Thankful to be standing

Dick O’Brien was 19 when he served in World War II as a buck sergeant with the U.S. Army’s 35th Infantry Division.

He landed on Omaha Beach in Normandy 30 days after the original invasion in 1944, or as he puts it, “D-plus 30.”

From that point on, O’Brien fought in five major battles up until the end of the war.

He saw friends die in front of him.

He knows what it’s like to be advancing on foot and suddenly have an armored tank headed straight at him, gunning away.

“We had to burrow into whatever we could find,” the 85-year-old Newport Coast resident said Thursday, just before he and 60 other veterans were honored inside the Corona del Mar High School gym.

Each year, the school pays tribute to dozens of veterans, celebrating their stories as part of a special program. In it, sophomore students interview them weeks beforehand at their homes.

Being the 21st century students that they are, they’re already privy to what it takes to film and record the stories. In some cases, the students have put their interviews on You Tube.

But technology aside, students said some of the stories they’ve heard are just plain crazy.

“When I heard about how bullets would whiz by him, well, that’s pretty nuts,” said Andreas Matthews, 16, one of three sophomores who talked to O’Brien for a few hours about his war-time experiences.

Nicol Chavez edited the video tape before it was posted. In all, it’s a few minutes long, but accomplishes the mission, which is to record, in some fashion or form, “A Living History” of the veterans.

“It’s important that we remember that these men fought for our freedom and some of them died for it,” said Stacy Migliori, whose daughter, Brooke, interviewed World War II veteran Bus Cornelius. “I want our kids to know about freedom because it’s being threatened every day.”

That would be the terrorist element known as Al Qaeda, she said.

It’s the sort of enemy that’s hard to distinguish, which is the biggest difference between the conflicts going on in Iraq and Afghanistan and World War II, O’Brien said.

“Back then we knew who the enemy was,” he said. “All sorts of people were helping us: the Dutch, the French, the British.”

These days, the enemy is a roadside bomb or a guy with a backpack in a crowded square, veterans said, adding that the toll of war is all the same.

O’Brien’s infantry, for example, lost 3,000 men, and he still feels fortunate that he was left standing after serving in five major battles, including the Battle of the Bulge.

Principal Tim Bryan looked over the sea of veterans and students at the luncheon and said he thought the combination was a good one.

“When you look at all these veterans and listen to the places they’ve been,” he said, “it’s much better than reading about it in a book.

“This sort of stuff personalizes their service, and I’m glad our sophomores could be a part of it.”

Other veterans honored included: Harvey Abernatha, Dick Africano, Howard Bender, Fred Bottome, Snuffy Brown, James Callahan, William F. Conway, Bus Cornelius, Otis Cranford, Vi Cowden, Dennis Don, Bob Dugan, David Dukes, Walter Ehlers, Dick Fariss, Eddie Felix, Jack Ferris, Bob Fishel, Glen Flansaas, Garth Flint, Jim Frisbie, Richard Geib, James Gordon, Archie Gregory, James Gregory, George Grupe, Sid Halburn, Jack Hammett, Arnold Hanson, Dale Hanson, Bill Hardy, Bill Heidleman, Richard Higgins, Charles Hirsch, John Hunt, Anthony Iantorno, Leo Keligian, Bob Kost, Ralph Kuhen, Bill Kuhn, Art Lambert, Dag Larsen, Dave Lester, Dr. Normal Loats, William Mall, Carl Marcoux, Vern Martin, Gary Mathieson, Bruce Mc Keag, Dick Meadows, Bob Meyer, Charles Mitchell, Jim Morrison, Dean Morrow, Richard Murtaugh, Don Oldis, Donald O’Neill, Bill Pemberton, Louis A. Possemato, Conrad Rapp, Forrest Rhoades, Tim Richards, Rip Rider, Harry Selling, Clair Shepard, Harold Smith, Bill Smith, Leon Smith, Robert Sternfels, Robert Stoaddard, Ted Tanner, Nam Tran, Phillip Vinci, Fred Whitaker, George Winder, Art Yates and Lee Ziegler.