![]() ![]() ![]() The veteran said he's just "lucky" that he's lived so long. More: Emotional wounds of war still haunt 2 Austin-area veterans He has four sons and a daughter from his first marriage. In 1999, he married his second wife, Mary, who died of Alzheimer's this year, Moczygemba said. Moczygemba was married to his first wife, Julia, for 50 years until she died in a car crash in 1997, he said. He lived in Austin, where he worked as a dormitory manager for the Department of Public Safety training academy until he retired in 1985, and he spent years traveling around the U.S. He served with the Marines until 1949 and joined the military again when he enlisted in the Army in 1950 because "civilian life wasn't what I thought it was going to be," he said.Īfter two tours of duty in Korea, including one during the Korean War, Moczygemba left the Army in 1963. More: Flags planted for Veterans Day at the Field of Honor in Georgetown He ended up in a hospital in Hawaii with a broken arm and four broken ribs. The only injuries he received while enlisted happened before he went to Nagasaki, when a gun that had been put together the wrong way exploded while he was handling it, he said. "I wasn't about to tell them if they did," he said. The doctor told him to jump off a chair and land on the balls of his feet 25 times and then asked him if his feet hurt, Moczygemba said. He got into the Marines because the same doctor who told him he had flat feet reexamined him, he said. The day after the Navy refused him, Moczygemba enlisted in the Marines. Moczygemba said he planned to join the Navy with a friend, but the Navy turned him down because he had flat feet. "I was just going to get in the middle of what I thought was an exciting life," he said. "I don't like to fly," he said.īorn on July 4, 1924, Moczygemba said he enlisted in the military as soon as he got a high school diploma in San Antonio at age 18. In September, he finally went on an honor flight to Washington, D.C., to see sights such as the Arlington National Cemetery and the Vietnam War Memorial after resisting the free plane ride offered to veterans for several years. Moczygemba said he does make sure he wears his World War II cap when he goes out in public, and a lot of people thank him for his service. "It was something we either asked for or we did for the country. "I don't feel we were any kind of a hero wearing the uniform or going into combat," he said. Moczygemba, who is also a veteran of the Korean War, said he has never gone to events honoring veterans on Nov. The date was chosen because it was the day in 1918 when the fighting ended in World War I. Veterans Day is celebrated annually on Nov. "Their ears and noses were burned," he said. Moczygemba also said he saw many injured residents with burns. A couple of ceramic flowerpots were not damaged," he said. "The residential area was total ashes except for one thing I really noticed was in front of what used to be a house. He said the first things he saw as his ship was approaching Nagasaki were bodies floating in the harbor and buildings on land with melted sheet metal. "It was total destruction," said Moczygemba, a Taylor resident who spoke about his military career shortly before Veterans Day. A few weeks before they arrived, the United States had dropped an atomic bomb on the city, which led to Japan's surrender.Įstimates of how many died in Nagasaki from the bombing range as high as 74,000 people. Marines to enter Nagasaki in early September 1945. World War II veteran Archie Moczygemba, 98, said he can still remember what he saw when he was among the first U.S. ![]()
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