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(Ben Skardon) Lord we invoke your blessing upon those gathered
here and upon those whose lives we honor with this memorial scroll on this hallowed ground
and upon those whose names are etched here in stone. We thank you for the brave and faithful
dead who lived and served and died that we might live and serve.
(Hap Carr) The purpose of the Scroll of Honor, in my
mind, is just to honor the Clemson Alumni that made the ultimate sacrifice for our country.
There’s 470 names down there and there’s 470 stories.
(Hap Carr) They come from all places and all different
backgrounds; walking, talking, living students that walked across this campus, studied where
we studied, walked and paraded on Bowman field, played on Bowman field, saw the Tigers play…
they were ordinary people.
Danny Rhodes and Dawson Luke and some others maybe got into a conversation of how many
Clemson men have really given their lives in defense of this country so that started
the ball rolling.
(Danny Rhodes) In 2002, we began to collect the names of
our alumni who had served in the military and who had given the ultimate sacrifice meaning
that they were killed while performing their military duties. There was not a comprehensive
list, and that was surprising to us, that Clemson being a former military college had
no record of those alumni. There were just various pieces.
(Dawson Luke) We found, first of all, a 1947 memorial pamphlet
that had several hundred names of people from WWII. We found a stone in Clemson that had
a plaque from WWI. From there, we had a basis.
(Danny Rhodes) During WWII and then also during Korea there
would often be a memorial service here on campus during which names would be read of
those alumni who were killed in those two wars.
(Dawson Luke) Clemson didn’t have any records beyond that
so we had to go out and advertise in the university publications. We were able to come up with
people submitting us names that we added from Vietnam, people who were killed in the Cold
War, Korea, etc…
(Danny Rhodes) The further we went into this process the
more formal we became with the process.
(Bernie Chapman) It would serve us and the board much better
if we would develop and clean up the criteria for nominations to the Scroll of Honor.
(Danny Rhodes) First and foremost, a person must be an alumnus
of Clemson.
(Bernie Chapman) Which again, took us months to define what
an alumnus of Clemson is.
(Danny Rhodes) That means that the person matriculated into
Clemson with a goal of attaining a degree at Clemson. They have to have been a member
of the Armed Forces, and we went to the U.S. governmental definitions of what an armed
force is.
(Bernie Chapman) The five armed services. So we thought we
were done and happy until we had a nomination of a Clemson alum who died in WWII as a merchant
marine. Well, if you look at the criteria, not eligible. But thanks to Charlie King who
did some research, there was a law passed in WWII allowing merchant marines who served
during WWII to be considered veterans.
(Danny Rhodes) Thirdly, the person must have died while performing
his or her military duties.
(Bernie Chapman) Now, while performing your duties, again,
brings in some subjectivity to meeting that criterion.
(Danny Rhodes) That doesn’t necessarily mean just in a
combat theater.
(Bernie Chapman) That can be actually combat duty, it could
be actively in training, or you can be in route to embarkation
(Danny Rhodes) As long as they are performing their military
duties, because quite frankly, we have always been at war in some nature. For example, during
the 50’s, 60’s, 70’s, and into the 80’s we were in the Cold War. Now, we are in a
War on Terror.
(Hap Carr) They put it on a piece of paper and that was
our original Scroll of Honor. That piece of paper translated to two big pieces of what
I want to call canvas. They got hung between two frames and that was our Scroll of Honor
and they took it and sat it at the Madren Center, it sat at the Alumni center. We really
need to find a permanent place for this scroll so that it becomes part of Clemson.
(Dawson Luke) This is Memorial Stadium, this is where it
was named for and this is why we need it.
(Hap Carr) Before the stadium was completed it was to
be named Memorial Stadium in honor of Clemson alumni. Remember, WWII was going on at the
time. And so that led us to conversations initially with, I believe it is Robert Rickets,
who does all the stuff at the stadium, and that is when he suggested the land across
the way. We took our plans to the Alumni Association, and the Alumni Association back then had some
money and I happened to be the President, so I was able to convince the board to give
us $50,000 which they did and at the same time we ended up making a presentation to
IPTAY and they gave us $50,000.
You look at the classes:’54, ’58, ‘59 classes and ‘54 was truly a military class,
the last class of the corps. You look at the individual donors, and the hundreds of those
that stepped up and gave us money. Never once did anybody say push back: “No, I can’t
help you.” Never once did we hear “You can’t do that.” This was Clemson, that’s
what we thought we saw that design. There were two designs there and we saw this one
and we fell in love with it, and we all immediately said, “That’s Clemson.”
(Dawson Luke) I see it as being an outdoor chapel, a place
to reflect, a place to think about the past, think about what the contributions of our
alumni.
(Hap Carr) The enthusiasm of the students, the way they
sold this themselves, the way they in their presentations would reach back and say, “Look
what these men did for us. We wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for them.” For this
generation -- the I, Me generation -- to reach back and say, “I recognize what these people
did to allow me to attend this university and to give me this university and give me
the freedom to do what I am doing today.” I think is my interpretation of the enthusiasm
about something that they feel good about. That’s the other thing, they felt good about
it.
(Dawson Luke) I thought it was important that we not only
have the names on a piece of stone but also we try to remember and preserve their lives.
Who were they, and what did they do?
(Bernie Chapman) As I looked at one name and checked yes, and
then went to the next name, I stopped and had one of those moments. I thought, when
is the last time that anyone ever thought of this individual, you know: died in WWI,
you know? When is the last time anyone ever thought of this person? And I found myself
pausing at each name and just thinking about the person and maybe even saying a little
prayer. It was a solemn moment for me just to realize that I wasn’t checking facts,
that I was actually thinking about someone that maybe someone has never thought of for
years and years and years.
(Dawson Luke) Robert Bailey of Anderson, he attended Clemson
in 1904, and probably only was here for a semester or two. He was 32 years old and he
enlisted in the army at the 30th entry division, which is the South Carolina National Guard.
He was sent down to the Mexican border to do guard duty, he was promoted to Sergeant,
the division goes to France and he goes along and fights in all the major battles at France.
He is commissioned to Second Lieutenant. He is killed twelve days later. And he is one
of the three that received the Distinguished Service Cross and in our nation, the second
highest honor.
(Hap Carr) In WWII, we were third, second only to WestPoint
and Texas A&M for providing military officers to the army.
(Dawson Luke) There were eight that were in the Bataan Death
March, and five of these that were killed are on the Scroll of Honor.
(Hap Carr) And here is just a little school in South
Carolina at the time that probably didn’t have 1,800 , 1,200 students. But eight of
them that we know of were captured over in the Philippines in 1941.
(Dawson Luke) Private David Crawford JR is another example.
He is class of 1945 from Winnsboro. He enlisted after his sophomore year at Clemson. He’s
assigned to the 29th infantry division and is killed June 7, 1944, the day after we landed
on Omaha Beach in Normandy. Now, the reason that I bring him up is that he is so typical
of a lot of the people on the Scroll of Honor during WWII.
On August 10, 1950, Captain Vivian Moses, Corsair fighter, coming off of an aircraft
carrier, was shot down by ground fire and he was rescued by helicopter. Got up, got
in another plane. The next day he wasn’t quite so lucky and his plane was shot down
by an aircraft. It crash-landed and he was killed.
William Coats, he was US Army, he was major, class of 1957, from Chappells, SC. He was
killed in helicopter crash in Vietnam on June 1, 1964. He carried the name Monkey, Monkey
Coats, and that’s because he was full of fun.
(Bernie Chapman) They did their duty, I mean, that sounds kind
of cliché, but they did. They were fortunate I think to have spent some time at Clemson.
They did their duty and you know you can’t ask anymore than that, that’s what they
chose to do and God Bless them.