Memorial Day salute - Elmer Gedeon
In doing a little research on pro athletes who died in combat, I came across a name I had not heard before: Elmer Gedeon (UM '39). The winner of three varsity letters (in baseball, football, and track & field), Gedeon was a two-time Big Ten champ in the outdoor 120-yard high hurdles and the indoor 70-yard high hurdles, tied the American record for the 70-yard indoor high hurdles in 1938, and led the Wolverines to Big Ten Track & Field championships in 1938-39. He wore #51 as a varsity end from 1936-38, and played 1st base and outfield in baseball, hitting .320. He was signed by the Washington Senators and played in five major league games in 1939.
Drafted in 1941 and accepted into pilot training, Gedeon was navigator of a training flight which crashed on Aug. 9, 1942. Despite burns and broken ribs, he crawled back into the wreckage to save another crew member with severe injuries. On April 20, 1944, Gedeon was the pilot of a B-26 which was shot down near the Pas-de-Calais in France in an attack on a V-1 site. He and five crew members were killed.
Gedeon was one of only two MLB players who were killed in WWII (the other was Harry Mink O'Neill of the Philadelphia Athletics). He was inducted into the University of Michigan Athletic Hall of Honor in 1983.
Thank you, Capt. Gedeon - and Go Blue.
was in the local paper yesterday. he is now too old to get up on his tractor and one set of his grandchildren (my contemporaries) live with him and now owns his farm - he stays with them, not in some home. he has shared with me over the years some of the stories of tank battles he had in north africa and then in italy. it is hard to articulate the humility combined with the bravery and dedication of a 'well, that's what was required and we just did it, we didn't really think about it' attitude that he and others of the 'greatest generation' possess(ed).
my own father passed 5 yrs ago, a P-51 pilot in that war. i must admit i got a little misty reading that article about my neighbor and thinking of my father too, and his whole generation. i so wish our country had their courage and their character. we have some, but those traits are growing more rare, not more abundant.
and sadly, the final statement. Makes it even worse, those running for the highest office in the land seem to have fun describing how they were able to avoid service. They and the rest of the allied nations deserve that title.
He was not being modest, in my opinion, about "had to be done, so we did it attitude." My father and many others that served during WWII were of the same cut of cloth. He said it was not difficult realizing there was a mad man, although it took the nation awhile to absord that, loose in Europe who had to be stopped, so without hesitation, that's what they did.
As brave as they were, they did not follow "blindly." When he learned - he and my mother were divorced - of my orders for Vietnam while he was in Chicago, he waited until I arrived to say my goodbyes and said, "You don't have to go over there. If they want you over there, they will come up with a Gooddamn reason to declare war. Just stay here and by time they sort it out, those that didn't go will be forgiven." Hmmmmmmm. Guessing they knew a hell of a lot more than most of us. But they are, indeed, heroes all.
Memorial Day is powerful, and I'm immensely thankful for everything our veterans have done for us. The world would be a very different place if they hadn't sacrificed so much.
I am curious, however, why exactly you say that our country doesn't have their "courage and character"? I saw a lot of courage and character in the time after 9/11. I've seen a lot of progress in terms of social issues. There's a massive group of men that are still tortured by the things they experienced; if it takes going to war to prove that we have courage and character, then we need to find new way to measure ourselves.
we live in an incredibly pampered time and society. we can dial up the temperature to within a degree of what we'd like, never have to sweat, shiver, go hungry, get wet, etc unless we feel like it. we are raising a generation of kids whose idea of being active is a big, multi-party video game. look at any picture of a crowd from before, say, 1960, and try to find the corpulent ones. now look at a crowd shot from our era. notice the difference?
as a country we still are blessed with men and women of exceptional courage and character, intellect and daring, integrity and strength. however, just like one of the signs in our locker room in ann arbor used to say, 'you're either getting better, or you're getting worse'. well, as a country i'd say we aren't getting better. love our country (obligatory 'murica' comment here), but not the direction we are going.
That's a lot of sweeping generalizations for one post.
You apparently yearn for the '50s as if it wasn't a dogshit part of our history that should spark nostalgia in no decent human being.
We're not going to be friends.
"It's the fatties' fault."
knocked him right down, didn't you?
but blockm, if you google the CDC stats on obesity and diabetes you will see the empidemic we have. perhaps you are not a fan of the first lady, but she is right to focus time and effort on these issues.
and given my life in law enforcement/criminal law (and my own miscreant youth), i know what i speak of - we don't have nearly as many 'honest' crooks anymore. there's a lot that goes into that and you kind of have to be in the business of it, but i would gladly dialogue with you both off-line on the topic.
also, i wasn't around during the '50's, so they don't hold any particular special place for me. however, reading the letters and documents of our founders, men who risked it all and went to war with the greatest known power on earth, along with many of the figures that shaped our country in the interim, you would have to be willfully blind to not see that we aren't 'getting better', as i mentioned above.
We're not going to see eye-to-eye on much of anything if you really don't think we're getting better. What's also hilarious is how you accuse BlockM of strawmanning when you use obesity as an all-encompassing sign that the country is going to shit.
All of the nonsense you posted is even worse when you have in your avatar two young kids who would be considered property thanks to lots of the men whose letters you admire had we not indeed gotten better.
I really, really don't give a fuck about the Leave It To Beaver, get-off-my-lawn bullshit that a disturbing number of posters seem to have wet dreams about.
with you, especially about what you think would be the productive conversation to have. however we would probably get too far off of the topic guidelines so it will have to wait.
Emasculation of the men comes to mind as well.
That's another day.
Those were brave men.
There was never a "good ol' days." It was worse in the past.
Leaders and Best.
Sent from MGoBlog HD for iPhone & iPad
True. My great-uncle Tony was one of the original members of the U.S. Army First Ranger Battalion, more commonly known as "Darby's Rangers." He fought in Italy and was at Anzio where his unit suffered heavy casualties. My father tried to get him to talk about it several times, but Tony wouldn't. I'm sure he found it easier to leave the memories overseas.
Sent from MGoBlog HD for iPhone & iPad
Gedeon was from Cleveland, and according to the same Wiki page, his is a common surname in the Cleveland area. Since Ben Gedeon is from Hudson, Ohio, which is not that far away from Cleveland, I guess it's possible.
A writer uncovered background on Elmer Gedeon in 1999 and talked with Elmer's cousin Bob (one year apart) and a former teammate Forest Evashevski (who lived in Petoskey). Gedeon was an end and punter on the team with Tom Harmon and Evashevski and actually recruited Evashevski into the Phi Gamma Delta Fraternity. Evashevski remembered "Ged" well and raved of his speed and humble leadership. Evashevski was a character himself as was Fritz Crisler's favorite quarterback ever. In 1939 Evashevski lit a cigar on the sideline with 30 seconds left in a winning effort vs. Ohio State and once made Crisler run a lap around the football field when he showed up five minutes late for practice.
But, back to Gedeon.
Elmer grew up in a house overlooking Brookside Park which was a major hub for sandlot baseball in the Cleveland area. He was an outstanding prep athlete in three sports and set Ohio HS records in track. One of his records set was 15 seconds in the regulation 120 yard high hurdles. In his junior year at Michigan he was recruited back into track by Coach Charlie Hoyt) and frequently ran track and played baseball at M on the same day. Elmer would have participated in the 1940 Olympics in Tokyo had they not been cancelled due to WWII.
In 1938, despite not running track since high school Gedeon tied a national record for the 70 yard high hurdles with a 8.6 time. In one meet at Yost Field House he tied Jesse Owens with a 7.2 sprint in the LOW Hurdles--and won the Big Ten high hurdles crown as well.
Meanwhile he really wanted to play pro baseball above everything else and after hitting .320 for the Wolverines he signed a contract with the Washington Senators on June 3, 1939.
On a side note, AFTER he signed to play pro baseball he returned to Ann Arbor in the fall of 1940 to serve as an Assistant Football Coach at M and that is where he received his draft notice. He went to Spring Training with the Senators in Charlotte, NC but joined the Army in March. He transferred to the Army Air Force on October 22, 1941 and trained as a Bomber pilot. His first crash was as Navigator in a North American B-25 Mitchell medium-bomber that struggled on takeoff from the Raleigh Airport (NC) and clipped pine trees at the end of the runway before plunging into a swamp and burst into flames. Gedeon managed to free himself and crawl from the wreckage before realizing crew mat Corp John Rarrat was still inside. He returned pulled Rarrat from the fire but Rarrat later died of his injuries at Rex Hospital in Raleigh. Corp. Ware died at the crash and Gedeon and five other crew members all suffered serious burns and broken limbs. Gedeon broke all his ribs and suffered severe burns to his back, face, hands and legs, some of which needed many skin grafts. He was hopitalized for three months and told the Ann Arbor News "The ribs game me the most trouble--I had to rest on my stomach because of the burns, so the ribs couldn't be taped."
The background story on Elmer Gedeon is fascinating.
If you would like more background on this amazing man visit:
baseballsgreatestsacrifice.com
He is buried in Arlington Memorial Cemetary.
The only survivor of the crash over France was Co-pilot James Taaffe who was taken prisioner for 13 months by the Germans. He later became a VA official and oversaw the GI Bill Benefits Program. He died in McLean, Va. in 2008.
The Greatest Generation.
They deserve a long, long, long salute.
PS--THANKS TO SAM 1863 FOR THE EXCELLENT POST....
From one Elmer to another: much respect. So many men paid the ultimate price in defense of our country.
I wish more people would take this national holiday more seriously. These fallen soldiers deserve it.
I have not once ever encountered a single person who acted in a way that made it obvious they weren't taking Memorial Day "seriously," whatever that's supposed to mean. All the rants and memes on social media scolding people for supposedly forgetting what Memorial Day is about are tilting at windmills, as far as I'm concerned.