A Different Kind of Suffering: Honoring Staff Sargent James Fletcher

I sipped iced coffee at Starbucks Monday while listening to a dear friend share her testimony. It's always an honor to hear how God has transformed a heart.

Once a month I search for a story to write for the Hometown Advantage Newspaper in Douglas County. And last month I had the honor to learn about a war hero: Staff Sargent James Fletcher who served in the army during WW II.

As we celebrate Independence Day, it seems apropos to share his story - especially the part about the wild elephants...

(This article first appeared in the July 2014 edition of the Hometown Advantage Newspaper)

My first husband died of a brain tumor when I was twenty-seven. My youngest son and I battle a genetic, degenerative, neuromuscular disease. Simply put… life isn’t easy.

But I’m beginning to grasp that I suffer on a cloud—that my pain has been buoyed by family, faith, and the many things that we as Americans take for granted.

A recent conversation with Alicia Schillinger, whose father served in World War II, confirmed my suspicions. While I face physical challenges every day, the men and women who have served our country daily rise above combat memories, injuries, and experience few can fathom. Alicia’s aging father knows this well.

“I always knew dad was in the war,” Alicia shared. “But I was a teenager before I grasped how much he suffered. I just didn’t really get it until he wrote his book.”

James Fletcher was inducted into the army in early 1941. He completed basic training and spent the better part of a year in maneuvers before volunteering for a secret mission. After specialized training, he set sail from San Francisco with 10,000 soldiers on the USS West Point—destination unknown.

He disembarked several weeks later in Bombay, India—in the spring of 1943—and joined a ranger outfit. Within months, he was fighting the Japanese deep in the jungles of Burma. He wrote:

“The first time I was under fire, I was scared stiff. In my mind, I thought I could see the enemy coming at me in all directions… I know most of us had never prayed in our lives before going into combat. But I prayed that day and many of the other soldiers did the same. I have always felt that someone up there was watching out for me. My father used to write and tell me that he prayed for me every night before went to bed while I was overseas.” (Fletcher, James. Secret War of Burma. Atlanta: James Fletcher, 1997.)

Those prayers made a difference on numerous occasions.

At one point, fierce fighting left James and a few other soldiers stuck behind enemy lines with local “Kachins”. Separated from their unit without radio contact, they were forced to go further into the jungle for safety. After cutting through undergrowth for three days straight, their group made camp by the Chindwin River and ran into a herd of wild elephants. A Kachin accidently shot one of the elephants, sending it running into the jungle. The locals expressed worry that the elephants might return after dark and destroy their camp, but the Americans dismissed their concern as superstition—at first.

After dark, however, they heard elephants moving closer to their camp. They built big fires hoping to scare them off but eventually climbed large trees over the river with plans to swim to the other side if the trees were knocked down.

An eerie silence was shattered around 2 am when the behemoth animals charged. They stampeded the camp, tore bamboo lean-tos to shreds, and then vanished into the jungle, having left the trees alone.

For the next fifteen days, the soldiers cut through the jungle, eating only what they could find, while leeches, ticks, bloodsucking flies, and mosquitoes nibbled on their tired bodies. Their clothing was torn, dirty, and bloodstained. But they finally met up with a Chinese patrol on a main trail, knowing full well they would never have made it without the help of the locals.

During his two plus years of service in the jungle, he saw rats as big as cats; met real life head hunters with rotted teeth and weathered skin like “mummies out of a museum”; ate monkey and porcupine; entered villages with piles of skeletons; survived typhoid fever, malaria, severe burns, and a mustard gas explosion; and earned a Bronze Star Medal for his efforts.

When asked how it affected him after he returned home, he offered, “I was never the same. My color was off due to illness for several years and I was real nervous. When a plane flew over our house at night, I jumped out of bed and hit the floor—for almost ten years.”

A routine airdrop once included a package from his father. The package included a waterproof Bible designed to be carried in the shirt pocket over your heart. James carried that little Bible through the entire war. And faith, family, and love of country have remained the foundation of his life.

Yes, my life has been tough. But there’s a host of Veterans whose lives bear scars from a sacrifice much greater than my own. And today, I salute you.