DATE: 18FEB2021
WEATHER: STILL WET, BUT NOT RAINING
William F. Harris was born March 6, 1918 at Lexington, Kentucky. Following his graduation from the United States Naval Academy (1939), he was commissioned in the U.S. Marine Corps. While serving as an infantry officer in World War II, he was captured by the Japanese (May 1942), but subsequently escaped and after an 8 ½ hour swim across Manila Bay, he came ashore on the Japanese occupied Bataan Peninsula, where he joined up with Filipino guerrillas. When learning of the United States invasion of Guadalcanal, he set out to rejoin his Marine Corps unit; however, only reached as far as the Indonesian island of Morotai, where he was turned in to Japanese military officials and incarcerated. Upon learning that his father was a Marine Corps general, the Japanese moved him to the Prisoner of War Interrogation Center at Ofuna, Japan, where excessive torture of selected prisoners was a routine practice. Throughout his imprisonment, he plotted with others to escape; however, was unable to do so and when liberated at the end of World War II, was selected to stand on the deck of the USS Missouri, as Japan accepted terms of its surrender. Following the war, he returned home, fell in love with the daughter of a Navy captain, married and became the doting father of two little girls.
Harris remained in the Marine Corps following World War II, attaining the rank of lieutenant colonel, when he was called to command an infantry battalion at the outset of the Korean War. On December 7, 1950, with his decimated battalion serving as the rear guard for a Marine Corps convoy, a well entrenched numerically superior Chinese force launched a surprise ambush. Harris gathered his men under murderous fire and organized an attack straight at the Chinese position. Although taking heavy casualties, his battalion was able to hold the Chinese off long enough for the Marine Corps convoy to escape. Come dawn, Harris could not be found. After searching for him for hours, his men concluded that he must have been taken captive; however, at the conclusion of the Korean War, liberated American prisoners of war did not report seeing Harris in captivity. Harris was awarded the Navy Cross for his actions; however, General Clifton Cates, USMC, maintained the medal in his desk for the 32 year old Marine officer, hoping that he would someday return to personally receive it. Many years later, the family of William F. Harris received a box of bones apparently from North Korea, said to be his mortal remains. Due to incomplete reports, the family was never sure that the remains were those of William F. Harris; however, did arrange for them to be interred in a small country cemetery at the Pisgah Presbyterian Church at Versailles, Kentucky.
PAX: BLOOPER, GEKKO (R2), SCHNITZEL (R), SPAULDING (R), HARDHAT, AMBIEN, TUBBS, SPAGHETTIO, ELI (R)
QIC: JUNIOR VARSITY
WARM UP
15 SQUATS/25 LBC/10 MERKINS/10 TTT
1 LAP AROUND THE PARK
5 MERKINS
SPRINT TO THE SPEED BUMP
5 BURPEES
LUNGE TO THE STOP SIGN
10 MERKINS
SPRINT TO THE STOP SIGN
10 MERKINS
LUNGE TO THE STOP SIGN
CONTINUE UNTIL WE GET TO 20
LAP AROUND KROGER AND BACK TO THE START POINT
ONE MORE ROUND W/HAND RELEASE MERKINS AND MONKEY HUMPERS
LAP AROUND KROGER TO THE FIELD
BEAR CRAWLS FROM SF SIDE TO PAVILION SIDE WITH MERKINS/OHC AND OHP AT EACH TREE
50 DIPS
10 SEC AL GORE
40 DIPS
10 SEC… DOWN TO 10 DIPS
MOSEY TO SF
COT
GREAT TURNOUT AND APOLOGIES FOR THE LATE BB.
SYITG
JV
