Meeting a hero, close to home

Mason Rucker shows me the list of wounded from St. Lo, France in World War II.

It used to be Superman,
Johnny Bench and then George Jones.
But lately I’ve been finding all my heroes
Closer to home.
—The Oak Ridge Boys

I never met Mason Rucker until I was out of college, but he quickly became one of my heroes.

If you ever got to know him, he’d be one of yours too.

Over the years, I’ve been able to talk with members of the basketball, baseball, football and country music Halls of Fame. Posters of some of those people had adorned my wall as I was growing up. Others had been blaring through my stereo speakers as I drove around the countryside.

But unlike my longtime friend, those Hall of Fame heroes had long established their level of greatness long before I had the privilege to talk with them.

Actually, Mason Rucker did too. I just didn’t know it.

Armed with take-on-the-world enthusiasm and a fresh degree from Roanoke Bible College, I accepted the minister’s position at Mt. Eden Christian Church in the fall of 1981. It was my first full-time job and was just a few miles from my Anderson County home.

Mason Rucker with his recently received medals.

I was the young preacher with big dreams. Mr. Rucker was an established man who was known throughout the area as a director at Camp Calvary and for his work with the Salt River Christian Men’s Fellowship.

He was the wise man who’d been through the battles. Literally.

And that’s why he, and so many like him are worthy of any honor that comes their way.

I’d known why Mr. Rucker is a hero nearly 35 years. Not long after I took up residence in Mt. Eden, his son, Eldon, briefly filled me in: Mason’s finger was shot off during World War II and he spent 18 months in Army hospitals. But, I was told, he wouldn’t talk about it.

But after seeing a recent story in The Spencer Magnet about Mason finally getting all of his war medals after waiting more than 70 years, I reached out through a Facebook message to his daughter, Darleen Woods.

“He would love to talk with you,” she said.

And last Saturday, I drove to Taylorsville, where I finally talked with one of my heroes about what made him so special.

“I was just young and scared,” smiled Mr. Rucker, now a remarkably spry 93 years old.

That was undoubtedly a fitting description for most of the hundreds of thousands of young men who had walked on the beaches of Normandy in June, 1944. A private first class, Mr. Rucker set foot in France just after D-Day.

On July 26, near St. Lo, Mr. Rucker and two of his buddies were scouting for a tank when they came under German machine gun fire. A bullet took the pinky finger of Rucker’s right hand and tore through his right arm. The impact left him with shoulder and rib cage pains for some time.

Rucker crawled toward some hedgerows where he could take some cover. On the way, he heard a voice say, “Rucker, if you can make it here, I will pull you over.”

The fire was so intense, he says, “They weren’t about to come over where I was at.”

As he crawled to the hedgerow, his life was spared by mere inches. “I felt a bullet go by my head,” he recalls.

Somehow, Mr. Rucker made to relative safety and was taken to a hospital tent. “I guarantee you there were 35 or 40 in there,” he says.

His buddies were not among those in the tent. Rucker sent letters to them but someone from the Red Cross told him the letters had come back. His buddies made the ultimate sacrifice.

I told Mr. Rucker that I had known a little of his story since those days when I lived in Mt. Eden but was curious as to why he was freely talking now.

“I would talk about it and start crying,” he said.

As we sat in his living room, it was obvious his mind still hurts over what happened that day in 1944, but the determination to make sure today’s generation truly understands the horror of war trumps that pain.

Mr. Rucker was discharged from the hospital at Camp Atterbury, near Columbus, Ind., on Feb. 2, 1946. Waiting to head home was not an option.

Mason and Irene Rucker celebrate 70 years of marriage July 4

“I asked about the bus to Louisville and they said the next one would come through in two hours,” Mr. Rucker says. “I didn’t want to wait, so I went out to the road and hitchhiked.”

He arrived in Louisville in less than two hours and eventually caught a ride to Shelbyville. He met Irene Whitehouse and they will be celebrating their 70th wedding anniversary Monday.

July 4.

But the patriotic hero says there was no red, white and blue significance to the date.

“We just wanted to get married,” he says with a laugh. “I’d seen enough fireworks in France.”

Mr. Rucker settled near Mt. Eden, worked at GE in Louisville, raised a family and loved God and his country.

Earlier this year, a package arrived at his home with the medals commemorating his ordeal. Someone at the Veterans Administration learned that Mr. Rucker had not received his honors and got working on the case.

“A lot of them didn’t get their medals,” said Rucker, whose purple heart signifies being wounded in battle.

But after people started becoming aware of his story, Mr. Rucker says people have told him “Thank you” several times.

I wanted to do the same last Saturday. After all, another of his medals is a Bronze Star, given for heroic actions or achievement.

There aren’t too many heroes like Mason Rucker today. Over 400 World War II survivors are passing every day, according to statistics cited by the World War II Museum. Those still living are in their late 80s and 90s. They saved the world from Adolf Hitler’s madness. They truly are The Greatest Generation.

Thank you, Mason Rucker, for what you gave that day in France.

And thanks to hundreds of others like him whose sacrifices are still being felt today.