Thursday, November 10, 2011

Veteran's Day: The Story of Eddie, Bobby, and Al


Veteran’s Day: The Story of Eddie, Bobby, and Al
By Hans Zeiger
Stahl Junior High School
November 10, 2011

This morning I want to tell you the story of three kids who grew up here in Puyallup. They were neighbors. If you go down around Decoursey Park—that’s the neighborhood where they grew up about 75 years ago. Their names were Al, Bobby, and Eddie.

Al Tresch was the son of a Swiss immigrant dairy farmer, a hard worker who saved up money from odd jobs in Tacoma to buy a big dairy farm in the valley. There were three brothers, Albert, Robert, and Jim. Albert was the mischievous one in the family, and I’ll say more on that in a minute.

Bobby Bigelow grew up on ten wooded acres across Pioneer from the Tresches, and across Fruitland from the Washington State College Experiment Station. His father was a farmer at the Station. The Bigelows were a prominent family in the community.

And Eddie grew up on the grounds of the Experiment Station, where his father worked as the foreman. Next door to the Myerses were the Kinseys. Essey Kinsey and Eddie Myers were best friends. In the evenings after school at Maplewood Elementary, Essey and Eddie, along with Ruthie and Bobby Bigelow and a few other neighborhood kids, played games in the fields.
         
All three of these kids played an important role in their school.  

Everybody liked Eddie because he had a way of making everybody feel welcome. He wasn’t a genius, and he repeated the first grade at Maplewood. But people liked him because he was the most joyful and the most caring guy you could find.

Eddie was the quarterback of the Puyallup High School football team. His high school classmates remember him at what’s now Sparks Stadium, as he grabbed hold of the punts from fourth down. Eddie was only 145 pounds, but as his teammate and friend Don Henderson told me, “Eddie Myers was fearless.”

Bobby was a quiet kid who spent much of his childhood exploring the DeCoursey woods and learning the local trees and flowers. He was a Boy Scout. He loved to be outdoors. Not many people remember Bobby, because he was just so quiet. He kept to himself. But he was a good and loving brother to his two sisters, one who was older and one who was younger.  

As for Al, he is well-remembered for all the wrong reasons. He was the dropout, the troubled teen, the overweight kid. He dropped out of the fifth grade at Maplewood Elementary in the 1930s and became the town bully. If you talk to the old-timers around here, they’ll tell you that Al Tresch was a terror in town. He often got in fights. He weighed over 300 pounds by the time he should have been in high school. They called him “Fat Tresch.”

Well Eddie graduated 71 years ago in June of 1940 and left for Washington State College. He was a couple years into his education when he entered the Army. Assigned to the 417th Infantry Regiment, 76th Division, Lt. Myers met up with his men at Camp McCoy, Wisconsin. He was made a rifle platoon leader.  

Lt. Howard Randall from Texas joined the 76th as a rifle platoon leader in June. Since he was new to the platoon, he was at a disadvantage in relating to the men, but he quickly observed that Lt. Myers had won them over. Eddie made himself available to the GIs to assist them with personal troubles or to reassure them about the stresses of war. He was a counselor and friend. Some men in the platoon were illiterate, so Eddie took time to transcribe their letters home.

On Thanksgiving Day, 1944, the 76th boarded the troop transport USS Brazil out of Boston. They continued training at Bournemouth, England. Just before Christmas, the troops at Bournemouth learned that the Germans had gone back on the offensive at the Ardennes Forest on the Western Front, and so they were ordered to ship across the channel to France.

The 76th marched from Limesy to Luxembourg in less than two weeks through the snow, arriving in Junglinster on January 26. The winter was deadly. Snow blanketed the ground. Inadequately booted and clothed, the men struggled to survive.

In the Luxembourg winter of 1945, Lt. Myers was almost, as his football teammate Don Henderson had known him at Viking Field, “fearless.” But as Howard Randall remembers, “We were all afraid that we were going to get killed or wounded in combat.” And by war’s end, three of six officers in Eddie’s company had been killed. The other three were wounded. One wounded officer became mentally unstable. 

The first officer in Eddie’s company to be severely wounded in the Battle of the Bulge was the company commander. Then the executive officer was killed. With no time to mourn the dead, Eddie took over as company commander.

In mid-February, several hundred men of the 76th penetrated the Ziegfried Line. They crossed the Zauer River through German-occupied territory. On the other side, Lt. Myers led his men as they climbed about 450 feet up a mine-laden escarpment. At the top was an obstacle course like no other. Stretching 1,000 yards across and three and a half miles into the distance were 144 German pillboxes. Inch by inch, pillbox by pillbox, the infantrymen made their way through.

It was after two days of rest beyond the Ziegfried line that the 76th began an assault on the town of Welshbillag. Two-hundred fifty men charged into the town.

Two German tanks fired rounds of 88-mm rifle shells into the advancing Americans. Some men were killed instantly. A shell landed beside Lt. Randall; it was a dud. Lt. Myers was hit in the stomach. He was losing blood quickly. Some of his men helped him into a barn. Most of the platoon continued on, fighting through the night. Eddy sat up in the barn in agonizing pain. Eddie was 21. 

That same month that Eddie was killed, Bobby was in hard combat in the Philippines.

After high school, Bobby went off to Oregon State to study forestry. And it was there that Bobby was drafted for the Army. He went to Basic Training in Texas. In basic training, he formed a close friendship with a quiet young Japanese-American man named Frank Yano. They had similar personalities, similar interests. After boot camp, Bobby went on for cavalry training at Fort Bliss, Kansas with the 1st Cavalry, 5th Regiment. Frank, along with his two brothers, was assigned to the segregated all-Japanese American 442nd Infantry Regiment, training at Camp Shelby in Mississippi.

And before Frank was to depart for service in Europe, he asked Bobby to be the best man in his wedding.

By the summer of 1944, Frank was in Europe, where he and his two brothers in the 442nd saw some of the toughest fighting in Europe. Frank earned the Bronze Star for helping to rescue wounded comrades. Bobby was with the 1st Cavalry as they took back the Admiralty Islands, and then they waited there for the invasion of the Phillipines.

Bobby was in the fifth assault wave into the Philippines. “I guess by now you have read all about us in the paper,” he wrote home to his mother on November 6. “It’s quite a place, we traded stuff and got chickens several times so have had fried chicken. Lots of sweet potatoes and corn too. The people here are sure glad to see us come and are a great help to us.” On Thanksgiving Day, as the Army fought its way through the Philippines, a dinner of roast turkey and three fresh eggs was sent out to the men on the lines. 

From a foxhole, he wrote to his mother on December 4. The Army, he said, was “doing a swell job” as it pushed its way to Manila. “Right now I’ve got three inches growth of whiskers and haven’t washed in just about that length of time.”

But the road to Manila was hard. They fought at Leyte and Luzon. Bobby’s high school classmate Del Martinson was in the infantry, and he described for me the nightmare of a Japanese ambush in the Philippines, dropping to the ground and laying there absolutely helpless with bullets whizzing just above his head. And he described the sensation of wanting to get up and run away but somehow being unable to move. Martinson’s squad leader was killed in that ambush.

And in the midst of things like this, Bobby provided medical aid to countless men along the way. By the first week of February, the 1st Cavalry was in Manila. They participated in the liberation of 3,000 civilian POWs at the University of Santo Tomas. And then in combat on the Jones Bridge over the Pasig River, Bobby went out to aid a wounded soldier. And as he bent down to help, he too was shot. He died shortly after that. And so, when I drive by the Veteran’s Memorial in Pioneer Park, with the soldier bending down and reaching out to help, I think first of Pvt. Robert Bigelow.

Somebody else who thought first of Bobby was his best friend Frank Yano. And a few months before he was killed, Bobby learned by letter that Frank’s wife had given birth to a girl. And in honor of Bobby, the girl’s name was Roberta.

Well, what about Albert Tresch, the dropout and the town bully? He ran away and joined the Army in 1939. He was in the Philippines by 1941, and then he was fighting to defend a place called Coreggidor as the Japanese took over more and more of the island. And in the final days there, Albert Tresch and another young soldier put their lives at risk. There was a Japanese machine gun nest that got in the way of the soldiers, and Albert volunteered to go around with a grenade to take out the nest. Well, they succeeded, and for that he was awarded the Silver Star.

But it would be years before Albert Tresch saw Puyallup again. Coreggidor fell, and the survivors of that battle were taken prisoner by Japan. For the next four years, Albert struggled to survive, first along the trail that became known as the Bataan Death March, and then in a hellish place called Fukuoka not far from Nagasaki, where he spent those dark days trying to survive. Most of the men in those camps, and along that Death March, never made it.

Most of what I know about the Bataan Death March comes from a survivor I knew named Bryce Lilly, who grew up in Tacoma and just passed away in 2009. Mr. Lilly came and spoke at Aylen at a Veteran’s Day assembly like this one when I was in junior high and told about the horrors of Coreggidor, where he was shot in the head, bandaged up, and fought on. He recalled being fed nothing but a handful of rice and a cup of water as they marched 70 miles in 100 degree heat. He recalled being packed into a transport ship with dead and dying men. In Japan, he worked as a slave laborer in a steel mill. Before the war, Mr. Lilly was 175 pounds. When the war was over, he was down to 70 pounds.

Like Bryce Lilly, Albert Tresch struggled to survive. He knew that freedom was waiting on the other side. To him, home meant something special.

And he finally made it home that fall of 1945. Not long after Albert had stepped through the farmhouse door at the dairy farm on Pioneer, he asked his brother Jim to take him up for an airplane ride. Jim had just gotten out of the Army Air Corps, and Albert had never been in an airplane before. After years of confinement, he longed to see Puyallup from the sky. Jim and Albert drove across town to the little airfield beside the river. Jim arranged to rent a plane for the afternoon, and in a few minutes the brothers were airborne.  

Jim came in low over downtown, over Pioneer Park, over Puyallup High School, and then they flew low over Pioneer Street, disturbing more than a few residents unaccustomed to an airplane among the local traffic. A few dutiful citizens, conditioned by an era of blackouts and night watches, phoned the police.

But the Tresch brothers had taken to the airspace of their parents’ dairy farm, circling round the cows as they grazed in the pasture, startling them into a desperate trot. Near the fleeing cows stood their strong old Swiss dairyman father, his fist raised to the heavens as the plane swooped up to avoid the old growth cedar tree in the middle of the pasture. But they were too close, and the wing clipped off the top of the tree, and as the cedar boughs came in for a landing amid the riled cows, mother Tresch was out on the back porch, hands on her hips, rejoicing in the homecoming of her sons and hoping that they would come home alive for dinner. Al was completely thrilled. That, to Al Tresch, the hero of Bataan, was freedom.

By the time they landed at the airstrip, every police car in town was waiting at the end of the runway. Out stepped the daredevil flier and the prodigal town bully. Jim rolled up his sleeve to present the cops with his ruptured duck tattoo. They let him off. Obeying the speed limits, Jim and Al drove home for dinner.

In the years after the war, life moved on, and many in that generation tried to forget the pain of the war. When somebody asked Al if he would share his experiences about the war at the Puyallup Kiwanis, he declined. Al died a number of years ago, and his brother Jim Tresch died last year.

Frank Yano became a postal carrier but he said little about the war. In the 1960s, Roberta Yano made a weeklong visit to Puyallup to meet Bobby Bigelow’s family, and she and her father kept in touch with them over the years. Bobby’s best friend Frank Yano died in 2008.

And about 20 years ago, Howard Randall traveled with the reporter Bill Moyers of PBS to visit a Luxembourg cemetery. Randall guided Moyers to a special part of the cemetery. Randall stopped in front of a white cross and pointed at the name: Edward J. Myers. And finally through tears he told of the man he and many others came to love. He recalled how he was a good man, how he was like a father to his men, and how Eddie hailed from a place called Puyallup, Washington. 

It’s been more about 75 years since Eddie, Bobbie, and Al grew up together here in Puyallup. Our community has grown and changed since then. But because of the sacrifices they made in that war, we have freedom and opportunity today.

Others have made sacrifices in later wars, and they deserve our thanks too. So as I conclude, let’s thank our veterans once again.   

Wednesday, September 14, 2011

An essential primer for legislators

An essential primer for legislators
by Hans Zeiger
Crosscut.com
September 14, 2011

Read my review of Mary Ellen McCaffree's outstanding book on legislative life here.

Friday, April 22, 2011

Earth Day article in the News Tribune

by Hans Zeiger
The News Tribune
April 22, 2011

On this 41st Earth Day, it is worth reflecting on the direction of environmental policy in Washington state.
Washingtonians are shaped by the environment we inhabit — the mountains, Puget Sound, the forested foothills and river valleys, the Columbia River and the vast farmlands of Eastern Washington. Across our state, across party lines, the environment is more than a plank in a platform. It defines our way of life.

Earth Day grew out of this state’s strong tradition of environmental stewardship. Its founder, Denis Hays, hailed from Camas in southwest Washington.

As our state and the Puget Sound region grow, so does the need to protect our environment. The environmental champions of our own generation will be creative leaders who identify ways to promote economic progress and environmental sustainability at the same time. They will work to protect our water, land and air while strengthening communities, not rule-making agencies.

First, we need to keep our rivers, lakes and Puget Sound clean. Clean water legislation this session included restrictions on phosphorus in fertilizer and bans on coal-based tar sealants and copper-containing boat paint. 

This regulatory approach may do some good for our waterways, but it will take more than laws to 
successfully address water pollution.

Stormwater runoff is the single most pressing environmental challenge in our region. Our systems are both costly and inadequate. The problems of nonpoint pollution and runoff from roads and highways require thoughtful solutions and incentives.

Many emerging ideas for dealing with stormwater are to be found at the Washington State University Research and Extension Center in Puyallup, a national leader in the study of stormwater mitigation technologies like pervious asphalt and rain gardens (soil arrangements that are designed to contain runoff). Puyallup is also home to a successful neighborhood rain garden experiment. In future legislative sessions, lawmakers should explore new incentives for stormwater mitigation.

Second, we must continue to conserve valuable land resources in our communities. As our region grows, we must find creative ways to save our working farmlands and forests and to develop new park lands. In many cases, public investment is necessary. The Washington Wildlife and Recreation Program and other public conservation programs do much for our quality of life.

In other cases, the work of conservation is best handled through private ownership, from small landowners who wish to leave a legacy to the extraordinary forest work of Weyerhaeuser.

Our state can do more to help private property owners. Owners can be more effective caretakers of the land in a culture of voluntary stewardship than in a culture of administrative rule. Recent recommendations by the William D. Ruckelshaus Center, adopted by the Legislature, will help communities and landowners solve problems and settle disputes in a more collaborative fashion.

Third, we need to decrease our use of fossil fuels. Whether you’re concerned about our carbon footprint or our dependence on foreign oil, it is worth moving toward alternative sources of energy. This year’s biggest environmental legislation was ratification of negotiations to ease our state off coal-fired electricity by 2025, to be replaced with natural gas.

In other instances of energy policy, incentives may be preferable to plans. Policymakers are not always the best judges of energy solutions – witness the failed federal experiment in ethanol subsidies. It was private innovation that produced hybrid and electric vehicles.

How do we encourage the market further? Lawmakers would be wise to hold off on a new fee for drivers of electric cars. I voted against this fee in the House Transportation Committee because it seems it would be a small disincentive for the nascent electric vehicle industry.

Furthermore, the Washington Policy Center proposes a revenue-neutral carbon price as a way to roll back business taxes and stimulate clean technologies while acknowledging pollution in the cost of products.

This Earth Day, legislators are grappling with priorities. Yes, the protection of our water, land and air will require sustained public investment. More importantly, it will require creative policy leadership that values free enterprise, private property, voluntary collaboration and strong communities.

Monday, January 17, 2011

Martin Luther King Day speech, House Floor


Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It is a great honor for me to give my first speech in this House on this occasion.

Central to Dr. King’s vision and to this experiment in democracy we carry on here is the belief that free men and women must give their consent to be governed. That our equality as human beings entitles us to a say in the proceedings of government.

A week ago today, Mr. Speaker, I was in awe as we stood here and took our oaths to do our best in this work we’ve been given. We come here to these chambers by way of the ballot box. We enter beyond those curtains by the votes of our equals.

Mr. Speaker, I haven’t quite learned all the ropes of this place yet, but I came to Olympia knowing this: we are representatives, and that means we are duty-bound to the people who sent us. We represent all of them, each of us in our own districts, regardless of sex, color, or creed. 

The story of civil rights in Washington State is long and rich and often unremembered. Mr. Speaker, I hope we can do more in our state to tell that story. It has so much to do with our work here, and with those who have worked here before us.

It’s the story of Frances Axtell from Bellingham and Nena Croake from Tacoma who became the first women to serve in this body in 1912. It’s the more familiar story of Warren Magnuson, the State Representative from Seattle who later went on to author the public accommodations section of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. It’s the story of Owen Bush, our state’s first black legislator when the state was formed in 1889.

But it was almost six decades before another black legislator came to this chamber. His name was Charles Stokes. I have been learning about Representative Stokes these past few weeks. He was a Republican from Seattle. He was a lawyer and later a King County District Judge. As an NAACP leader, he took an active role in pushing for the 1949 Washington State Fair Employment Practices Act. The following year, 1950, Stokes was elected to this body and served for three nonconsecutive terms. During the Korean War he gave a speech on this floor about the patriotism of black Americans, for which his colleagues gave him a standing ovation.

But it was in 1957 that Representative Charles Stokes helped to pass one of the greatest pieces of legislation in our state’s history. It was Omnibus House Bill 25, and I have a copy of it from the State Archives on my desk if any of my colleagues would like to see it afterwards. Omnibus House Bill 25 was Washington State’s Civil Rights Act. Mr. Speaker, would you grant me permission to read from this bill?

Isn’t that beautiful, Mr. Speaker? Nothing more I can say could measure up to the words of that great bill. So I’ll conclude. 

It is right for us to honor the legacy of Dr. King, as it is right for us to honor the men and women who came before us in this Chamber,
Who stood for civil rights.
May we do our part
To be like them
In this time we’ve been given.