Heroes and Villains

Walt Hunter and wife Irene

Walt Hunter and wife Irene (June 28, 2012)

For me one of life’s great joys is meeting someone new with a story to tell. That happened again for me while on vacation in Central Europe, a part of the world I have always wanted to see and at least get a small taste of its remarkable history, both good and bad.

It was just a coincidence meeting Walt Hunter was on my tour. As it turned out, Central Europe was also on his bucket list, but just the fact that Walt has a list is remarkable. He was with the Marines at the long, bloody battle of Guadalcanal, often on the front line laying phone lines so the troops behind him could communicate as they moved slowly and bravely towards the hidden encampments of the Japanese. When Walt finished his job he was shipped to another island already splattered with American blood to do the same job again. To say that Walt survived would not do justice to his remarkable life. 90 years old now, Walt and Irene have been married for 67 years and looked like two people still on a honeymoon. In fact, they told me this trip by their count was honeymoon number 25.

When I told Walt he was a hero he said “no,” he was just another scared 18-year-old kid from Nebraska who signed with the Marines to do a job that had to be done.  Sorry, Walt, that is a hero.  There are not a lot of those heroes of World War Two still with us, so it is more important than ever to say thank you and to hear their stories.

One of the most important things Walt told me is that you are never too old to keep on learning about the world around us.

I learned a lot in Slovakia and Hungary. These two countries and their people have seen over and over again man’s inhumanity to man. Yet they have survived and have thrived. It was mostly a case of being in the wrong place all of the time, two landlocked countries in the middle of Europe that every war faring nation and religion had to cross and often conquer on their way to a misguided goal. This went on for centuries but only came to a peak when their good people had to endure both the Germans and the Russian communists. The evidence of their cruelty is everywhere but it was on the last day of our trip that Walt and I and our wives saw something that made us cry. Along the wall of the Danube River, just blocks from the now bustling center of cosmopolitan Budapest, we saw shoes lined up surrounded by flowers and lit candles.  I had no idea what it was all about, but Walt did. It happens every Saturday in Budapest to pay respect to the Jews of Hungary who were taken from their homes, lined up on the riverfront and shot and their bodies thrown into the river.

As Walt said, we are never too old to learn. God, I hope so.

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