Irish_Man said:

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Wonder where he got his jump wings?

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Quote:

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When his friend Marie Larson took to the piano to play the Marine Corps hymn, everyone joined in the singing. At least for the first verse.

After that, White was on his own to sing the second and third verses.

"When I first went to boot camp they taught us all three verses," White explained.

That was in 1934. He'd tried to join the Marine Corps in 1933 after he graduated from high school in St. Louis, but he was turned down.

Instead, he spent a year working on Boulder Dam.

"I earned $4 a day," White said. "It was very interesting and very hard work."

He shrugs off his very minor role in the engineering feat of Boulder Dam. He was only there a year, he said, because in 1934 he was accepted by the Marines.

White served aboard the USS Colorado battleship and then in Shanghai, China, and was a recruiter for the Marines when Pearl Harbor was bombed. He was forced to stay in that position for another year, but after attending parachute school was assigned to a combat training unit in Hawaii.

His unit was shipped to Iwo Jima and just about the time the American flag was being raised on Mt. Suribachi for Joe Rosenthal's immortal picture at 11:15 a.m. on Feb. 23, 1945, White was landing on the island to join the fight.

Eight days later, on March 3, the 11th anniversary of his having joined the Marines, White was injured and sent back to the states for treatment.

The Purple Heart he earned on Iwo Jima is one of the dozen medals he wears on his chest, the others awarded for different missions...

He was born in Long Beach as Billy Eric Cederberg, in 1915.

He changed his name because when he was in high school, the other boys called him Billy the Kid, and he didn't like that.

His father had died when he was 6 and when his mother remarried, he took her new name, White, and changed Billy to William...

The other walls bear Marine memorabilia.

"Semper Fi" is the last thing he says at night, White said.

He isn't too philosophical about his years of service and continued bearing as a Marine.
"I can't think of anything I'd rather be than a Marine," White said.

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