Ed Tice, who lost comrades in 1945 on Iwo Jima, didn’t quite make it to Memorial Day, when we pause to honor those who died defending our country.
Tice died Friday afternoon.
But three days earlier, the 89-year-old veteran received a unique salute from the Marine Corps. Lt. Col. Brad Aiello visited Tice at Legacy Salmon Creek Medical Center. Aiello presented a glass container filled with a few ounces of the beach that Tice and his fellow Marines had stormed in 1945, some sand of Iwo Jima. A Battle Ground resident, Aiello is based at Swan Island in Portland as inspector-instructor, 6th Engineer Support Battalion, 4th Marine Logistics Group.
Tice enlisted about 50 years before Aiello was commissioned, but there is a connection between Marines of all generations, the lieutenant colonel said.
“We live the legacy of those who have gone before us,” Aiello said Tuesday.
Today's Memorial Day Observances
Camas: 9 a.m. flag ceremony at the Camas Cemetery, 630 N.E. Oak St.
Fort Vancouver: 11 a.m. ceremony at the bandstand on the historic Parade Ground, opposite Officers Row.
Washougal: 11 a.m. ceremony at the Washougal Memorial Cemetery, 3329 Q St.
Battle Ground: 11 a.m. ceremony at the Battle Ground Veterans Memorial at Kiwanis Park, 422 S.W. Second Ave.
That legacy is very much on Aiello’s mind this morning as he is scheduled to be the featured speaker in the 11 a.m. Memorial Day ceremony at Fort Vancouver National Historic Site.
Over the years, Memorial Day was a chance for Tice to do more than reflect; he could remember. He was among the 70,000 Marines who captured Iwo Jima in 1945. Taking the Japanese island stronghold was one of the final steps in winning the war in the Pacific, but it came at a steep price. About 7,000 Marines were killed and 20,000 were wounded.
Tice said he knew some of those who were killed in action during the monthlong battle — one in particular. Tice didn’t have a dramatic war story to tell about his friend’s death; he never learned what happened to the Marine from Baltimore. At one point, Tice said, he realized that “he just wasn’t there. That happened to a lot of people.”
And there were other battlefield fatalities. Although he never knew them, Tice dealt with their remains; one of his tasks was picking up body parts.
Tice said he didn’t worry much about his own safety.
“They thought they were invincible,” noted his wife, Stella, of the Marines of that era.
Ed and Stella moved to Clark County a few years ago. Mike, one of the Tices’ five children, was on hand, along with Stella, Tuesday when Lt. Col. Aiello met the Marine veteran.
The visit was set up by George Pobi, whose tattoo reflects his own time in the Marine Corps. As a Legacy Salmon Creek employee, Pobi keeps an eye out for fellow veterans. He said he was impressed to learn that Tice was among the Marines on Iwo Jima.
A third were casualties
“One out of every three was a casualty,” Pobi said.
Carolyn Cook of Battle Ground, another of the Tices’ children, said Sunday that her dad was an anchor for the family because of his experiences in seeing life at its worst. Through human dramas as the children were growing up, he put things in perspective for them.
“Honey,” she recalled him saying, “when you’ve experienced what I did at 18, nothing else touches it.”
Tice experienced those things at 18 because his Marine career got an early start in 1943. He enlisted at age 17, when Ed and Stella were students at Allentown (Pa.) High School.
He was a crewman on a 75 mm pack howitzer, a mobile piece of light artillery that could be taken apart for an amphibious or airborne landing and quickly reassembled. The Marines didn’t waste time getting that firepower ashore on Feb. 19, 1945.
“We were in wave 1½, between the first and second waves,” said Tice, who was part of the 5th Division. “We had to get off the beach as quickly as possible and set up on a plateau to make way for the second wave.”
Tice also was issued a Browning Automatic Rifle, which was heavier than an infantryman’s M-1 rifle.
“At 6-foot-4, he was the biggest guy in the crew,” Mike Tice said of his dad.
A few days after they landed, Ed Tice’s unit was in just the right place to see something happening on a nearby peak.
“We couldn’t tell what it was,” he said, but it had to be significant. “The ships at sea were blowing their horns.”
It turned out to be one of the iconic moments of World War II: the raising of the American flag on Mount Suribachi. That image, and the entire Iwo Jima campaign, are significant parts of Marine Corps history.
“Marines still take trips to Iwo Jima,” Aiello said.
Tice never did return for commemorative events after the war.
“I had several invitations,” he said. “Once was enough.”
