Tall, but true, Tennessee tales

Jessica Garrison

COSTA MESA -- From the gates of the Alamo, to the Battle of the

Bulge to a classroom at St. Joachim’s Church School, Cub Scout Pack 80

was having quite an afternoon.

David Lester, great-great-grandson of Davy Crockett, and himself a

decorated World War II combat veteran, joined the Scouts this week for

apple bars and conversation about American history -- and what history

means to little boys.

“I thought it was amazing. At first I didn’t believe in him, in Davy

Crockett,” said Samuel Van Gordon, 8. “But I also thought it was amazing

that [Lester] could get out of the war alive.”

Lester, 80, a veteran of the Battle of the Bulge who now lives in

Costa Mesa with his wife, regaled the Scouts with stories of his famous

relative and with hair-raising remembrances of his own battle

experiences.

Davy Crockett, who is famous among the under-60 set because he and his

coonskin cap were featured attractions at Disneyland for decades, was far

more complicated than the folks at Disney or his detractors would have

them believe, Lester said.

“I am very proud of him, and I was very angry at some of the books

that have been written about him,” Lester said.

Although Crockett, who lived from 1787 to 1836, has been denounced as

an “Indian killer” who waged a brutal war against Tennessee tribes

alongside President Andrew Jackson, Lester said his relative also fought

for Native American rights.

As a congressman, Lester pointed out, Crockett broke with Jackson over

the president’s decision to expel Native Americans from the Southeast and

force them onto reservations in Oklahoma.

“He got into an argument with President Jackson over how Jackson

mistreated the Indians and the veterans [of the War of 1812],” Lester

said.

After his run-in with Jackson, Crockett left Washington and started a

business in his home state.

After a flash flood destroyed his business and his first wife died,

Crockett married Elizabeth Patton, great-grandmother of Gen. George

Patton, and struck out for Texas, where, as anyone familiar with

Disneyland knows, Crockett died at the Alamo fighting for Texas

independence.

After concluding his presentation on his great, great-grandfather,

Lester sat back and smiled at the boys: any questions?

Hands shot up, but the questions seemed to suggest that some of the

nuances of Lester’s presentation were lost on the third-graders.

“Who was Davy Crockett?” asked the first boy.

“Did he really wear a coonskin cap?” queried another.

“Do you know anyone who fought in the Civil War?” asked a third.

When Lester said that he once did, a fourth boy raised his hand. His

grandfather had fought in the Civil War, too, he said.

At that moment, Lester responded that his hearing had been damaged by

a hand grenade in World War II.

“I got wounded on a river-crossing by a German hand grenade,” he said.

That got everyone’s attention, and the topic of conversation

immediately changed from Davy Crockett to World War II.

“But you didn’t die, right?” a boy asked.

Lester said that he had not, and added that a skill he shared with his

more famous relative -- hunting -- probably saved his life.

In the war, said Lester, boys who grew up in cities couldn’t shoot to

save their lives, whereas Lester, who had survived the depression by

hunting for food, was a very good shot.

He wound up in the civil engineering corps. All through Holland,

Belgium and Germany, his battalion would rush out under cover of darkness

and build bridges over rivers for the infantry to cross.

“We suffered. We had a lot of casualties,” said Lester, warming to his

subject. And incredibly, he told the Scouts, when he joined the Army, he

was assigned to the Tennessee 30th Infantry “Old Hickory” Division, the

same division Col. Davy Crockett fought with during the War of 1812, only

it was called the Tennessee Militia back then.

“I wrote my mother about that, and she couldn’t believe it,” he said.

Talking about World War II is something Lester does almost as easily

and frequently as he discusses his great-great-grandfather.

He is a member of the Orange County Freedom Committee, a group that

sends World War II veterans to schools around Orange County to make sure

no one forgets the sacrifices of the World War II generation.

“We are passing the torch of liberty to future generations,” said

retired U.S. Army Col. Gene Robens, who served as a member of Gen. Dwight

D. Eisenhower’s staff during the D-day invasion.

“In schools now, they’ve left out a lot of history, and we’re trying

to fill that gap,” he explained. “There’s no politics at all.”

“It’s very important,” said George Grupe, a combat veteran who

considers himself a master historian. “There are so many young people who

are not aware of what occurred in World War II.”

Newport-Mesa school district Supt. Robert Barbot said he supported the

mission of the freedom committee.

“They’ve got so much to offer,” he said. “As they get older, they need

to pass the baton. ... Unfortunately, they are beginning to die off.”

The boys in Pack 80 seemed unaware that they were the subject of a

well-thought out campaign of history education. Still, they were

absolutely spellbound by Lester’s tales.

One time, he told them, he and his company were laying a bridge across

a river in Germany. So well trained were they that they could put up a

bridge in about 30 minutes.

All of a sudden, grenades began to explode around them.

The Germans had ambushed them, he explained, and were using grenades

instead of guns because they did not want to give their position away.

Lester was in the river, right at the bank. As the grenades whizzed

by, he looked up and saw four German soldiers.

“I was right under their nose, but they never saw me,” he said.

All the members of Pack 80, and their mothers, stared at Lester

awe-struck and open-mouthed.

And then Lester concluded his presentation, he politely refused

another apple bar, and went on his way.

Samuel was impressed.

“I was amazed that he had a machine gun in the war,” he said. “I

thought it was very hard to win the war, and I really admire what they

did.”