Memorial for Memorial Day
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Monday, May 29, 2006 / 9:25am View more articles
Memorial Day honors U.S. men and women who died in military service. Robert Wilde, my great-uncle, did not die in military service but his story deserves a little honor and recognition on this fine day.
Robert Wilde, or Uncle Bob, grew up in Boston, served in WWII, and managed teams of computer programmers before most of the world knew what a computer was.
Born as Robert Wild in the mid-1920's, by 1943 he was ready to join the U.S. Army. However, he was only 17 years old, which was one year too young to sign up for the military. Being the resourceful, determined youth that he was, he got a fake identification card, and a couple months later, he was stationed on an island in the English Channel, a proud member of the U.S. Army Rangers.
A couple months after that, on the morning of June 6, 1944, young Robert Wilde* was riding a Higgins Boat, headed for Omaha Beach.
* The fake ID that changed Uncle Bob's age from 17 to 18, also unintentionally changed his last name from "Wild" to "Wilde". After coming back from the war, I guess he had more important things to do - like recover from bullet to head, get married, get a job, live life - than worry about an extra letter in his last name.
Anyway, back to June 6, D-Day. I can't imagine being 17 or 18 years old, and heading into the insanity that was the battle of Normandy. The fact that those men and boys got the job done, won the battle, and took the beaches is truly inspirational.
Shortly after making his way onto Omaha beach, a huge accomplishment in itself, Uncle Bob was shot in the head.
A bullet went into his right cheek, through his mouth and exited below his left ear. He's told me stories about going in and out of consciousness, but staying alive throughout the day. According to Uncle Bob, the worst part of the day was watching the bodies float away. U.S. and Allied troops landed on the beaches early in the morning when the tide was low. By mid-day the tide had moved in and quickly became stained red with blood. As the tide started to recede in the afternoon, Uncle Bob watched hundreds of bodies float away with the water.
The scariest moment was on the boat ride home. By the end of the day, there wasn't a medical area to keep all the injured. The wounded were placed wherever there was room. Uncle Bob had the unfortunate luck of being stuck on a gurney right next to a ramp where tanks where being loaded and unloaded. For a couple hours, unable to move, he watched tanks board his ship, their tracks about 12 inches from his body.
Uncle Bob, eventually made his way back to a Boston-area recovery hospital, fell in love with one of his nurses, married her and started a family.
He ended up working at Lincoln Labs, a DOD sponsored technology laboratory managed by MIT. The lab opened in the early 1950's and Uncle Bob was there for its first 20+ years. Lincoln Laboratory, pushed the limits of technology and science to solve problems of national security. In the early years, Uncle Bob remembers working on missile defense projects that involved large format Polaroid photographs of the night sky.
Technology at the lab advanced and he got to use the Internet when it was ARPANET, back in the 70's. That's around the same time you and I were either: (A) not born; or (B) using telephones with rotary dials. Through the 1970's and 80's, the defense technology that was coming out of Lincoln Labs kept pushing the limits, and Uncle Bob loved being a part of it. He had a computer on his desk at work and one at home back when an IBM 5100 with 64K of memory cost well over $15,000.
By the late 1980's Uncle Bob was nearing his mid-sixties. He and a much younger colleague were working together to solve a common problem. The young colleague proposed one fairly complex solution. Uncle Bob questioned it, "Yeah, but what if this or that doesn't work?" The colleague's response, "Then we'll think of something else.".
That night Uncle Bob, decided it was time to retire. Not because he didn't think of the solution himself, or because he didn't feel it would work, but because he was no longer fearless. For someone who stood on a crowded landing craft as the ramp opened on the hell that was Omaha beach, he was now so worried about implications of his actions, that he wasn't taking an action. There's absolutely nothing wrong with this - just a natural side-effect of growing old. He realized that and, much like accepting the trailing "E" on his last name, he went with the flow. He retired, bought a kayak, a hammock, and a pint of Guinness.
This summer he and my Aunt Rose celebrate their 60th wedding anniversary. He doesn't have a kayak anymore, but still naps in the hammock and is always good for a pint of stout.
Robert Wilde, or Uncle Bob, grew up in Boston, served in WWII, and managed teams of computer programmers before most of the world knew what a computer was.
Born as Robert Wild in the mid-1920's, by 1943 he was ready to join the U.S. Army. However, he was only 17 years old, which was one year too young to sign up for the military. Being the resourceful, determined youth that he was, he got a fake identification card, and a couple months later, he was stationed on an island in the English Channel, a proud member of the U.S. Army Rangers.
A couple months after that, on the morning of June 6, 1944, young Robert Wilde* was riding a Higgins Boat, headed for Omaha Beach.
* The fake ID that changed Uncle Bob's age from 17 to 18, also unintentionally changed his last name from "Wild" to "Wilde". After coming back from the war, I guess he had more important things to do - like recover from bullet to head, get married, get a job, live life - than worry about an extra letter in his last name.
Anyway, back to June 6, D-Day. I can't imagine being 17 or 18 years old, and heading into the insanity that was the battle of Normandy. The fact that those men and boys got the job done, won the battle, and took the beaches is truly inspirational.
Shortly after making his way onto Omaha beach, a huge accomplishment in itself, Uncle Bob was shot in the head.
A bullet went into his right cheek, through his mouth and exited below his left ear. He's told me stories about going in and out of consciousness, but staying alive throughout the day. According to Uncle Bob, the worst part of the day was watching the bodies float away. U.S. and Allied troops landed on the beaches early in the morning when the tide was low. By mid-day the tide had moved in and quickly became stained red with blood. As the tide started to recede in the afternoon, Uncle Bob watched hundreds of bodies float away with the water.
The scariest moment was on the boat ride home. By the end of the day, there wasn't a medical area to keep all the injured. The wounded were placed wherever there was room. Uncle Bob had the unfortunate luck of being stuck on a gurney right next to a ramp where tanks where being loaded and unloaded. For a couple hours, unable to move, he watched tanks board his ship, their tracks about 12 inches from his body.
Uncle Bob, eventually made his way back to a Boston-area recovery hospital, fell in love with one of his nurses, married her and started a family.
He ended up working at Lincoln Labs, a DOD sponsored technology laboratory managed by MIT. The lab opened in the early 1950's and Uncle Bob was there for its first 20+ years. Lincoln Laboratory, pushed the limits of technology and science to solve problems of national security. In the early years, Uncle Bob remembers working on missile defense projects that involved large format Polaroid photographs of the night sky.
Technology at the lab advanced and he got to use the Internet when it was ARPANET, back in the 70's. That's around the same time you and I were either: (A) not born; or (B) using telephones with rotary dials. Through the 1970's and 80's, the defense technology that was coming out of Lincoln Labs kept pushing the limits, and Uncle Bob loved being a part of it. He had a computer on his desk at work and one at home back when an IBM 5100 with 64K of memory cost well over $15,000.
By the late 1980's Uncle Bob was nearing his mid-sixties. He and a much younger colleague were working together to solve a common problem. The young colleague proposed one fairly complex solution. Uncle Bob questioned it, "Yeah, but what if this or that doesn't work?" The colleague's response, "Then we'll think of something else.".
That night Uncle Bob, decided it was time to retire. Not because he didn't think of the solution himself, or because he didn't feel it would work, but because he was no longer fearless. For someone who stood on a crowded landing craft as the ramp opened on the hell that was Omaha beach, he was now so worried about implications of his actions, that he wasn't taking an action. There's absolutely nothing wrong with this - just a natural side-effect of growing old. He realized that and, much like accepting the trailing "E" on his last name, he went with the flow. He retired, bought a kayak, a hammock, and a pint of Guinness.
This summer he and my Aunt Rose celebrate their 60th wedding anniversary. He doesn't have a kayak anymore, but still naps in the hammock and is always good for a pint of stout.
Comments
Wednesday, Aug 23, 2006 / 11:56am
∞
MY COUSIN ON MY MOTHERS SIDE, ANNE TUFTS IS DAVID'S MOTHER. SHE SHOULD BE PROUD TO HAVE A SON LIKE HIM. HE HAS DONE MY FATHER JUSTICE IN WRITING THIS ARTICLE ABOUT HIS LIFE IN COMBAT. I HAVE TO SAY THAT EVERY TIME I WATCH "SAVING PRIVATE RYAN" OR LISTEN TO MY FATHER TALK ABOUT HIS EXPERIENCES IN WAR, I CHOKE UP AT THE THOUGHT THAT MY DAD WENT THROUGH WHAT HE DID FOR HIS COUNTRY. I AM PROUD OF HIM AND I LOVE HIM AND MY MOTHER FOR ALL THEY HAVE DONE FOR ME IN MY 47 YEARS OF BEING THEIR SON. BOB WILDE JR.
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Cheers, and thanks to Uncle Bob.