Pittman remembrance Feb. 21 in Urbana – 81 years after being KIA on Iwo Jima
A remembrance and flag dedication ceremony will be held from 4-6 p.m. Feb. 21 at Urbana VFW Post 630 for Urbana High School graduate and Marine Cpl. Richard L. “Dick” Pittman, who was killed in action on Feb. 21, 1945, on Iwo Jima.
It is the 81st anniversary of when Pittman was killed. Family, friends and the public are invited to attend.
The Richard L. “Dick” Pittman Marine Corps League has a display set up in the VFW Post 630 at 1303 E. Main St., Urbana.
Cpl. Pittman landed on D-Day, Feb. 19, on Iwo Jima with D Company, 2nd Battalion, 28th Marine Regiment, 5th Marine Division and was killed on the third day of the savage 36-day battle that eventually took the lives of nearly 7,000 Americans, mostly Marines of the 5th, 4th and 3rd divisions.
Nearly 20,000 were wounded in action, making total American casualties about 26,000. Most of the 21,000 Japanese soldiers defending the island were killed. Very few survived.
Marine Pfc. James M. “Jim” Kelly, recently deceased at 102 years old, was also an Urbana High School graduate and a friend of Pittman. Kelly served in the 5th Service Battalion on Iwo Jima and was able to see his buddy’s body before he was buried on Iwo Jima in the 5th Marine Division Cemetery. When the Champaign-Urbana Marine Corps League was formed in 2006, Kelly suggested that the league be named the Richard L. Pittman Marine Corps League in his honor.
Cpl. Pittman’s photo in uniform and information about him was then posted in the northeast corner of the meeting room of Busey-Fletcher-Stillwell Urbana Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 630 at 1303 E. Main St.
Since then, Norma, the widow of Pittman’s brother Don, a World War II Navy veteran, contacted the MCL to donate Dick Pittman’s 48-star funeral flag, which was sent to his mother in Sacramento, Calif., in 1949, after his body had been exhumed on Iwo Jima and reburied at the National Cemetery of the Pacific (the Punchbowl) in Honolulu, Hawaii.
Richard L. “Dick” Pittman
With permission of the VFW commander and board of directors, the funeral flag was placed in a heavy plastic-covered and wood-trimmed case Don Allen prepared and posted on the west wall in the meeting room with a plaque about Pittman’s service and a photo of his grave marker at the Punchbowl.
MCL Commandant Bill Schultz will open the ceremony with comments and conduct it. He will read the plaque that the VFW secured and paid for that is posted next to the flag. Veteran Ronald Dudley, a friend of the Pittman family and the Loda American Legion 503 commander who delivered the Pittman funeral flag to the MCL, will make remarks about Cpl. Pittman.
As Dudley points out from a well-known quote, all who serve in the military agree at the time of enlistment to serve wherever, whenever and do what they are legally ordered to do: “A veteran is someone who, at one point in his or her life, wrote a ‘blank check’ made payable to The United States of America, for an amount of up to and including my life.’”
Like the nearly 7,000 who died, Pittman’s “blank check” was cashed during the Iwo Jima battle, and he gave his life for our country there at 21 years of age when his whole life was still in front of him.
During the ceremony, anyone in attendance may give remarks. Both Dick’s brother, Don’s widow, Norma, and their daughter, Donna, are planning to be in attendance and may have a word or two to say.
Don’s flag is folded and placed in a triangular case next their father Frank’s cased flag. He was a World War I veteran. Don was in the Navy serving in the Pacific but didn’t hear about his brother’s death for several weeks.
At the end of the ceremony, a bugler will play taps.
So save the date and plan to attend and remember Urbana native, Cpl. Richard L. “Dick” Pittman, who paid the ultimate price for our freedom.
Dinner will be available in the room at 6 p.m. The Pond Street restaurant at the VFW features popular Hawaiian-flavored kimchi and kalbi smash burgers, pork katsu sando, katsu-style fried catfish, onion rings, fries and pineapple slaw. No item is priced more than $15.