As natty as a groom in a receiving line, Delmar Strunk, 92, stood straight in a dark blue suit, shook hands and welcomed family and neighbors filing into the high-ceiling old auditorium Wednesday afternoon in the Scotland City Hall.
"You know, there's nothing like friends," he said warmly, gripping the hand of one acquaintance.
That he should be the honored recipient at this awards ceremony was about as improbable as the fact that, according to his wife, Velma, until this spring he still was mowing the lawn at their home.
That he was alive to see his life take this pleasant turn would have seemed beyond remarkable 70 years ago. Strunk had just emerged from some of the toughest jungle fighting in World War II.
On the auditorium stage, he sat quietly and composed as Jon Hittle of the American Legion's China Post 1 described to the audience of about 100 Strunk's role in a bayonet charge at Shaduzup, in Burma, in March 1944. Strunk's team of the 1st Battalion of the 5307 Composite Unit had moved into position at 3 a.m. to fall upon an unsuspecting camp of about 400 Japanese soldiers.
Delmar Strunk, a 92 year old WWII veteran, on Wednesday received the Bronze Star Medal, Asiatic-Pacific Theater Campaign Medal, US Army Ranger Tab and Presidential Unit Citation in Scotland, S.D. He was a member of the famous "Merrill's Marauders."
Word was passed among Strunk and his companions, Hittle said: "Don't shoot 'em. Stick 'em."
Sen John Thune joined Col. Marshall Michels, Ranger Lt. Col. Orson Ward and Ranger Sgt. 1st Class Burle Christofferson of the South Dakota Army National Guard and Hittle in presenting Strunk the Bronze Star, Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal with battle stars, U.S. Army Ranger Tab and Presidential Unit Citation. As a member of the 5307 Composite Unit — the legendary special forces group Merrill's Marauders — Strunk earned the awards.
But the group was hastily disbanded in August 1944, after being pulled from combat. Many of Strunk's company's records were lost when a pack mule carrying them plunged over a cliff, and in the massive reduction in military forces immediately after the war, awards often failed to follow recent soldiers into civilian life. Strunk never received the honors.
Thune said the American Legion took the lead in seeking the documentation to support Strunk's military honors. Hittle directed the credit to Thune's staff, and Strunk's wife said she urged her husband to pursue the honors to which he was entitled.
He told her he would, since their grandchildren would remember the occasion.
"Well, our grandkids are here today, and our great-grandkids are here today," she said.
Grandchildren and great-grandchildren. How could Strunk have even imagined such a domestic life in early 1944? Born and raised near Irene, he enlisted in the Army at age 20 in 1942. After completing advanced infantry training with the Browning automatic rifle, he was sent to Fort Carson. There he responded to a request from President Roosevelt for 3,000 men to volunteer for a new unit taking on an undisclosed perilous mission. Strunk observed his 21st birthday in February 1944, hiking into Burma.
For months, Merrill's Marauders successfully caught larger Japanese forces in pincer movements and attacked supply and communications lines behind Japanese lines. They fought in river valley jungles but in sight of snow-covered Himalayan peaks, Hittle said. They carried what they could pack on their backs and on mules and horses, and they were meagerly resupplied by air drops. The unit fought five major battles with the Japanese and about 70 smaller actions.
By the time the 5307th was pulled from combat, only two of its members had not been shot or fallen ill. Strunk was not among them. He was evacuated and hospitalized twice for malaria and scrub typhus. He fought in three of the five major battles before his second hospitalization, and he was reassigned to another unit after he recovered.
It might have saved his life. When Merrill's Marauders were disbanded, only 200 of the 3,000 members still were able to carry a weapon and fight. The rest had been killed, wounded or fell gravely ill when they became malnourished. Their leader, Gen. Frank Merrill, suffered a heart attack.
Thune praised Strunk for possessing tremendous strength, toughness, fortitude and skill. He said Strunk understood "he was serving a cause greater than himself. He had a great sense of purpose."
Thune said presenting military honors to veterans such as Strunk "is one of the best parts of my job," and he touched on what he called Strunk's humility.
"How many of us in the audience would wait 70 years to get medals we deserve?" he asked.
Afterward, Strunk said the medals were fine, but the impressive turnout of friends and family at the ceremony made the day.
"This day meant a lot to me," he said. The medals are good. They're priceless. I'm real proud of them. But you know, my friends that came, some of them never got invitations, they never got the word. But they came. They wouldn't miss it."
After the war, Strunk married his wife, whom he had known before the war, about as quickly as he could. Almost a little too quickly, she said with a smile. "I wasn't sure I was ready."
As with many veterans, it took him awhile to talk much about the war.
"It got pretty tough for him in the hospital a few times," she said. The Merrill's Marauders volunteers at times virtually thought themselves to be on a suicide mission, she added. "There was no provision to get them out of there. He thought 'I'll never get out of here.' "
But he did. They'll celebrate a 69th wedding anniversary in October. It is some measure of their life together that after he retired from farming, he suggested they take dancing lessons.
"We did a lot of dancing," she said.
That life turned out so well after the horror of bayonet charges in the Burma jungle is because Delmar Strunk brought to Merrill's Marauders something in addition to the soldierly qualities Thune praised, Strunk is sure.
"I want to thank you folks for all coming today," he told his audience at the conclusion of the ceremony. "It was nice of you on this hot day to come out here and see an old 92-year-old get some medals.
"There's a reason a guy can make it through. I always thought of my God. I never quit believing in my God.
"That's what everybody should do. Thank you."
Source: http://www.news.myanmaronlinecentre.com/2014/05/29/after-70-years-scotland-man-receives-his-medals/
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