He asked me in that point in time
if I could do anything with flamethrowers
against the pillboxes.
I said, "I will try."
Much of what went on that day I have absolutely no memory.
From the moment war came to the doorstep of the United States
Hershel Woodrow Williams was determined to serve his country.
Specifically, he had his sights set on becoming a Marine.
That's what I wanted to be.
And I have said, jokingly, many times
the Marine Corps uniform was so much more attractive
and they could get girls easier than those guys in those ugly army uniforms
and I didn't want to wear that.
Every Marine is trained to be a rifleman.
And then others are trained with some other job.
And we had trained - crosstrained - where we were flamethrower operators
as well as demolition people.
So we could do either job,
We could blow it up or burn it up.
Whichever they needed.
Hershel joined up with the 3rd Marine Division
and headed to the South Pacific.
There the Allies were locked in a violent campaign
to reclaim the lands the Japanese had taken
in the wake of the Pearl Harbor attack.
Through this campaign, Hershel would set foot on islands
he had never even heard of before.
When I got overseas I ended up on the island of Guadalcanal,
which was the first island that the Marines had taken in the Pacific.
Naturally it was secure when we got there in late 1943.
But in July of that year
we went to Guam and took Guam back from the Japanese.
We stayed on Guam, until early February of 1945,
we were told we're shipping out.
Nobody had any idea where we were going.
Hershel and the 3rd Marine Division were off to invade a small, volcanic island
from which the Allies would be close enough to stage attacks against the Japanese mainland.
The island's name: Iwo Jima.
None of us, of course, had ever heard tell of it.
They did tell us that it was small.
And there were
you know, there's 20,000 of us on this ship.
Two other Marine divisions were already scheduled
to land first.
Reasonably, we thought,
why would they need so many Marines?
And we were told by the briefers that were briefing us
that it probably would last two to three days, and then
we'd be done.
We'd go back to our tents that we left on Guam.
But that didn't work out that way.
The first night, after having lost so many the first day
on Iwo Jima
we got word over the speaker that we were going in the next day.
The Japanese defense on the island was unexpectedly fierce
and the American casualties had far surpassed predictions.
When Hershel and the 3rd Division hit the shore
they were met with an impassible wall of resistance.
We had encountered a large number of reinforces concrete pillboxes.
And we couldn't bust through them.
Every time we would try to advance, there were so many of them...
They had all field of fire because they're in a protected area.
We're in an open area.
And we were losing Marines very rapidly
but we needed to go forward in order to
capture the island.
My commanding officer asked for a meeting.
We gathered in a huge shell crater.
He asked me in that point in time
if I could do anything with flamethrowers
against the pillboxes.
I said, "I will try."
He gave me four Marines.
The Marines were to shoot at the pillbox that I'm going to try to get flame inside
so that we could eliminate the enemy within.
Much of what went on that day I have absolutely no memory.
Under constant enemy fire, Hershel advanced up the beach
successfully taking out one pillbox after another.
When a flamethrower would run out, he returned to the rear of the American lines,
grabbed another, and advanced again to the next pillbox.
Hershel repeated this for hours
miraculously, never receiving a single wound.
But the Marines providing his cover fire would not be so fortunate.
Two of them lost their lives that day, doing that.
But I was able to advance,
with the help of other Marines,
I was able to eliminate the enemy within seven of those pillboxes.
That gave us a way of getting through.
And once we passed through that protective pillbox area,
then we had the advantage.
After five weeks of ferocious combat
and over 40,000 American and Japanese casualties
the Allies had finally taken Iwo Jima.
The cost of victory was far greater than had been speculated.
But recognizing that losses would certainly have been higher
had it not been for acts of bravery like that of Hershel
and the four Marines who protected him,
Hershel's commanding officer recommended him for the Medal of Honor.
When the war ended, Hershel was called back to Washington D.C.
where he and several other Medal of Honor recipients were congratulated by President
Harry Truman.
But Hershel, viewing his actions on Iwo Jima as simply part of his duties,
was unaware why he had been invited to such an event.
There were thirteen of us that day on the White House lawn.
Until they read my citation, I had no idea why I was receiving it.
Thirteen of us received the medal.
I'm the last of the thirteen.
They have all - all gone on.
It changed my life completely, of course.
Throughout the decades since receiving the medal,
Hershel has remained a shining example of honor and humility.
But he has never forgotten the two Marines to whom he believes the medal truly belongs.
I wear it in their honor.
I'm just the caretaker of the medal.
Because, particularly those two Marines who sacrificed their life protecting me,
they earned the medal more than I did.
I just wear it in their honor and say, I am the caretaker.
To this day, Hershel Williams continues to serve his country.
Since 2010, the Hershel Woody Williams Medal of Honor Foundation
has been establishing permanent Gold Star Family Memorials all across the United States.
The memorials are dedicated to those who have lost loved ones in military conflict.
They lost part of themselves when they lost their loved one.
And, for relatives of those who sacrificed their lives,
those relatives
they never have an opportunity to grow up together
and that vacancy is always there.
We're here in this little community to
dedicate a Gold Star Family Memorial Monument.
Its purpose is to honor those Gold Star Families
who made that...
who lost that loved one
for our freedom.