By Guest Column LTC Thomas S. Mullikin——Bio and Archives--July 27, 2010
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“At exactly 0300 Buck Roger’s Night Raiders of the 407th Infantry pushed out into darkness, out into the narrow torrential Roer (River). … A German machine gun opened up not 50 yards away … Two long minutes later … the boats hit the Roer's east bank. …With clocklike precision dark figures fanned out around the ominous machine gun. …One man returned the fire. Another grasped his grenade. A good throw. A dull thud. A scream. Silence. “One group... swung toward the railroad bounded by a dense minefield … The rest of the patrol slugged south mopping up one nest after another. At H-hour—30 minutes later—the first assault wave of the 407th Infantry crossed without a hitch. Their bridgehead, the first across the Roer, was established. “When the 30 minutes of intense action had ended, the Raiders had destroyed five machine gun nests along with six other automatic weapon positions, killed 15 and captured eight of the enemy … all without losing a single American.”In spite of the accolades and decorations awarded my father—among them the Purple Heart for wounds suffered from an enemy grenade, and a Bronze Star for heroism— he, like so many Americans of his generation, never considered himself a hero. He was simply doing his job, he would modestly say. But for the rest of us – as well as future generations – my dad’s accomplishments protected our freedom and way of life. As I stroll these same beaches and feel the same salt-wind and spray that thousands of surely-frightened young men must have felt nearly seven decades earlier; it becomes starkly apparent to me that the freedom and way of life I speak of will continue only with the same courage required here in 1944, the same blessings from God, and our continued appeals for those blessings. LTC Thomas S. Mullikin – deputy director, Legal Directorate, Joint Services Detachment (JSD), S.C. Military Department – serves as civil affairs officer for the Counterterrorism Advisory Team, JSD. Mullikin previously served as Assistant Judge Advocate for the 360th Civil Affairs Brigade (Airborne) USAR, United States Civil Affairs and Psychological Operations, U.S. Army Special Operations Command.
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