if you are there,\u201d he said. \u201cI hedged at first. I was shooting them in the knee rather than killing them. At least they spent the rest of their lives with a peg leg.\u201d<\/p>\n

Courtesy of The Advocate<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n

Loyal Subscribers!\u00a0 We need some help.\u00a0 The purpose of our “Heart” section is to publish stories of the experiences, contributions and sacrifices of our military (Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines and Coast Guard) and public service personnel (police officers, fire fighters, EMS, merchant marines and others in the public sector) as well as stories of their families.\u00a0 Please search your memory and computer for a few and\u00a0send them to Bill\u00a0(CPT Otis) O’Quin at boquin@ix.netcom.com<\/a><\/strong> for possible publication. \u00a0Thanks!<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

Important links for updated military\/defense information:
\nThe Daily News Briefing<\/a><\/strong>:<\/a> Today’s News for the U.S. Military, their families and friends.
\n The Military Trivia Challenge:<\/a><\/strong> Register and test your knowledge about military history.
\n U.S. Department of Defense:<\/a><\/strong> Military Defense News.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today\u2019s feature is from The Baton Rouge Advocate newspaper about a young man, Leon Standifer, going to war in 1942.\u00a0 As Professor Standifer states, \u201cEverybody in the community expected men to go and fight, because we were in a war we could lose. I don\u2019t know whether I wanted to go or not. 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