{"id":46659,"date":"2017-07-21T09:00:11","date_gmt":"2017-07-21T13:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/?p=46659"},"modified":"2022-09-28T10:26:29","modified_gmt":"2022-09-28T14:26:29","slug":"student-veterans-interview-iwo-jima-survivor-for-veterans-voices","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/2017\/07\/21\/student-veterans-interview-iwo-jima-survivor-for-veterans-voices\/","title":{"rendered":"Student veterans interview Iwo Jima survivor for Veterans Voices"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

David Penrod, who as a Marine fought in the Battle of Iwo Jima during World War II, was interviewed by Wright State student veterans for the Veterans Voices Project.<\/p><\/div>\n

David Penrod was on the front line of Iwo Jima. He did not sleep for three days. He did not have a hot meal or a shower for months. He stayed ahead of his camp so that if Japanese soldiers attacked in the night, he could warn the rest of his group.<\/p>\n

This was the story he told David Berry, Lucas Schroeder and James Hale, Wright State student veterans through the Veterans Voices Project<\/a>, which connects student veterans with veterans in the community. The students record interviews with veterans about their lives.<\/p>\n

The interviews archived on Wright State’s CORE Scholar website<\/a>,\u00a0posted on YouTube<\/a>\u00a0and sent to the Library of Congress. The Veteran and Military Center also collaborates with WYSO Public Radio to produce a series of student-veteran radio stories<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The student veterans began by asking Penrod about his life before he joined the Marine Corps. Penrod was born in 1925 in Kentucky, the seventh child out of 10. Two of his brothers went into the Navy and two went into the Army, but Penrod was the only member of his family to serve in the Marines.<\/p>\n

When Penrod tried to join the Marines, the recruiter told him to leave because he was too small.<\/p>\n

\u201cI said \u2018sir, I want to join,\u2019 and he told me \u2018if you want to join something, go join the Boy Scouts,\u2019 and I still wanted to join,\u201d Penrod said.<\/p>\n

After waiting all day, Penrod spoke to the recruiter again. The recruiter told him that if he came back the next day and the doctor found him medically fit, Penrod would be sworn in.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe doctor said \u2018he\u2019s not very big, but there\u2019s nothing wrong with him,\u2019\u201d Penrod recalled. \u201cThe recruiter said \u2018raise your right hand and repeat after me,\u2019 and he swore me in. Then he said \u2018you got your wish. You are a Marine. You\u2019re going to regret this day as long as you live, and I don\u2019t think you\u2019re going to live very long.\u2019”<\/p>\n

\u201cHere I am, my next birthday I\u2019ll be 92, and I\u2019m sure he\u2019s been dead a long time,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

From left, Lukas Schroeder, David Berry and James Hale listening to David Penrod during the Veterans Voices interview.<\/p><\/div>\n

During his time in the Marines, Penrod was part of the Battle of Iwo Jima. He said the Marines were told the assault would last for three days, but it went for much longer than that.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe went inch by inch,\u201d he said. \u201cWe were told it would only last three days because there weren\u2019t many enemy troops left, but they didn\u2019t realize they\u2019d dug holes and caves and they were going to fight until they were all dead.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAll we did was move up, move up, move up, but it took us 36 days to go all the way to the other side of the island. It was only five miles, and it was fighting all the way,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Penrod also visited Hiroshima right after the United State dropped a atomic bomb on the city.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was nothing left,\u201d he said. \u201cThousands of people had been killed instantly, and I had been walking around not knowing I could get cancer or radiation poisoning. There was nothing! Just black, black, black, the whole town was gone.\u201d<\/p>\n

After World War II, Penrod went to the University of Dayton and received his Ph.D. in economics. He worked at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, where he oversaw the purchase of parts for airplanes. Throughout his career, even after he left the military, Penrod said, being a Marine made him an achiever in everything he did.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>\u201cI had to strive in the Marine Corps because they didn\u2019t want anyone that wasn\u2019t going to try. So when they said to go forward, I go forward,\u201d he said. \u201cIt made me a doer. I learned to do. I had to find a way to do anything.\u201d<\/p>\n

Berry, a senior organizational leadership major and Army veteran, got involved with the Veterans Voices Project through his veteran\u2019s service minor. He became interested in the program after listening to a presentation by Seth Gordon, director of the Veteran and Military Center<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe said he was paying veterans to go out and talk to veterans and I said \u2018wow, you\u2019re paying me to go out and swap war stories, I do that for free now. I can get paid for that,\u2019\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s important to give veterans a voice.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wright State became an independent institution in 1967 and spent the next 50 years growing into an innovative leader through its support of\u00a0military-connected students. In 2017, it celebrates its 50th anniversary<\/a> as an independent public university, culminating with a special Homecoming celebration<\/a> Sept. 29 through Oct. 1.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Wright State student veterans received a firsthand account of Battle of Iwo Jima during an interview for the Veterans Voices Project. Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":54,"featured_media":46665,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[722,725,4863,747,2039,715],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-46659","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-academics","category-home-news-sidebar","category-humanities-and-cultural-studies","category-liberal-arts","category-military-veterans","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46659","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/54"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46659"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46659\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":46723,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46659\/revisions\/46723"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46665"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46659"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46659"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46659"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}