Cold Steel Walker

Last night I went to a benefit at Town Hall called Stand Up for Heroes, organized by the Bob Woodruff Foundation. It's a charity that takes care of wounded Iraq vets, those with wounds both seen and unseen. It was amazing night, I was Martha Raddatz's date, mom of one of my best friends, Greta, and White House Correspondent for ABC News. Bruce played, auctioned off his Harley for $70,000 and his guitar for $45,000. More importantly, I think his son was sitting in front of us. At least my friend Erin thought so. Anyway, Martha introduced me to one of her friends, General Newbold. He's a Marine and we started chatting and I mentioned that my grandfather was a Marine and served in the Pacific during WWII and that his nickname was Cold Steel Walker. General Newbold stopped short and said that he knew that name very well, Cold Steel Walker was famous in the Corps. So that was pretty amazing and I'm looking forward to hearing more stories about him, but here's an anecdote that my dad sent to me, which I find badass. This was sent to my dad by a man named James Gleason when Grandpa died.

COL. WALKER: I READ WITH GREAT SADNESS OF THE DEATH OF YOUR FATHER AND MY COMMANDING OFFICER “COLD STEEL” WALKER…. I WAS THE CORPSMAN WHO TREATED HIM ON NEW GEORGIA WHEN HE WAS WOUNDED, AND HE LAUGHINGLY ALLOWED ME TO INCLUDE THE STORY IN MY BOOK REAL BLOOD! REAL GUTS! U.S. MARINE RAIDERS AND THEIR CORPSMEN IN WORLD WAR II, OF HOW, AT THE AGE OF 17, I WAS SO AWED AND FRIGHTENED, NOT OF THE JAPANESE BUT OF HIM, THAT I FORGOT TO PUSH THE SYRETTE INTO THE MORPHINE TUBE, SO THAT HE RECEIVED NO MORPHINE WHEN I TREATED HIM INITIALLY. I DIDN’T HAVE THE NERVE TO TELL HIM ABOUT THAT UNTIL SOME 50 YEARS LATER AT A RAIDER REUNION. SEMPER FIDELIS, JIM GLEASON, 4TH MARINE RAIDER BATTALION CORPSMAN.

I assume this is where I get my incredible tolerance for pain and general toughness.

Here's a link to General Newbold's article in Time Magazine about why the war in Iraq is a mistake: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1181629,00.html