A Tribute to my father, a member of Rogers’ Raiders
Posted by editor on 29 July 2010 at 12:29 pm UTC
By LTC Thomas S. Mullikin
July 14, 2010, Normandy, France – A cold, rainy day greets my wife and I – a day that might have easily resembled the conditions encountered by Allied soldiers as they fought their way from the sea onto the enemy held shoreline, followed by the inexorable grind inland toward the goal of ending the tyranny of Nazi Germany.
Today, more than 66 years after the Normandy Invasion, we begin our journey attempting to get our heads around the experiences of my father, Charlie Mullikin, an American soldier who landed here on the Normandy coast and was ultimately wounded in action.
On this day, we SCUBA dive onto the great shipwrecks lying offshore.
White caps are pounding our small, rubber Zodiac boat. Visibility is near zero—no more than five feet at best. I can only imagine the violent and terrible cold shock to those American, British, and Canadian soldiers carrying their packs, weapons, and ammunition through the bloody, churning surf.
I am also reminded of the Navy frogmen who suffered 50-percent casualties as they removed the defensive obstacles placed on the beach and in the surf by the Germans.
I made this trek to celebrate my 50th birthday. More importantly, I wanted to recognize the price of freedom and remember the selfless contributions made by my father and other citizen soldiers of his era—appropriately christened, “The Greatest Generation.”
I am particularly proud of my father, a member of a special reconnaissance unit of the 407th Infantry Regiment, affectionately known as “Rogers’ Raiders.” Their actions – though little known – were stellar at Normandy, and the fame of the exploits would spread Army-wide during the period of the Battle of the Bulge in December 1944.
The Raiders – composed entirely of volunteer combatants trained for direct action operations and deep reconnaissance – were led by 1st Lt. Roy “Buck” Rogers.
Army records describe one of their night raids:
“At exactly 0300 Buck Roger’s Night Raiders of the 407th Infantry pushed out into darkness, out into the narrow torrential Roer (River). … A German machine gun opened up not 50 yards away … Two long minutes later … the boats hit the Roer’s east bank. …With clocklike precision dark figures fanned out around the ominous machine gun. …One man returned the fire. Another grasped his grenade. A good throw. A dull thud. A scream. Silence.
“One group… swung toward the railroad bounded by a dense minefield … The rest of the patrol slugged south mopping up one nest after another. At H-hour—30 minutes later—the first assault wave of the 407th Infantry crossed without a hitch. Their bridgehead, the first across the Roer, was established.
“When the 30 minutes of intense action had ended, the Raiders had destroyed five machine gun nests along with six other automatic weapon positions, killed 15 and captured eight of the enemy … all without losing a single American.”
In spite of the accolades and decorations awarded my father—among them the Purple Heart for wounds suffered from an enemy grenade, and a Bronze Star for heroism— he, like so many Americans of his generation, never considered himself a hero. He was simply doing his job, he would modestly say.
But for the rest of us – as well as future generations – my dad’s accomplishments protected our freedom and way of life.
As I stroll these same beaches and feel the same salt-wind and spray that thousands of surely-frightened young men must have felt nearly seven decades earlier; it becomes starkly apparent to me that the freedom and way of life I speak of will continue only with the same courage required here in 1944, the same blessings from God, and our continued appeals for those blessings.
– LTC Thomas S. Mullikin – deputy director, Legal Directorate, Joint Services Detachment (JSD), S.C. Military Department – serves as civil affairs officer for the Counterterrorism Advisory Team, JSD. Mullikin previously served as Assistant Judge Advocate for the 360th Civil Affairs Brigade (Airborne) USAR, United States Civil Affairs and Psychological Operations, U.S. Army Special Operations Command.
Why was this national story missed?
Posted by editor on 18 July 2010 at 11:23 pm UTC
By W. Thomas Smith Jr.
Convicted felon Hassan Jamile Salame of Dearborn Heights (just over five miles from the city of Dearborn), Michigan, reportedly has been charged with attempted “smuggling of guns and ammunition out of the United States” and “being a felon in possession of firearms and ammunition,” according to U.S. Attorney William Nettles (as reported in only two South Carolina publications last week).
According to the indictment, Salame allegedly tried to smuggle weapons and ammunition from the U.S. to Lebanon while he was in South Carolina.
But the 800-pound gorilla in the room (pardon the cliche) is that Hassan Jamile Salame (clearly a Muslim name) is from Dearborn Heights- Dearborn, Michigan (a hotbed of Shia Islam with an increasing number of Hizballah sympathizers which concerns intelligence and counterterrorism experts nationwide). Hizballah (which is an Iranian-supported Shia terrorist army, which the U.S. State Dept. has officially designated a terrorist organization) is based in Lebanon (Hizballah’s primary base of operations) where Salame allegedly tried to smuggle “the guns and ammunition.”
But what’s even more disturbing is that there were only two publications nationwide that covered this story – the Charleston (S.C.) Post Courier and WIS-TV’s website (the NBC affiliate in Columbia) – and neither mentions or even attempts to make the starkly obvious Hizballah connection.
—— Visit W. Thomas Smith Jr. at http://uswriter.com/
NOTE: The opinions expressed in these articles are solely those of the author, and do not represent the opinions of World Defense Review and its affiliates. WDR accepts no responsibility whatsoever for the accuracy or inaccuracy of the content of this or any other story published on this website. Copyright and all rights for this story (and all other stories by the author) are held by the author.
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