Steve Vernaccini Jr., at age 91, wasn't too keen on leaving his comfortable home for a long trip. But his friends finally prevailed upon him to sign up for an Honor Flight out of Rochester, N.Y., bound for Washington, D.C. The date was Saturday, May 2. He will remember it for the rest of his days.
"What I really wanted to see was the Iwo Jima Memorial," he said in a recent phone interview. Vernaccini had never visited our nation's capital. But at the WWII Memorial, Iwo Jima found him.
Carol Megathlin Honor Flight hubs scattered across the country use community donations to send local area war veterans to D.C. to visit their memorials -- all expenses paid. Most Honor Flights stop first at the memorial to World War II soldiers.
Vernaccini, an Army sergeant with the 752nd AAA Gun Battalion, an anti-aircraft unit, defended against possible Japanese air attacks during the battle for Iwo Jima in the Pacific. Anyone even casually acquainted with WWII history knows that to meet someone who survived the battle of Iwo Jima is to look into the soul of courage, and to guess at what images haunt the mind.
Vernaccini's unit emplaced their guns on the "opposite end of the mountain" near the sea to defend our troops.
"We had to take them (aircraft) down while they were still over the water," he said. "They bombed us on May 21, 1945, if that tells you anything," he said. His unit stayed on the island for six months after enemy resistance ceased.
On the morning of May 2, 2015, Vernaccini, entered the World War II Memorial wearing a blue ball cap with the words "Iwo Jima Survivor" embroidered in gold across the front. Members of his group dispersed around the memorial, some drawn by the dress uniforms of the generals and admirals on hand to greet an Honor Flight from Savannah, Ga. One of them was Rear Adm. Sinclair Harris, vice director for operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff in D.C.
Adm. Harris, spotting Vernaccini's cap, approached him to say that he was startled, that he had never met a survivor of the battle of Iwo Jima. After a few minutes of conversation, Adm. Harris said, "I have something for you."
He reached under the jacket of his dress uniform and drew out a webbed belt, freed the buckle that linked the two ends, and handed it to Vernaccini.
Engraved along the top of the bronze rectangle were the words "USS Iwo Jima (LHD 7)." Across the bottom, "Uncommon Valor." A low relief of the famous Iwo Jima flag-raising scene adorned the middle of the buckle.
A few minutes later, when asked about the significance of the buckle, Adm. Harris said, "The Iwo Jima was my favorite ship." He paused. "But that man took the mountain." After a moment of reflection, he added, "You can't let certain moments pass."
His eyes held a curious look for a beat or two of silence. "You just can't let certain moments pass."
Steve M. Vernaccini, Jr., from Rochester, N.Y,, walked into the WWII Memorial not knowing quite what to expect on the morning of May 2. As is true of most WWII veterans, Vernaccini's memories since the last battle are known only to him. With images of horror seared into our veterans' souls, life can't have been easy for any of them. But on that day, Vernaccini encountered a fellow warrior who honored his sacrifice in a way that no one else at the memorial could have done.
Such moments are handed to us by God. We do well not to let them pass.
Carol Megathlin is a writer living in Savannah, Ga.