Story and Photo by Muriel J. Smith
SANDY HOOK – Charles Wiley, a sailor who served aboard ships in the Pacific arena during World War II, addressed students at MAST, the county’s Marine Academy of Science and Technology on Thursday, giving the teenagers a lot more to think about then modern American history.
Wiley, a New Yorker now living in Sayreville, was too young to enlist at the outbreak of the war in 1941, so he did the next best thing – he lied to the Marine Corps recruiting officer in an attempt to serve. The Marines caught on, and it wasn’t until two years later, when he was 17, that Wiley actually got to don a uniform in the nation’s service, putting in the next three years as a sailor.
Now 88, Wiley told the students that his attempts to sign up immediately after Pearl Harbor was bombed by the Japanese weren’t unusual. “We were a nation at war! Everybody was involved. Everybody wanted to do his share,” he said.
And everybody did, 24/7, every year, regardless of whether they were in the military, at home raising a family, working in a factory or school or simply a child growing up surrounded by war.
“And you’re the generation that’s surrounded by war today, as well,” Wiley continued, noting that “we have been at war since 9-11, 2001.”
The difference, he conceded, is that in the 1940s, everyone was involved. Every family had a father, son, cousin, nephew, or all of the above, either drafted or enlisted. Almost every house on every street had at least one little red and white flag with a blue star centered on it, a reminder that that family had someone in the war zone. Sadly, other houses had gold stars instead, he said, noting it meant a family member was killed in some battle in a far-off land. Today, he continued, without a draft, with fewer military members, “half of America doesn’t know a single person who is currently serving.”
During World War II, even youngsters were involved in the war effort, he explained to a generation of students for whom World War II is history. “Boy and girl scouts collected scrap metal and rubber and brought them to receiving stations on their bikes or in their wagons. The products would then be picked up by the government and eventually converted into the tires, tanks, weapons, vehicles and equipment needed in the efforts of a country that never wanted to be involved in the European or Asian disagreements at all. Until Pearl Harbor.”
Families were involved in Victory gardens, rationing – when they had to make decisions on whether to buy butter or meat on the limited stamps they had – as well as women learning to adjust to leg makeup to replace the silk stockings used for parachutes. Families poured grease left over from cooking bacon in tins so it could be delivered to factories where the glycerin-loaded fat could be converted into bombs.
For those in the military, life was far worse. “We didn’t sign up for eight months or a year,” Wiley continued, “we signed up for the duration.” He explained the thrill of mail call on bases or ships, the impact of a Dear John letter, and said once you were in the military, “your life, your plans, your future, were kaput. You were there to win the war and only then get back home.”
A former vaudeville actor, Wiley was half of a comedy team with his father, performing in live theater until the arrival of “talking movies” and inexpensive movies put vaudeville on the downslide. But he put his experience on stage to good use by joining the USO and entertaining troops on bases throughout the country before he could enlist. He also made films for recruitment and publicizing war efforts. After that, he served on the USS Roxane, an attack cargo ship, on which he transited the Panama Canal en route from the East Coast of the U.S. to Japan, and later an LST (Landing Ship, Tank – a large ship that carried troops and equipment for amphibious landings), seeing battle in Okinawa.
Once out of the Navy, Wiley realized he had a lot of wanderlust and craving for knowledge but no money to accomplish it. So he became a journalist “so I could see the world and have someone else pay for it.” Over the next decades, he freelanced for radio, television and print media and was a correspondent in 11 different wars, including the French in Algeria, the Portuguese in Angola, the British in Borneo, the Dutch in Indonesia, as well as four tours in Vietnam and most recently in Afghanistan.
Spinning his tales in a folksy, entertaining manner, Wiley grew serious to admonish the students to “grab it while you can. Take every opportunity to learn everything you can. That way, you’ll never be bored, you’ll always be interesting, you’ll always be the person the other guy will want to talk to. And always be interested in the other guy, too; ask him questions, learn what he’s about, cram all that knowledge in every chance you get.”
