Salute to Service

PFC Richard Mathews, a 104th Division WWII veteran, rides in the Veterans Day Parade on Saturday. (Photos by Steven Lane/The Columbian)

Slade Massie, 3, and his aunt Verdean Massie from Battle Ground watch the Veterans Day Parade from Officer’s Row on Saturday. (Photos by Steven Lane/The Columbian)

Richard Mathews won’t divulge how much Cognac he drank when he was a young medic in the months following the Normandy Landings. But he insists, even 64 years later, that he tipped back his canteen cup after duty only.

And, he adds pointedly, he dipped into the half-barrel of Cognac only after the captain had helped himself.

On Saturday, Mathews was one of the few World War II veterans at Vancouver’s Veterans Day Parade. He rode shotgun in a refurbished Ford Army Jeep with M. Steven West and his wife of 48 years, Virginia Mathews.

He wasn’t surprised that he was among the few World War II veterans attending the parade. He lifted his helmet to reveal a nearly full head of white hair: “At 84, I got more hair than there are guys,” he said.

A World War II veteran friend of his was rained out, Mathews said.

In 1944, 90 days after the D-Day invasion, Mathews was a 21-year-old medic from Portland. He was with the 104th Infantry Division and among 5,000 shipped out from New Jersey by Troop Transport to the French coast.

Medical bags in tow, a red cross painted onto his green helmet, Mathews walked five miles inland to Normandy. From there, the Army men made their way to Cologne in Germany.

Along the way, the Army men handed out what were called K- and C-rations — usually a mélange of meat and cheese. They also exchanged Hershey’s chocolate bars and soap for laundry services — and, perhaps, even a half-barrel of Cognac.