Broadcasting.

For the lion's share of his 98 years with pen pencil are most often a marker.

Hershel Woody Williams would yield a napkin.

The way a great philosopher would opine on man's fundamental nature of knowledge, reality and existence.

to that list.

Woody would highlight service a lifetime's devotion of service to others, often manifested on a napkin.

If you met with Woody, you know that he always had a project for us.

He would magically produce these napkins and Sharpies.

Typically, with him diagramming the project out while we watched and listened.

They were not always unused napkins, works of art.

On June 29 2022, Chief Warrant Officer for Hershel Wood Williams, would go to his final duty station in heaven, a role model for humanity so loved and respected as to be honored upon his passing with two full military memorials lying in honor at both the state capitol of West Virginia and the distinction to be only the seventh American and the first West Virginian to lie in honor in the United States Capitol Rotunda.

One of what is post World War Two workstations, the Huntington West Virginia Veterans Administration Medical Center was renamed in 2018.

In what his honor, the Hershel Woody Williams VA Medical Center has been improving the health of the men and women who have so probably served the nation since 1960, to a place adorned with fond memories of their beloved namesake, maybe a few napkins here in there.

He would meet somebody in the mall, were at a restaurant or at a at a veteran's event, and he would write her name on a napkin or just a little, you know, back of a, of a store receipt or something, you know, and he would come in and say, Hey, I need you to call this person.

What do you plan his own memorial service down to the smallest detail.

His grandson Brian, extended a Williams family legacy of service, delivering marching orders for all in attendance on napkins.

Each of you at your seat should have a baggie with a napkin and Sharpie.

I want to share with each of you a project that he has left for each one of us.

Please use your napkin and your Sharpie to take some notes.

Governor justice senator mentioned you know well that your project is to accomplish an exit off of 64.

Major General Adams I believe that Sunday he tasked you with getting a monument built at Quantico did he not?

Yes.

Kim off I know you're out there.

I believe that you need to follow through and get that project done at the arch so that we can have a Gold Star family Memorial Monument their Gold Star families, spouses, children, parents, siblings or others whose loved one died in service to our nation.

It's not about me.

It's about them.

It's about those who sacrificed a loved one so that we can be free so that we can continue to live in a country like no other on Earth.

Have a freedom like no one else.

Enjoy.

Chad Graham, taking the mantle of leadership from the Goldstar families Woody Williams foundation that his grandfather created also noted that the West Virginia memorial that Woody had a plan of service for all, even the almighty likely delivered on a napkin.

Also think about what he has told many of us when I get to heaven, I'm going to ask God some questions.

Why do you have to milk cows twice a day?

Why do you make me so short?

If you ever have to send me back, could you make me Commandant but the other thing he wanted to ask God is why me?

Humility, gratitude, and respect for all of those who gave their life for all of us.

And all of those he fought beside.

I am certain, knowing him that he is getting his answers from God.

And I'm also certain that he's making heavenly napkin notes of all kinds of projects for St. Peter and the angels to get working on.

And as we feel his presence, pretty sure those are already being accomplished.

His daughter Tracy says her father and mother Ruby guide the family by faith.

And by example, my parents had rules but you just knew them.

You knew the right and the wrong thing to do.

My mother was a very gracious kind, quiet type.

Dad worked a lot.

The youngest of Woody's five grandsons, Chad Graham says his Malmo Ruby needed that faith, plus plenty of guile and gumption to deal with an extremely service dedicated pap, ah, that takes a strong woman.

And she was just like I said, the perfect complement.

She was strong, she was wise, she was compassionate.

And they made a wonder precis says as a child, her father never really discussed the war, or talked about receiving the Congressional Medal of Honor.

She says it wasn't until she became a young adult, that some of Dad's passion for service became a sort of self therapy.

Then I realized that dad was helping people a lot of years with things that he was probably dealing with himself.

And that was a stark realization that the turmoil that he probably dealt with, he's helping these other people learn how to deal with them and and what directions they can go to get help.

Chad says his grandfather told him that from the time he was a teenager, what he knew he was destined for patriotic service.

My grandfather, so badly wanted to be a Marine.

And when people always ask him what his motivation was to go into the Marine Corps, he would say I was not gonna let anyone take my freedom.

What do you remember that some of his inspiration came as a West Virginia fine boy, who saw two tall strong older guys in uniform, come back home and tell stories.

These two fellas would come home and dress blue uniform and I was driving 12 1314 years old as some of the other kids with me were and of course they were telling us all these big fights said Vinnie, and and all that kind of stuff.

Probably most of it wasn't true, but it was.

It got our attention anyway.

And I apparently decided that if I ever went in the military, and I had certainly no plans, I was gonna be a farmer, I guess the rest of my life.

But if I ever wanted to military, that's what I want to be.

When Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, five foot si Woody Williams knew he had to do something.

He made his way as quick as he could to the marine recruiting office in Fairmont, West Virginia.

And he didn't even look at my paper.

He just looked at me.

And he said, we can't take you.

And I said, why?

And he said, You're too short.

So I left.

I went back and as I recall, I walked back home because I didn't have any transportation.

I will go back to the farm and they don't want me I don't want them I guess.

But know what he knew in his heart that this was just a minor setback, resolved and still become a Marine, a teenager what he Williams still had to help his depression era farm family make ends meet.

So he took a job as a cab driver in Fairmont for a few months.

And it was during that time that he made some incredibly special deliveries when he found himself making deliveries to families with a Blue Star flag in the window.

This means an immediate family member was in military service during a time of con inflict, who was endeavor that would last a lifetime.

So, at that time, we as a country, were notifying these families of loss via telephone, in most cases, and the War Department was putting these in these kind of dark brownish yellow envelopes that were unique to that delivery.

So my grandfather would get this telegram.

And I can only imagine what the first one felt like because he delivered multiples.

Here's the young man once again, it's no military training, no training and bereavement or delivering the worst news that a family could ever receive.

And at that time, a knock on the door was coming from him.

A young man cab driver delivering this this telegram was Western Union telegram.

We regret to inform you that that really, I think, planted a seed in him it.

It had such a weight that he carried with him and his heart, and it changed him in the spring of 1942.

They lifted the height requirement.

On May 27, Woody Williams joined the Marine Corps.

He knew Japan was the enemy, and not much more.

I don't think I ever hated the Japanese.

Really.

I hated what they were doing.

And yet knew very little about it.

The little radio, the little bit of radio we didn't even have a radio at home, we had to go to an uncle's house, to listen to the radio.

We couldn't afford a radio and the little bit of radio chatter that we heard was saying that they want to take our freedom away.

Ladies and gentlemen, the President of the United States, my fellow Americans, the sudden criminal attacks perpetrated by the Japanese and the Pacific revived the climax of a decade of international immorality.

Powerful and resourceful gangsters have banded toge to make war upon the whole human race.

That challenge has now been flung at the United States of America.

The Japanese have treacherously violent violated the long standing peace between the Congress and the people of the United States have accepted that challenge.

There are two iconic places in America defini Two the Marine Corps Iwo Jima and Woody Williams.

One is the National World War Two Museum in New Orleans, Louisiana, and the second is the National Museum of the Marine Corps just outside Quantico, Virginia.

The museum curator says the Iwo Jima display as a Marine Corps must and it tugged at his heartstrings when he saw a world war two marine like Woody with an Iwo Jima Survivors had very rarely only maybe been putting on death march or Iwo Jima Do you see something like that, as happens a survivor and I think that just soak that in what that means.

And that's so typical of what wonderful generation these men wore.

And in women, they they did not see themselves as heroes in any regard.

Even a real true hero like Woody.

I loved his history where he was too small to join the Marines today initially set him back and I think that's, that's definitely the guy I want on my side and a fight.

It has that chip on his shoulder for sure.

Brother sounds at the National World War Two Museum in New Orleans.

The mission is to tell the story of the American experience of world war two in three ways.

Why did we fight the war in the first place?

How did we go about winning it and I think, increasingly important to young people, especially is why should we care about that, you know, 80 years after the fighting was over.

It changed our country.

It changed the world.

And I think that that will have enduring relevance for 1000 years.

The Iwo Jima display notes that in 1945, the fighting in the Pacific was getting closer to the Japanese homeland on volcanic rock islands like Okinawa and Iwo Jima.

It's it's the last battle in modern history where you have two enemy combatant forces intent on killing each other and there's nothing in between them.

There's no civilian towns, there's no you know, there's no firefight.

There's no logistical lines.

It's almost medieval in the sense of a siege mentality where something like the flame thrower comes in speaks to what the Marines were expecting.

It's one of the most brut horrifying weapons nobody wants to be burned alive.

It wasn't popular weapon for woody to carry that into battle.

One he had to sort of adjust himself morally to what we're just going to be asked to do.

And two is a hazardous weapon.

You never kn what's gonna happen when you're carrying gasoline on your back and there's flames and people trying To kill you with this February 21 1945, the 21st Marines landed on the beach at Iwo Jima.

With that unit, Corporal Woody Williams, who had been trained in using a flame thrower.

When you were assigned that incendiary device, you're also assigned an assistant because the flames are a man carrying a flame thrower with 70 pounds on his back, he can't carry his pack and his bed roll and all the other stuff that you have to have.

So they assigned me a fellow by the name of Vernon waters as my assistant.

Now I'm five foot six, I watched five foot shakes, and Vernon was six, four.

And so he had to carry everything that belonged to me.

Big burnin and smaller wood.

He trained together in Guam preparing for Iwo Jima and became fast friends.

And he's moving forward and he's out in front of me 2530 yards, and he jumped up to run to the next protective whatever he saw that might give him some protection and the Japanese fire to a mortar from the other side of the ridge, where they were firing at us.

And that motor came in hit him smack dab in the top of the helmet.

And of course it was just like that.

Well, I ran to him to see if there was any life and there was no sense in calling a corpsman for something.

You know, burnin was a big ring with a nice stone given to him by his father.

What he wore a little dimestore ruby ring given to him by his fiancee, Ruby.

The comrades in arms made a pact that if anything should happen to the other and battle, they would make sure those items returned home.

burnin would get W ring back to his fiancee.

What he would get burdens ring back to his dad.

We've been told that you don't take anything off his body.

But when I saw him lying there on the ground, and there was that ring, and I remembered that pack that we had made.

I tried to pull that ring off his finger of course we hadn't bathed or we were dirty and filthy and I couldn't get it off, wouldn't come off.

And of course, I'm afraid somebody else's coming that finally I spit on it.

And you know if you've ever had a range duck spit on it and it'll slide off and that's what I did.

And I went on about my business duck the ring in my pocket and whatnot.

Going on what he learned from intel the Japanese had 800 pillboxes, four to five structures with sinister holes used to fire machine guns.

pillboxes dug into that Iwo Jima volcanic rock, and 16 miles of tunnels dug under the pillboxes.

They had a hole that you could go up through into the pillbox, but if it got too hot in there, you come back down in the hole and go to another one come up someplace else.

I have said over time that it was just like fighting ghosts.

What he says his company commander asked him if he thought he might be able to do something about some of those marine killing pillboxes.

fellows who were with me in that same shell crater where they were having this meeting and where he asked me that question.

They reported that I said I'll try.

What blame throwing Marine Corporal Woody Williams did, covered mostly by for rifleman was to shove his flame thrower nozzle into those Japanese pillboxes killing all inside, then retreating to refuel and under intense enemy small arms fire returned to the frontline time and time again to wipe out one Japanese position after another many of the flame thrower users in these pictures and film clips could be what he Williams what he spoke fondly of the flanking Marines assigned to him by his field commander, ASI in May for rifleman and two of those Marines that day and period of time that we were working on those pillboxes.

Two of those got killed.

Anytime I wear the Medal of Honor.

I try to say and seldom do I fail, that I don did.

I wear it for those, particular who gave their life really protecting mine.

And it's very possible that I wouldn't be here had it not been for them.

So it really belongs to them.

I'm, I'm just a caretaker of it.

If you read this citation for his medal of honor, there's one word that Woody if he could rewrite that citation here to rewrite it because it said alone.

One word.

Alone, he moved forward alone.

He resented that word or he took loss and from it somehow, for life created hope, because for him, always about them.

Never about him.

them before him.

Like so many World War Two servicemen woody had a girl back home, Ruby Dale Meredith was the love of his life.

He said he didn't marry Ruby before he left for the war, because he didn't want to leave a widow.

Ruby wrote me regularly and I was grateful for that.

She wrote letters.

I've published three, four times a week.

And we weren't allowed to ha bootcamp, none of that junk stuff.

But every wants to wash should slip a stick of chewing gum, in a letter in his letters from overseas what he wanted to keep Ruby informed on just where in the world he was.

The problem was military male censors did not want that kind of information revealed.

And so mother got this letter from dad th out.

And at the bottom, the sensor person wrote it tell woody to quit trying to tell things he's not supposed to tell and your letters won't be all cut up.

What he's not or Tracy shared one keepsake letter written less than a month before woody wouldn't be discharged.

Friday night.

September 9 1945.

Guam.

Darling.

As I journaled last night, here I am.

And I have all evening to write to maybe I can do better tonight than last night.

But I'll admit, I was in a better mood to write last night.

But I'll do my best.

And then you will have to excuse me if I don't do as well.

I never got an email today.

But after getting to such letters yesterday, well, I can't write it.

But as you know, I would love a letter every hour.

I guess Mom and Dad were always just so much in love.

And I tell people this this is the Honest, honest truth.

Mom and Dad.

Were married for 63 years.

I think I told you I'm bad with numbers.

But anyway, I never heard my parents argue.

I never heard a cross word.

And that is the honest truth.

Never.

It was October 5 1945 When President Harry Truman presented the Congressional Medal of Honor to 14 heroes, including the valiant patriot, who now lives before us.

In his remarks that day, President Truman said we fought a good fight.

We've won two great victories.

We're facing another fight.

And we must win the victory, and that President Truman knew that America's work was not finished, even after winning the Second World War.

And likewise, Corporal Woody Williams.

Even after demonstrating the stunning heroism that earned down our nation's very highest honor knew that his own work was not finished either.

As President Harry Truman presented what he with the Congressional Medal of Honor, his citation was read aloud for all at the White House ceremony to hear for conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty.

His unyielding determination and extraordinary heroism in the face of ruthless enemy resistance, were directly instrumental in neutralizing one of the most fanatically defended Japanese strong points encountered by his regiment and aided vitally in enabling his company to reach its objective.

Corporal Williams aggressive fighting spirit and valiant devotion to duty throughout this fiercely contested action, sustain and enhance the highest traditions of the US Naval Service.

Just after receiving the metal still in Washington, DC, when he had a personal visit with Marine Corps Commandant General Alexander Vandergriff himself a Congressional Medal of Honor recipient for heroism at Guadalcanal, general Vandergriff said to him, that metal does not belong to you.

That metal belongs to those Marines that did not get to come home.

So I can only imagine as a as a young Marine who's just gone through hell Elon back.

He's now highest honor for valor.

And then to have what in his mind was almost God to him in the Marine Corps.

Commandant who was awesome Melbourne recipient from Guadalcanal really put upon him what it meant to wear that metal and the sh time they had to spend together.

He said, you wear that on their behalf Don't you ever do anything to tarnish it?

What immediately impacted and weighed so heavily on this young Marine just home from war, anxious to spend time with his soon to be wife Ruby was returning the ring of his fallen friend and comrade burnin waters to Vernon's father in faraway Montana.

He and my grandmother get back to West Virginia shortly after the ceremony and all of the welcome the hero's welcome.

They were married that same month.

And as he told he said, I didn't have two nickels to rub together.

And they didn't have a car.

So he borrowed a car, an old dodge convertible.

And he got my grandmother.

And that first order of business was for him to drive to Freud, Montana, to take that ring back to Vernon's family.

He had made that commitment.

I wrote them a letter and told him that I had the ring, but I was not going to ship it I was gonna bring it.

I'm gonna bring that rang, and we delivered that ring to his dad.

And you would have thought that I was delivering him all the gold in Fort Knox.

just tremendous.

That challenging yet selfless task to return a fallen Marines ring home, set woody on a life's path that exemplifies what would become his mantra and motto.

The cause is greater than I. I don't think he served others the rest of his life because he received the Medal of Honor.

He wasn't asked to be a counselo honor gold families because of Iwo Jima, he did it all those things because to what he was, it's been said that the blue cloth that holds that metal is this beautiful light blue, delicate ribbon.

But it must be stronger than steel, because of the weight of what that metal is.

And the weight that pulls on, I think on recipients and I think it was part of what drove Woody.

It's what drove him to serve families.

It's what drove him to serve other other veterans.

It's what it's what drove him to create the woody waves foundation is you've got you've got to wear that in a way that carries on the legacy of those especially those two Marines that died protecting him that day.

Wendy Williams wore that medal of honor as a heroic emblem on one Marines dedication to serve others.

What he says what he brought home with him from the war that he was a bit lacking in before was confidence.

I really hadn't decided at that point in time what I was going to do with my life.

I sort of figured that I would go b I had more confidence in myself that I could do whatever I decided I wanted to do that newfound confidence guided what he toward a new mission of service to help fellow veterans what he told the story of getting a letter in 1946 or 47 offering him a job at the then Huntington VA center and he didn't even know at that point that the that the VA even existed.

During our renaming, we told a great story about driving down here and his father in law's truck on bold tires in the air state wasn't around and this was at maybe it was in 1947 in the other states weren't around.

So traveling from Fairmont quiet Dale, West Virginia area to bald tires in the third week of January had been pleasant experience and he talks about that what he took the job, a veteran service representative at the VA A claims assistant.

Their primary duty was to walk veterans through getting their GI Bill benefits their VA Home Loans, compensation and pension.

For some that might have been a rubber stamp chop.

But what his grandson Chad says what he took every veterans plight Big or small, personally and to heart he had a responsibility to those that he served with and he extended that to every single person in the military and in the veteran community.

Whether they were of his vintage, older, younger, have that job what he was some year returning to war on foreign soil.

As a veteran service representative in South Vietnam.

Nemo says that was difficult for what he talked about what a challenge it was because he was in country.

And what a challenge it was to get to that time still active duty members that would soon be veterans and get them to a safe place, so that they could be counseled on what to do when they get home.

What he would often ask himself and others a simple two word question, Why me?

Why was I destined by God to live this life?

If there's probably outside of Jesus, if there's ever been a person that's never had to question and say, Why me?

You know, that would be Woody Williams.

I mean, that's and I told him, I said, What do you just look at everything you've done s were discharged?

You know, and if there's ever a pe doesn't have to ask the question, Why me it's you now into his 80s, the impact of a young Woody Williams delivering somber Western Union telegrams to those blue star families never left his or grandson Chad's mind, heart or soul.

Chad remembers his past by speaking to a gathering of gray haired West Virginians, when he talked about patriotism.

And the Mountain States many Gold Star Mothers.

He especially remembers the story of an emotional gentleman remaining in the meeting room after everyone else had left.

And as he turned around, and was packing up his stuff, you can hear this gentleman's footsteps on that pa used and turned to the gentleman and he saw tears in his eyes.

And he said, Sir, is there something I can do for you?

How can I help you?

And the man simply said, Dad's cry two dads cried to the gentleman who was a gold star father who had given his son Chad says on the drive home that night, when he stopped at the West Virginia State Capitol Complex war memorial, where he had an epiphany that would shape the rest of his life.

He stopped to visit and really just to think, and internalize what he had just experienced with this dad, who had given one of his own, that had given his son so that we could all be free, any and he just spent some time there and looked at all those names that are on the War Memorial there in West Virginia.

And he went home, and he conceptualized wh become the Gold Star families Memorial Monument, consumed with passion for the project, what he got together with his daughter, Tracy, a talented artist in her own right.

He had an African with a bunch of notes on it, and he said, I will tell you, I will tell you what I want to do.

And I said, okay, so he gave me the idea that he had about the Gold Star family Memorial memorial monument.

And so we sat at the kitchen table in his house and, and just went through different ideas of any he had in his mind that he wanted those panels.

And he had several things that he thought he might want on him.

And we went through all that went through different ideas.

And, and we sketched it out that day.

And once folks saw th and through media news stories, and the Internet folks saw this monument, and you saw other folks get involved, you saw school groups, you saw Gold Star families say, hey, we would love to do that in our community.

And you saw them start to pop up across the country.

And now from that one from that one seed 121 that had been dedicated to date, and then another 70 that are in process, and we add about about every 10 to 12 days, we're getting a call and we're onboarding a new local committee somewhere in the United States that want to participate in this program and it is so powerful to see beginning with the first at the West Virginia State Veterans Cemetery.

Gold Star families Memorial monuments cover all 50 states from the seashore to the plains, from the mountains to the heartlands.

They can be found in dedicated spaces, all kinds city squares, veteran veterans cemeteries, state capitals, village parks, the monuments have a structural continuity, but are embellished with etchings that describe that particular state city community and its people and their sacrifices for the cherished freedom that Americans bought and died for.

The mission woody established goes far beyond erecting monuments.

The foundation's gold star living legacy Scholarsh Program offers assistance to family members seeking education at all levels.

The foundation supports Gold Star families through partnerships with other nonprofit and service organizations to provide a clearinghouse of services for Gold Star families foundation supportive events like gold We'll start family days at the ballpark are growing around the country.

A tradition beginning with a triple A Louisville b the families become ballpark VIPs they're honored on the field.

They throw out first pitches.

No Hartman Martin and his Gold Star family came to honor Noah's grandfather, Army Veteran Michael Martin, who died in the service of his country.

No one says being in the company of other Goldstar families helps ease the grieving process, they gave us a chance to be recognized with other people around us and and put us in group with people that were that have also lost somebody that served and it's a great feeling and to know that we're, we're part of something and it's very, very nice to be around other people that know what it's like.

Young gold star widow Brittany Lorenz traveled to the Kentucky ballpark from Alabama.

Her newlywed husband Joshua died just after their marriage in a combat deployment to Afghanistan.

She found initially that survivor outreach services were not a military priority, until she connected with the Woody Williams Foundation.

They allow the families to still be a part of a family.

As when, you know one of my biggest thing is going through grief was my world ended but everyone else has continued.

And having a foundation like this allows for me to continue living and honoring and being a part of a family altogether that are still struggling.

And this way we can all be together and grieve happily.

There were organizations but nothing had been done on a national scale to create something permanent, to honor and to bring that to the forefront of the public consciousness.

Tracy says in his last years her father struggled to fulfill his promise to attend every monument groundbreaking.

But the struggle was with missing the personal contact that stoked his spirits.

He got to a point where he couldn't go to all the groundbreakings and in minute later he was in hospital.

He missed some dedications.

But it wasn't about seeing that monument.

It was about being with those Goldstar families and letting them know that somebody cares about them.

That just that was his drive.

That drive came full circle for what he and 2020 harkening back to Dad's cried to with an indelible memory from a monument dedication.

When we dedicated the Gold Star family memorial monument in Wilmington, North Carolina.

Naturally, we had a ceremony and ghost our family members were there too, to be honored for the loss or sacrifice of their loved one.

And when the program was over, and the monument was unveiled a father Goldstar fam family father walked up to the monument and he had a little bag in his hands.

And when that bag were some of his son's ashes and he put those ashes at the foot of the cutout of that person missing.

That is the first and only time that that has ever happened.

But it was a very emotional moment he was a freakin rock star.

Constance Whitaker first met Wendy Williams on the USS Missouri to the 75th anniversary of Pearl Harbor.

She forged a lasting friendship with what he saw on the museum sponsored victory in the Pacific trip back we will Jima and that's when she knew we would walk into an air he would shake everyone's hand any groups of Marines that were on Iwo Jima, especially, I mean, when they learned that Wendy Williams was there with us.

Holy cow, they it was they were in.

They were absolutely in awe.

They could not believe that they were there meeting Wendy Williams, and woody would go up and shake everyone's hand and thank them for their service and just wanted to talk to everyone and did like a rock star.

a freakin rock star.

He was absolutely a rock star.

He had essentially met every US president since like 1946.

And and he wrote in Air Force One when President Trump was was in office and you know flip the coin at the Super Bowl and wav the flag at the Indy 500.

I mean, the list of cool things he got to do is was not short.

He enjoyed those times.

But I honestly believe he enjoyed the time if he went to pipe Saunders Elementary and spoke to the kids there, he enjoyed that as much as is is, you know other things that he did in his 2020 State of the State Address West Virginia Governor Jim justice after gesturing with a hatchet to make a point early on, then later praising Woody Williams as a home state hero and champion of Gold Star families and gold star monuments, broke protocol and invited Rockstar woody to address the state legislature.

Come on over here just stole a whole lot right here from you than me.

But currently, we're in 45 states 45. state in this country, many communities, we've lost count of those.

But they have put up a Gold Star family memorial monument to honor those families that gave more than any of us, they gave one of their loved ones.

So we can be free.

We've got 63 more that are in process somewhere in the country.

West Virginia can be very, very proud.

We already have seven communities in this state that have put up a Gold Star family memorial monument to honor those in their communities.

We have four more they're in the process, and working every day, and in just a few months, they will be online.

So it's happening all over the country because of the big hearts and the love that people show.

For those who gave so much of a sacrifice.

We need $12,000 to meet our goal for our capitol monument.

So I'm hoping we can get both outdoors out here.

Well, I'll tell you what, you can keep that little orange jacket.

And I'll give you the 12,000 Tomorrow the contingency fund and you stay away from my hatchet.

What his grandson Chad says one of the things that was so unique about his pap or was he never met anyone with that genuine of a heart.

And that would always cut through any pomp and circumstance or apply to any situation whether you were sitting in a little diner or sitting at the White House.

He treated folks regardless of who they were, where they came from.

With the same amount of respect.

Marine Corps commandant, General David Berger noted that would he maintain perhaps elevated that Rockstar status after his passing, being among the very selected view to lie in honor at both his state and nation's capitals?

I think beyond the Marine Corps, even Americans, every part of this great nation lost lost a big one.

And you could see that today if you walked around and many of y'all did.

You could see it in the people that were in the Capitol.

You could see it in the people that were lining the street today.

To say goodbye, grandson Chad says that Rockstar s fostered from early on from a man who strode on many walks of life.

He was a West Virginian, a farm boy, a lumberjack, a slag shoveler a taxi driver, a Marine, a warrior, a counselor, a teacher, a poet, a horse trainer, a son, a husband, a father, a grandfather, a great grandfather, a friend.

And the most important he was a servant of America was on October 17 2017, what his daughter's traveling and Tracy christen the USS Hershel Woody Williams.

What he humbly said at the christening, that the expeditionary mobile base ship named for him was all about everybody, but him.

I hope that my name being on this ship will in some way honor For those Marines who never got to come home and those who made it possible for me to have the Medal of Honor to have those that never came he has a use that flame thrower to neutralize those Iwo Jima, enemy pillboxes.

He was given four Marines to protect him.

He knew two of those Marines to he did not born holes and Fisher.

Those are the names of the two men that gave their life.

He did not know that for 70 plus years, there was a casualty report.

Division.

I mean, what company I knew the day I knew the loc Those are the only two after some in depth research involving the Williams family and the Marine Corps.

The ship christening occasion somewhat paled in comparison to a grateful woody discovering that Warren Barinholtz and Charles Fisher were the man who flanked him and gave their lives in combat.

US Marine Private First Class Charles Fisher's grave marker is in Hawaii, US Marine Corporal Warren Barinholtz along with PFC Fisher, I remembered with a marker in San Diego learn to those remains who sacrifice their life that say okay in mind you have no room anywhere at all.

He had carried that metal and till the day he died, carried that metal with them in mind every day.

He just hadn't ever had a name for him.

And it was incredibly powerful for him to be able to say their names, more inborn hosts, Charles Fisher, and we got to connect with their families generations removed, but it's still meant so much to them for him to be able to walk up to them and and thank them for their loved one laying down their life for his that's what it's all about.

And 2018 at age 94, when he made Iw o Jima and Mount Suribachi with his grandson Chad and others joined him saw the flag after it was up before but it did not some to me and I think it did that for others at that particular time.

We had lost so many Marines in just a few days five days.

So when Oh, Rory was on top, it lifted the spirits of all of us.

You will Jima is remembered with other Saratoga, the Alamo.

Gettysburg remembered not simply because Americans were again, conspicuously gamut in battle.

But because our sons were called upon to endure unspeakable hardship, for the sake of freedom.

Your flag raising it not Suribachi remains a beacon.

Indeed a birthright for America's young people and for every future American.

Be behalf of all Americans.

We salute today, the men of evil.

They're in Iwo Jima when he was given some dog tags made by his family that bore the names of Fisher Barinholtz waters, and Williams, two of the men who fought alongside him that day, and a best friend, totaling three, dear to his heart, who never made it home.

Also on the tags, a Bible passage, John 1513 inscribed no greater love, has any man lay down his life for his friend and I gave them to my grandfather up there and said we want to present these to you do with them.

Whatever you feel is appropriate.

He unfurled them in his hand, took a minute, look down, thought about those names.

And then he slowly presented and hung them.

For so many dog t are hung atop Mount Suribachi and with a very slow respectful salute pain that lasts all of the dots connected we know that his legacy as Marines As Woody, that's going to continue his bravery, his selflessness, his humility, all that exemplified the best virtues of this nation which he talked about all the time.

His enduring contributions enduring to our heritage, I think they've left an indelible mark on the legacy of our Marine Corps.

His legacy is yours and mine.

The two things that Woody Williams prized above service was his undying love for his wife, Ruby, and his faith Bible he told his hometown Pastor Chuck Harding, to ask those at his funeral to accept Jesus Christ as their Savior for our pastor Harding did just that, I cannot think.

And I believe I'm not alone.

I have anyone that personified more a Christ like spirit, and everything that he did, not only for his God, who he loved, for his family, who we love dearly for the gold star, families and for the core, but it was what his wife Ruby, who from the day he met her to the day she passed was his rock.

I've wandered many times.

What would I have been?

What would I have done?

What would have happened to me had I not married?

Ruby married?

I will sometimes still, after all these years.

Roll over in the bed and she's not there.

It takes her three second to realize she'd gone to bed.

Before the split second.

I think she just got up and got out of bed.

So yeah, I still miss her.

And I tell her every night, and I've done it ever since 2007.

But I love her still do.

Ruby passed on in 2007.

Right about the time that when he began his gold star families foundation in earnest.

His daughter Tracy believes that at that pivotal time, the Almighty intervened in this loving couples lives.

Mother didn't like to travel too much like go far away around West Virginia she loved.

And so dad was traveling a lot.

And in the early 2000s, and dad had he knew that, you know, mother was in her 80s.

And she really didn't want to go on all these trips.

And he hated to lever.

And so he said I'm going to slow down.

I'm going to quit traveling so much.

And he did cut back.

And then the Lord took mother in 2007.

And I always believed to still do that.

God knew dad had a huge mission to accomplish.

And he would not have done all this.

If he were if mother were still here and he you know he was concerned about her.

So I feel like God said, Ruby, I need you.

And I need woody to stay and finish his mission.

And I just believe that's why God took mom and left that The cause is greater than nine this has been a production of West Virginia Public Broadcasting