Legion places wreath at original Tomb of Unknown Soldier
World War II veteran and American Legion Rider Bruce Heilman was one of four members of The American Legion who took part in a May 23 Memorial Day remembrance ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery. The wreath was placed at the original Tomb of the Unknown Soldier near Lee Mansion, where the remains of more than 2,000 unknown Civil War soldiers were buried in 1866.
Legionnaires and other participants arrived at the cemetery on a bus from American Legion Post 177 in Fairfax, Va., with a motorcycle escort provided by dozens of American Legion Riders from across the country.
Heilman, chancellor and former president at the University of Richmond, was an 18-year-old Marine in April 1945 when he took part in the Okinawa invasion. It took 56 days to make the Pacific crossing from San Diego; during that time, his troop ship was attacked by an enemy submarine and kamikaze suicide planes.
Heilman remembers telling his shipmates, “We’re going to get killed before we land on the beach.” Once Okinawa was secured, Heilman and his fellow Marines prepared for a massive landing on the Japanese homeland. But two atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki scrapped those invasion planes. “Rather than going in as we intended to, with guns blazing, we went in and disarmed the Japanese,” Heilman said.
News that the invasion of Japan had been called off, Heilman recalls, “made us feel like we were going crazy, because we were going to live and go home, and have families. We had given up on all of that. All of us expected to die. And when it was announced that the war was over, we had six killed while celebrating peace. We shot everything up into the air and on the way down it killed six of us.”
Describing himself as a “country boy, milking cows every morning and sleeping in school,” Heilman credited the military for putting him on the path to success. “I flunked out of high school and ended up being a university president," he said. "Four years in the Marine Corps transformed my life.”
Like nearly 8 million other World War II veterans, Heilman went to school on the GI Bill and studied accounting. He got married and earned his bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees. Not only did he end up as a university president, Heilman also was head of Virginia’s system of higher education.
“I give it all back to the military,” Heilman said. “It matured me.” He lost many friends on the beaches of Iwo Jima and Okinawa, and Memorial Day is a time when he can remember and honor them – 70 years later, “and all those who died during that time, plus all the veterans who served.”
Heilman is currently on a 6,000-mile nationwide motorcyle tour to raise awareness about the 70th anniversary of World War II's end in the Pacific. He left Virginia last month and will go all the way to California before heading to New York City, where the anniversary will be celebrated Aug. 14 in Times Square.
Other Legionnaires who helped place the wreath near Lee Mansion were National Vice Commander Bill Bryant, Department of Virginia Commander Gerald Rhoads, and Brad Watkins, American Legion Riders director for Post 177.
Bob Sussan, an Army veterans and member of the National American Legion Riders Advisory Committee, said the Legion Riders are adopting the tomb at Lee Mansion as its annual location for Memorial Day Weekend ceremonies.
Sussan said Post 177 was also honoring five Gold Star mothers and their families over the Memorial Day Weekend. “They gave so much and they remember it every day," he said. "We buy mattresses and used cars on Memorial Day, and I think it’s important that—at least one day a year, which is really not enough – we remember. It’s important to remember where we came from, where we’re going and all the freedoms we have.”