ED
GARR
Patriot, Chapter 1919
(USMC,
Korea) Article November 1997
Ed Garr
lives in Ocala, Florida, but he chose to join the Military Order of the
Purple Heart Chapter in Austin, Texas. He did that just to renew his ties
with two fellow Marine Corps veterans whose connections with him came out of
two different wars. Ed Garr was a machine gunner with 3rd Platoon, Company
D, 2nd Battalion, 7th Marines, 1st Marine Division, in Korea in 1951 when
Gonzalo Garza was the Platoon Sergeant (see the feature article about
Dr. Garza). Gonzalo received the wound that put him out of the war on May
29, 1951. Ed was wounded twelve days later, on June 10th, when 3rd Platoon,
while in the attack, came under artillery and 120mm mortar fire. Ed soon
returned to the fighting with Company D and after the war he remained in
service. Meanwhile, Gonzalo Garza returned to civilian life and resumed his
career in education.
After a few years, Gonzalo was School
Principal in Corpus Christi. At that time, a young head-of-household,
Frank Cortez, had occasion to go to the school to question Dr. Garza
about why he had paddled Frank's little brother (the late Dan Garcia, who
was Veterans Service Officer in Abilene).
Soon afterward, Frank Cortez was in
the Marine Corps, assigned to Company H, 2nd Battalion, 4th Marines, in
Hawaii. There, in the early 1960's, as a new squad leader, Buck Sergeant
Frank Cortez learned some of his Marine combat skills from Gunnery Sergeant,
Edward Garr. Frank and Ed were still together in May 1965 when
deployed with the very first battalion-sized U.S. unit to be sent into
Vietnam. That was only the beginning of a six-year Vietnam experience for
Frank.
These veterans' associations did not end
with their combat service in Korea and in Vietnam. In August 1997, when
Frank Cortez attended the MOPH National Convention in Tampa, he visited with
Ed Garr enroute and again on the way home. Shortly after that, Gonzalo Garza
and Ed Garr renewed old memories at the annual reunion of 2nd
Battalion, 7th Marines. In the future, these three members will stay in
touch partly through their membership in this fraternity of combat wounded
veterans.
--based on
phone interview with
Ed Garr |
