WWII veteran checks one off his bucket list


Wayne Baylis, Tom Hashagen, Pastor Tom Lamothe, Gene Shepherd and Bill Van Eyck experienced Iwo Jima memorials near the nation’s capital through the eyes of 90-year-old Jack Sherwood, a moving experience for all.

Patriotism went hand in hand with friendship for five North Fork men who made an Iwo Jima Marine veteran’s dream come true — a visit to the Marine Corps Museum in Quantico, Virginia, and the Iwo Jima statue at Arlington National Cemetery, overlooking Washington, D.C.


As meaningful as the trip was for Jack Sherwood, 90, of Greenport, it was just as moving for his five companions — the Rev. Tom LaMothe of Greenport’s First Baptist Church, friends Wayne Baylis and Bill Van Eyck of Greenport and Tom Hashagen and Gene Shepherd of Shelter Island.


The men had all read a Suffolk Times story in March in which Mr. Sherwood expressed his regret at never having visited either site. 


Each decided individually that they were going to take Mr. Sherwood to Washington and Virginia, then shared their plans at a church meeting and decided to arrange a group trip, leaving the North Fork June 29 and returning July 1. Greenport’s Star Hose Company, which Mr. Sherwood served for 50 years, contributed a check to pay for the trip.


“My first thought was I don’t want to go because it was just too much,” Mr. Sherwood admitted. “It turned out twice as good as I thought it would be,” he said during an interview at his home on July 23. “I don’t know what I expected, but it was way more,” he said.


“It reminded me that there weren’t many of us left,” Mr. Sherwood said about the trip, a touch of sadness in his voice. At the museum, he ran into another Iwo Jima veteran and the two learned that they had served in the same division, although they hadn’t known one another then.


“He was like a kid in a candy shop,” Mr. Van Eyck said about Mr. Sherwood.


Thanks to Mr. Hashagen’s prior arrangements with the Marine Corps officials, it was first class treatment all the way. While Mr. Sherwood’s wife is at San Simeon Nursing and Rehabilitation Center and too weak to make the trip, his son, two daughters, daughter-in-law, a son-in-law and two grandsons from Connecticut, Pennsylvania and Florida all made the trip to share the experience.


The men packed Mr. Shepherd’s 2007 Chevrolet Suburban with Mr. Sherwood’s wheelchair and their gear and they posted signs on the van: “Operation Bucket List — New York to Quantico.” The reference was to the 2007 Rob Reiner film starring Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman about two sick men determined to live as many of their dreams as possible with the time they had left.


“We all wanted to go and see it through Jack’s eyes,” Mr. Van Eyck said about making the trip.


Mr. Van Eyck, whose business is manufacturing signs for school buses, had come close to missing the experience because of a business trip to Washington State. But a red-eye flight got him back just in time to meet the others.


The first night, the group had VIP seats at the Sunset Parade and ceremony, a regular Tuesday night event at the Iwo Jima statue. The one-hour program features the United States Marine Drum and Bugle Corps and precision drill by the Marine Corps Silent Drill Platoon. The Tuesday tradition goes back to November 1954, the 179th birthday of the United States Marine Corps, when the statue was unveiled.


“It made me cry,” Mr. Sherwood said.


“I don’t know that we pay enough tribute to people who serve and so often they’re not recognized until they die,” Mr. Hashagen said. “We thought, give some honor while he’s alive. It turned out to be so much bigger and unique to look at everything through Jack’s eyes,” he said.


“I felt a familial kind of pride,” Mr. Hashagen said. At 52, he was eligible to be drafted when he was younger, but never got called, he said.


“This is service for my country,” he said about being part of the group that organized the trip for Mr. Sherwood.


“The Marines were so nice to us,” Mr. Baylis said. “These people are trained to protect our country, but they’re ladies and gentlemen as well,” he said. He served in the Navy.


The night of the parade, the men had parked their van in the lot at Arlington Cemetery and were bused to the Iwo Jima statue, outside the park gates. But when the parade ended, a bus that was to have shuttled them back to the parking lot failed to show up, Mr. Shepherd said. By the time they got back to the van, it was after 11 p.m. and they had to ride over a curb to exit the lot because the officers on duty had no key to the gate locks, he said. If it was aggravating at the time, it became another colorful story of the trip that all will long remember, he said.


The museum at Quantico the following day was “a real lesson in history,” Mr. Baylis said. Every high school student should experience such a trip, he added.


On the ride back, the men went through Manhattan after Mr. Sherwood told them he hadn’t seen the city since he had returned from the war in the 1940s.


“We did more than I ever expected,” Mr. Shepherd said about the three-day trip. And while the others admitted fatigue, Mr. Sherwood took in everything and appeared to have more energy than his younger traveling companions, Pastor LaMothe said.


Sadly, after his return, Mr. Sherwood discovered that a growth on his head was malignant and he would have to undergo radiation treatments and surgery, he said.


“It was just a blessing for every one of us to be part of the trip” and for the timing that enabled its scheduling prior to the diagnosis, Pastor LaMothe said.


“Pretty much everybody was happy I was able to go,” Mr. Sherwood said.