WWII veteran chokes back tears at memory of fallen

VVWII veteran chokes back tears at memory of fallen<br><br>ByRUSSELL GRANTHAM HAY 2 ' B80<br><br>ifows STAFF REPORTER<br><br>After five decades of reflection and years and years tjf practice, former Marine Platoon Sgt. Joseph Rodriguez made it as far as the story of “Fuzzy" Sunday be-loreTiis memories rendered him speechless.<br><br>: Two World War II-vintage warplanes, a hulking B-17 Flying Fortress bomber and its escort, a P-51 Mustang fighter, already had roared twice over the small crowd gathered for a Memorial Day ceremony on a grassy hilltop at Ann Arbor's Arborcrest Memorial Park.<br><br>Ann Arbor Mayor Ingrid Sheldon already had read the words to the national hymn.<br><br>Ypsilanti Mayor Cheryl Farmer already had told the story of her fa-Iher-v who flew P-51s in World War II, arid of her uncle, who died in Vietnam. There also was her grandfather, who was gassed in the battlefield trenches of World War I, and "who lived to tell the tale,” she said, “but was never quite the same after it.”<br><br>Then it was the turn of Rodriguez, who in the wintertime 51 years ago was a rifleman in the Marines fighting his way toward Mount Suribachi on the island of Iwo Jima. He was off gathering rocks to hold up the flagpole when an Associated Press photographer snapped one of the most famous photographs taken during World War II, of she marines raising the D.S. flag on the battlefield mountaintop.<br><br>; Rodriguez, an Ann Arbor native, was one of 18 survivors in a company that lost 130 men during the first four days of fighting on Iwo Jima.<br><br>“Since day one, young men have been fighting for (jur freedom,” he said. It took more than words on a pager declaration of independence and constitution to gain freedom, he added.<br><br>“All you have to do is go to any military cemetery and see the thousands and thousands of white crosses. That’s where the brave and the youth of our country lie” that won and kept that freedom, he said.<br><br>He told of his sergeant, who came with his parents to the United States from Czechoslovakia when he was five years old. Rodriguez wondered aloud what the man would say of the drugs, brewing racial hatred and other problems now affecting the country.<br><br>“I know what my sergeant would say,” said Rodriguez. “He would say, ‘If every American had one tenth of the love for this country that I have, we wouldn’t be in the trouble that we are today.’ ”<br><br>Rodriguez appealed to the audience, especially youths, to not add to racial hatreds in the nation.<br><br>| “I don’t want you to listen to those hate groups like the neo-Nazis or the skinheads or Louis Far-rakhan. Those are hate groups," he said.<br><br>Then Rodriguez got to the story of “Fuzzy,” a soldier in his company who was so young that he didn't need to shave.<br><br>“I think of those young men that we left behind," he said, and stopped, unable to speak because of the emotions that sometimes still choked him into silence after five decades.<br><br>“Excuse me,” he said several seconds later, and continued with his story of the youth, who died when he grabbed one hand grenade lobbed at his patrol by a Japanese soldier, and covered another grenade with his body to save four Marines. They were saved that day, but also died a few days later in the fighting, he said.<br><br>"Fuzzy” was one of a several soldiers honored with Medals of Honor, the nation’s highest military honor, for their deeds on Iwo Jima, he said.<br><br>“I thank them for what they did for us,” he said.<br><br>After the hour-long ceremony, fellow ex-Marines, current Marines and others thanked Rodriguez for his speech. A few asked for autographs.<br><br>Rodriguez apologized for again becoming overcome with emotion during another Memorial Day speech.<br><br>“I never have been able to finish my speech,” he said.<br><br>JOSEPH RODRIGUEZ<br><br>. .. was at Iwo Jima flag-raising