Jimmie Hazzard lived up to 'Greatest Generation' billing

Last Saturday, James Daughtridge Hazzard's family and friends buried him after a nice family-and-friends funeral at Georgetown's Prince George's Winyah Episcopal Church.

This good man's story relates well to the ageless propositions of goodness and evil, humility and heroism, hard work and sacrifice. But it's also about our long good-bye to America's Greatest Generation and what should be a thoughtful concern about their legacy.

Jimmie Hazzard was born in 1916 in Birmingham, Ala., and suffered a major burn injury as an infant. His mother died when he was three and his father just drifted away. As a teenager, he lived with relatives in Georgetown, where he fell in love with the water and started to rebuild an old tug boat. That project led him to Mount Pleasant where he lived several years with the family of a future South Carolina governor. When America finally answered the ominous calls of World War II in 1941, Hazzard joined the Navy.

Soon enough, he and thousands of very young Americans were in combat zones, fighting with their lives for America's. In a blink, a generation was transformed from the grinding deprivations of the truly Great Depression to the perils of global war. Combat death was a shadow for most American families, but the supreme risk was that America and its allies for freedom might lose. Hazzard and 14 million other U.S. servicemen -- and their sacrificing families -- were becoming America's Greatest Generation.

For Jimmie, A.C. Prechter became his closest pal, and they agreed early on that if either died, the survivor would make a prompt visit at war's end to deliver special messages to the dead man's family. It was a promise Jimmie and A.C. repeated daily as the Pacific war theater broadened with air, land and sea battles.

During the 1945 Peleliu Island invasion, the Japanese attacked an ammunition delivery convoy and Hazzard's vessel was blown from under him. He treaded water in a coral reef then swam back to a fully-loaded but unmanned ammunition barge. Hazzard managed to take control and save the drifting vessel from an explosion that would have compounded the human losses. On another occasion, Japanese Kamikaze pilots attacked his ship. Fire raged and the bombs fell. Hazzard left his cover and pried an unexploded Japanese bomb overboard. He was the only survivor.

When the war ended in 1945, Jimmie Hazzard was a decorated hero with a solemn promise to keep.

A.C. Prechter had been killed in action and his mourning family in New Orleans awaited Jimmie's visit. For millions of combat veterans and their families, war's misery was quickly yielding to hope and optimism. The Greatest Generation was moving a victorious America forward in a full "new beginning" mode.

Likeable Jimmie Hazzard made a big impression in the Prechters' home. He fell in love with Theda, his dead comrade's sister. After three months in New Orleans, Jimmie married Theda and they were headed back to South Carolina and that tug boat.

Hazzard operated a successful marine operations and contracting business in Georgetown. He and Theda had two daughters and a son, and built a home on River Road. Theda died in 2006 and as Hazzard approached his 91st birthday, he mentioned "medals" to his daughters. When World War II ended in 1945, Jimmie was in a hurry to get home -- and to see the Prechters. Medals and other honors were incidental considerations. He had a Bronze Star and an array of combat citations, but he told his daughters he thought there were other medals he never received.

Former S.C. Gov. Jim Edwards considered Jimmie Hazzard "like a brother" when he came to live with the Edwards family in 1938. And 70 years later, he was glad to help arrange a review of Hazzard's combat awards record. Gov. Edwards, with an assist from his friend U.S. Sen. Jim DeMint, conducted a special ceremony in December 2008. Chief Boatswain Jimmie Hazzard was re-awarded his Bronze Star -- and for the first time he received the Silver Star and a Purple Heart for his heroism during the Peleliu Island invasion.

There were 16 million World War II veterans when that conflict ended -- and six million in 2000. We're down to about 1.5 million now and the Veterans Administration estimates that 700 veterans pass on -- every day.

So we're saying good-bye to these heroes at a quickening pace, but the larger concern is their legacy. When World War II ended, America was still a relatively young country, and the only industrialized nation standing.

Some 70 years later, the world is a different place. Tyranny and democracy compete in bloody theatres; we struggle at home with national disciplines, like deficit spending and debt. Pundits and some elected politicians talk about "post-America" global realities.

In the Greatest Generation's world, none of that would make sense. Could it be that in 2012, America is drifting beyond the great legacies of the Greatest Generation -- national disciplines, courageous determination and self-sacrifice?

God bless Jimmie Hazzard and A.C. Prechter, and all their comrades and all their families.

As for the troubling notion that the inspiring legacy of the Greatest Generation is being squandered, America would never let that happen, would we?

Ron Brinson, a North Charleston city councilman, is a former associate editor of this newspaper. He can be reached at rbrin1013@gmail.com.