[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 156 (2010), Part 13]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page 18017]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]


                         TRIBUTE TO BERT DORAN

                                 ______
                                 

                            HON. TOM LATHAM

                                of iowa

                    in the house of representatives

                      Thursday, November 18, 2010

  Mr. LATHAM. Madam Speaker, I rise to recognize Bert Doran, a World 
War II Marine Corps veteran from Boone, Iowa, and to express my 
appreciation for his dedication and commitment to his country.
  The Boone News Republican is currently running a series of articles 
that honors one Boone County veteran every Tuesday from Memorial Day to 
Veterans Day. Bert Doran was recognized on Tuesday, October 26. Below 
is the article in its entirety:

                   Boone County Veterans: Bert Doran

                           (By Greg Eckstrom)

       ``I was lucky I lived.''
       The sentence came from Bert Doran, a Marine Corps veteran 
     who served in World War II under harsh fighting. He was 
     injured in Iwo Jima after three days of fighting in which 
     half of his company was killed. Doran, however, isn't exactly 
     one to go down without a fight.
       It's that spirit that drove the 19\1/2\ year old who was 
     born in South Dakota and moved to Boone at age 7 to join the 
     military. Some guys he knew said they were going to do it, 
     and Doran decided he wanted to do it, too. The reason he 
     picked the Marine Corps as his branch of choice was a 
     decision explained just as easily.
       ``It's supposed to be an elite outfit, so it's what I 
     picked,'' he said.
       United States Marine Corps, third division, ninth regiment, 
     third battalion, K company was where Doran ended up, and 
     after signing up he was sent to California for boot camp.
       Boot camp was in San Diego, followed by training at a 
     portion of Camp Pendleton up in the hills, ``where all the 
     snakes were,'' Doran said.
       Boot camp was, as a bit of an understatement, tough.
       ``Boot camp was some of the toughest training,'' he said. 
     ``It was 8 weeks, and I had to stay an extra two weeks 
     because I couldn't swim.''
       Tough was also a definition, also an understatement, that 
     fit Doran, though.
       ``I decided I was going to make it through it, so I did,'' 
     he said. ``I lost a lot of weight after I went through boot 
     camp.''
       Leaving Camp Pendleton, Doran was next sent overseas to 
     Guam for further training.
       ``It was supposed to be secured, but we had an eight day 
     push to the jungles to clean out what was left,'' he said. 
     ``It was thick jungle. We had to use knives to chop 
     through.''
       There were also plenty of snakes in the jungle . . . 
     although after time in the hills in Camp Pendleton, Doran was 
     used to this.
       It was January of 1944 that Doran left Guam. Arriving at 
     Iwo Jima on Feb. 26, 1945, he was greeted with fierce 
     fighting.
       ``We were actually pinned down,'' he said. ``About half the 
     company had been killed. We had to wait for replacements. The 
     captain was killed the first day, my platoon lieutenant was 
     killed the first day. About 200 in the company. About half of 
     them were killed the first day.''
       After three days of fighting, Doran was in a foxhole with 
     two other men when a mortar shell hit.
       ``It killed the one guy,'' he said. ``I don't know what 
     happened to the other one. I probably was temporarily knocked 
     out, and then I pushed up through . . . The guys from the 
     next foxhole came out and pulled me out, put a tourniquet on 
     my arm. Then I was carried out of there.''
       The soil at Iwo Jima was composed nearly entirely of 
     volcanic ash.
       ``That's what that whole island was,'' Doran said. ``My 
     face was completely full of it.''
       Details are fuzzy for Doran, as he was on morphine at the 
     time, but he remembers being shipped out on a hospital ship, 
     sent to Saipan, and then flown to the Hawaiian islands.
       From there, after a month, he was sent to a hospital in 
     Oakland, Calif., and finally to the Philadelphia Naval 
     Hospital, where he stayed for 11 months.
       ``It was kind of a blur after I was wounded,'' he said.
       The blast had put so much volcanic ash into him that he had 
     lost his eyesight. He said that at first, he could see a 
     little light, but after a surgery was attempted to correct 
     his vision, he could see nothing.
       ``They said my eyes were so full of that volcanic ash that 
     they couldn't see into them,'' he said. ``That's the first 
     thing I remembered at the hospital. One of their help was 
     rubbing my face. Trying to get that ash out. I imagine it 
     looked like a mask.''
       For the man that got through boot camp with grit and 
     determination, however, his lost vision didn't seem to slow 
     him down. In his time at the hospital he learned Braille, and 
     even took a trip up to New York City with a group.
       ``They took us from there for a week up to New York to the 
     Institute for the Blind in New York City, and we were there 
     for a week,'' he said. ``And they took us out to the big 
     night clubs at night for eats and drinks. We met Guy Lombardo 
     at the Roosevelt Hotel.''
       He also married his wife, who was from Ogden, during a 
     furlough. When he went back to Philadelphia Naval Hospital, 
     his wife came with him and got a job at the facility.
       It was at the hospital that Doran was presented with the 
     Purple Heart for his service to his country.
       After being discharged from the service, Doran received 
     training at the Veterans Hospital in Des Moines on how to 
     make rugs--a task he picked up quickly and enjoyed for years.
       ``I made rugs and that kind of stuff for 25 years,'' he 
     said. ``I've got to liking it.''
       Doran also keeps in contact with the men of K company--
     sending out Christmas cards to a list that has slowly been 
     dwindling as the years go on. These days, he sends out about 
     10-12 cards each year to men from the company.
       Billie Ellis, who works for Boone County Public Health, 
     helps Doran out at home, and knowing him for 25 years she 
     describes him as a perfectionist.
       ``He was a perfectionist and he still is,'' she said. ``He 
     likes everything done right.''
       Over the years, the ash has been taken from Doran's face, 
     although one piece next to his nose did develop into cancer.
       ``They told me right before the surgery that a lot of them 
     don't live through the surgery, so that didn't sound very 
     good,'' he said.
       A lot of people don't live through the surgery, but even 
     fewer survive a mortar shell landing in their foxhole. Doran 
     went through the 11\1/2\ hour surgery 25 years ago without 
     problems. After all, having survived Iwo Jima, cancer is just 
     another challenge to overcome.
       Now, looking back on his time in the service, Doran vividly 
     recalls stories of his service with sharp clarity. He claims 
     that the military taught him discipline, and he's proud of 
     joining a legacy of military service in his family--having 
     had a brother, John F. Doran, fight in the Battle of the 
     Bulge and his father serve in the Army during World War I.
       These days, Doran said, the military is different. Soldiers 
     now use technologically advanced weapons. The soldiers that 
     are fighting, however, don't seem to have changed much. Ellis 
     has a son that just joined the Marine Corps. When he was seen 
     off, in addition to family members, Doran was there as well. 
     After all, Marines support each other--both in WWII and 
     today.
       ``He wished my son good luck,'' Ellis said. ``They always 
     talk about the Marines.''

  I commend Bert Doran for his many years of loyalty and service to our 
great Nation. It is an immense honor to represent him in the United 
States Congress, and I wish him all the best in his future endeavors.

                          ____________________