9/7/2023 0 Comments Charles durning carreerHe also fought in the famous Battle of the Bulge in December of 1944 and was even rumored to have been known to answer German propaganda that was being broadcast at regular intervals from a loudspeaker by shouting “Toot Toot Tootsie goodbye!” I guess Mel Brooks was Mel Brooks even back then. A corporal in the combat engineers, his job was to destroy enemy obstacles and included occasionally defusing mines-a job that required a steady nerve, a calm demeanor, and no doubt a good sense of humor. Hard to believe the off-the-wall director and actor famous for such goofy films as Young Frankenstein, Blazing Saddles, and Space Balls was a graduate of the Virginia Military Institute (VMI), but it’s true. His wounds bothered him after the war, resulting in acute leg pain that made it increasingly difficult to mount a horse (Matt Dillon without a horse? Unthinkable!) It became so bad he had to undergo a series of operations to remove bullet fragments that had fused into the bone. After undergoing surgery several times, Arness was honorably discharged in 1945, having received the Bronze Star and the Purple Heart medals. As a rifleman for 3rd Infantry Division, Arness landed at Anzio, Italy in January, 1944, where he was wounded by enemy fire and evacuated. Think Matt Dillon wasn’t for real? The fictional old west sheriff was every bit as tough as the six-foot, seven-inch tall actor who played him. In November, 1943, Albert (then a young Navy Lieutenant by the name of Eddie Heimberger-his real name), rescued dozens of stranded and wounded Marines from the landing craft he commanded, much of the time while under heavy enemy machine-gun fire. People generally remember Eddie Albert as the inept farmer and perennial straight man on the goofy hit 1960’s TV show Green Acres, but few know that he also won the Bronze Star with Combat “V” for his actions during the invasion of Tarawa.
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