MOH winner Richard Sorenson dies

[Luke]

Medal of honor winner Richard Sorenson dies
Trudi Hahn, Star Tribune

When the shout of "hand grenade" came, Richard Sorenson, a 19-year-old Marine in his first battle, knew what to do.

"We had been trained, over and over again, to cover a hand grenade," he told the Minneapolis Tribune in 1949 about his World War II experiences. "Cover the grenade! Don't let everybody get it just to save your own hide."

Sorenson, a native of Anoka, won the Medal of Honor for saving the lives of five other men by throwing himself face-down on the grenade on Feb. 2, 1944, during the Allied invasion of the Japanese-occupied Marshall Islands.

He died on Oct. 6 in Reno, Nev., probably of a heart attack, said his wife, Mildred (Millie). He was 80, and had retired in 1983 as director of what is now the Veterans Affairs (VA) regional office in Reno.

He was 15 when World War II started in September 1939, and he hoped it would last long enough for him to fight, he told the Tribune in 1949.

"What a chump," he said. "If you're a kid, don't ever wish anything like that for yourself -- or anybody else, ... there are some things I'd still fight for -- but war is pretty much what [Civil War Gen. William Tecumseh] Sherman said it is," that is, hell.

Sorenson's fighting started and ended on Namur Island, Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshalls. He had enlisted in the Marines in December 1942 and shipped out from San Diego on Jan. 13, 1944. On Feb. 1 the Marines landed on heavily defended Namur.

His heroics came about 6 a.m. the next morning. The grenade blasted him from his waist to his knees, his wife said. He spent months in military hospitals while he healed and doctors rebuilt his severely damaged urethra.

"He had so much shrapnel they were picking it out of him almost all his life," said his cousin, Virginia Ridge of Anoka.

A homecoming of parades and hero-worship by kids greeted him in August 1944 when he returned to Anoka on furlough. He left the Marines in 1946 to become a contact representative explaining benefits to other veterans at what was then the Veterans Administration. In 1948, he entered St. John's University. During that time he met Mildred, whom he married in 1949.

He was recalled to active duty when the Korean War broke out in 1950, and served as a recruiter in the Twin Cities. He worked his way up to master sergeant and then took officer training. But several children had been born to the couple, and he resigned his commission in 1955 after spending about a year away from his family with an engineering battalion in Okinawa, Japan. He went back to the VA for two years, then became an insurance salesman.

In 1964, he was elected to the St. Anthony City Council because "you can't complain too much if you don't take an active part," he told the Minneapolis Star at the time.

In 1967, the family decided to move to California, where he went to work again for the VA. In 1978 he was transferred to Reno as director of the VA regional office covering Nevada and four California counties.

"Even though he was the big boss Monday through Friday, he was just a normal guy at Friday night bowling," said Jerry Yocum, now supervisor of the public-contact team at the Reno VA office.

Sorenson recruited Mike Fitzmaurice, now of Sioux Falls, S.D., for a job in Reno as a contact representative in the early 1980s. Fitzmaurice is another Medal of Honor winner who threw himself on an explosive charge, this one on March 23, 1971, in a bunker at Khe Sahn, South Vietnam.

"Those guys [in World War II] had it rougher than we did [in Vietnam]," Fitzmaurice said. "They stayed for the duration. We were over there but a year."

Sorenson, Fitzmaurice and Mike Colalillo of Duluth, who earned his Medal of Honor in action on April 7, 1945, near Untergriesheim, Germany, became friends through the Medal of Honor Society. The two World War II veterans became buddies jouncing around military transport planes that carry Medal of Honor winners to national events such as presidential inaugurations.

Sorenson "was a good fella," Colalillo said. "He was a straight shooter -- he didn't lie about anything."

Sorenson spoke in Anoka when a statue honoring him was unveiled in 1991, but throughout his life, he remained mostly silent about the blue ribbon with stars that he was entitled to wear.

In addition to his wife, Millie, survivors include sons Robert of Minneapolis, James of Clearfield, Utah, and Thomas of Sparks, Nev.; daughters Wendy Thorson and Debby Hanaway of Reno; seven grandchildren; a brother, William of Zimmerman, Minn., and a sister, M. Carol Atkins of Dassel, Minn.

Services will be held today in Reno and at 1 p.m. Oct. 26 at the chapel at Fort Snelling.

[SgtUSMC8541]

RIP Semper FI.

[GackMan]

RIP

[bigbull_21]

Semper Fi Marine, RIP