WAR STORIES: VETERANS GIVE LIVING HISTORY OF CONFLICTS

In 1916, Elves L. "Hap" Goodman joined the U.S. Army. The veteran is now 97.

Goodman is one of the legion of veterans honored with a parade in Cape Girardeau today and a national holiday Monday.

The veterans who fought this nation's wars comprise a living history book of military conflicts.

In recognition of Veterans Day, the war stories of three veterans, residents at the Cape Girardeau Missouri Veterans Home, are highlighted here.

Goodman was living at Malden when he decided to join up. "There wasn't anything to do down there but hoe cotton and pick cotton," he said. "I got disgusted with the way things were going and decided to enlist."

Goodman, then 20, was assigned to the horse-drawn field artillery and earned $12 a month.

When World War I broke out, Goodman, a veteran soldier of a year, was made a drill sergeant and physical instructor.

"The U.S. government sent me to Long Island, N.Y., to train the boys who had been drafted."

He taught 143 new soldiers how to fire a 3-inch gun. "The gun we used was made in Germany," Goodman said. "But they didn't use it over there in the fighting. They used a French gun. The Germans knew more about this gun than we did."

Part of the training included care for a dozen horses. "It took six horses to pull the gun and six to pull the caisson. The horses had to be taken care of."

When the soldiers in his charge were ready to be shipped to Europe, Goodman was told he couldn't go with them.

"I had a War Department order that said they wouldn't let me go across with them. But I wanted to go with these boys."

Sgt. Goodman, determined to accompany his battalion to the fighting front, decided to ask the four-star general at his base for help.

"It was General Bell. I had to go through a lot of red tape to see the general. But I got there. I was just a little bit nervous. But I knew just what I was going to say."

But, the general told Goodman the only way to deal with a War Department order was to comply.

"I told him, `I just thought I'd ask.'"

Goodman said the general then told him, "`You're more beneficial to the U.S. Army here training these boys than if you were over on the front line.' I never thought about it that way."

He left the army in 1920, moved to Illmo and worked 40 years for the railroads.

Pete Jarrell enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps March 6, 1942. He was 18 years old.

"I had always seen the Marine recruiting posters, and I liked the suit. That's the truth. I enlisted because I liked the uniform."

Jarrell, now 68, didn't have many opportunities to wear the dress uniform though. A machine gunner in the Pacific Theater, he saw a lot of action.

"It's not at all like the movies," Jarrell said. "All the movies have a hero who did fantastic things. The heroes we had couldn't come back and talk about it.

"Nobody picked up these guns to shoot at people. They sit on tripods, and one man has to feed the belt. When you shoot this gun, you cover an area. You don't really aim at a target. But when they are coming up on you, you can aim.

"It's not that easy to just shoot at a man. But when you're scared and I was scared you can do it."

On occasion, Jarrell had R&R at Pearl Harbor. "I was there after all the action. There, you'd get drunk and tattooed," he said, showing the proof on his forearms. "I've got nine of the things on me."

Jarrell was injured twice during the fighting.

The first time, he was in a bunker. "One crawled up on me. I thought it was my buddy. Then he stuck a knife in me."

Jarrell recovered from that wound and went back to fight some more.

During a beach landing, a mortar shell went off behind him. "Those mortars go off in a pattern, and I thought I was out of the way. But I was wrong. I lost a lung. It killed my gunner. They told me I was hit with 16 pieces of flack in the back.

"That sure took the wind out of my sails."

Jarrell said the famous scene of a flag being raised on the beach at Iwo Jima actually depicts the second flag erected on the island. "The first flag didn't stay up," he said. "I was there and I saw it go up and then come down."

Jarrell said: "I wouldn't want to do it again, but in a funny way I would not have missed it. I just hope it never happens again."

Tom Reddick served in the U.S. Navy during World War II and the Korean War as a hospital corpsman. He served with the Fleet Marines and went overseas in 1941.

"I was 20 years old. Everybody was going. Everybody was going to get into the fighting," Reddick said. So he enlisted also.

At the time he enlisted, Reddick was attending Southeast Missouri State University. Reddick, 69, is back at school now and plans to graduate in May 1992.

As a Navy medical corpsman, he served on the front lines. "We were the first ones to treat them. The main thing we would treat them for was shock. Then we would get them back off the line to the rear to get better treatment."

Reddick was reluctant to talk about his experiences on the fighting line.

"It was interesting," he finally answered. "It kept your adrenaline flowing.

"We went all the way through the Pacific and ended up in China. We were going to invade Japan when they dropped the bomb."

He said news of the nuclear explosion was a surprise to everyone. "We heard all the scuttlebutt over the radio. You know, no one knew what a bomb like that could do."

While in China, Reddick recalled, "We were at a China Wall outpost. We were looking over the wall at the Russians and they were looking over at us."

After World War II ended, Reddick remained in the reserves. He was called up when fighting began in Korea.

"When the Navy says go, you go," he said.

Again he served as a medical corpsman. The weather made Korea much different than his experience in the Pacific Islands. "All of us froze. It was cold," he said. "Most of the people we handled had frozen limbs we had to treat."

He said the long-running television series "M.A.S.H." was somewhat realistic. "You always had to make your own fun," Reddick said. "And a lot of things you enjoyed. A lot of things you experienced, you didn't enjoy.

"Once you got overseas, you always wanted to get home. That's the best thing, getting back to this country. You don't realize how much you like this country until you get back."