WWII, Pacific vet looks back at time in service

"I graduated high school in May of 1943, and by the end of August 1943, I had already been drafted into the U.S. Army," Jon Blissette said. "I can remember it very well. I was drafted in on July 28, 1943. Some things you can retain, you know?"

Blissette turned 18 on Aug. 24, 1942, the minimum age that allowed men to be drafted into service. He was allowed a deferment of duty to finish high school in Texas.

He was first based at Camp Walters, Texas.

"I stayed there only long enough to go through the normal processing, taking tests and things like that. The next thing I knew, by about the end of August, me and a bunch of guys were on a troop train going to Oregon."

According to Blissette, he arrived at Camp Adair in Oregon for his 16-week infantry basic training, where he remembered hiking for 30 miles with a pull pack, weapons and gear.

"An infantryman, he walks on his two legs," Blissette said with a laugh. "He doesn't ride in cars and airplanes. We walked. (We) got pretty good at it, too."

After finishing basic training and spending the New Year holiday with his family in Texas, Blissette was called to join the 81st Infantry Division, known as the Wildcat Division, from then-Camp Rucker out in California.

"They were down at Camp San Luis Obispo in California at that time," Blissette said. "They had already trained here, and gone across the country, and gotten desert training. They were there ready to go, but they needed a few more boys because they had lost some to sickness and other things.

"Well, those few more boys were just up the road in Oregon. They selected a bunch of us to go up there as fillers.

"We got down there, and I got into a rifle company. Since we were so green, they had to give us some more training. So, we had to have about 2-3 more weeks of training."

During his basic training, Blissette had gained experience using machine guns. When he was was placed in the 81st Division, he was assigned to the mortar section of a weapons platoon.

"I had never taken mortar training, but that's alright because I had been exposed to it," Blissette said. "There's a lot more to a mortar gun. It's a little more complicated. It was okay, though. I liked it better than the machine guns anyway."

The 81st Division was given orders to travel to Hawaii for jungle training then invade the Palau Islands. For this mission, his platoon received a special trigger mortar.

"When we had finished (jungle training) and were on the verge of getting on the troop ships and heading to the combat zone, we got these trigger mortars," Blissette said. "Someone in Washington decided that every rifle platoon should have one of the trigger mortars assigned to it.

"You don't get training on a mortar really quick, like you would a rifle. Here I am, I'm the low man on the pole. We don't want to mess up the hierarchy of the squad. So, they handed me one of those trigger mortars. I was in the first mortar squad, so they put me in the first platoon. I got the training on (the trigger mortar). I could hit things pretty well."

He said he had to carry the trigger mortar and three mortar rounds with his regular gear and pack when the 81st Division and the 1st Marine Division invade the Palau Islands as the 3rd Amphibious Force. He never fired the mortar.

The 81st traveled to New Caledonia after the Palau Island Campaign then moved to the Philippines and Leyte, around the time the United States dropped two atomic bombs on Japan and ended WWII.

Blissette was discharged as a technical sergeant, now known as a Sergeant 1st Class, and returned to his home in Texas in February 1946. He attempted to go to college at Southern Methodist University in Texas, but found that college was not for him.

He re-enlisted in the Army as a staff sergeant.

"I could come back in as a staff sergeant," Blissette said. "That's not too bad. So, I signed up, and in a few days, I was in Fort. Sam Houston (near San Antonio). I stayed there just long enough to get processed."

He tried to join the heavy seacoast artillery instead of the infantry.

"The nearest artillery that we could get to from Fort Sam Houston was going out to El Paso," Blissette said. "We had stayed there just long enough to say we were there.

We got some orders, and we didn't go to any seacoast artillery position. We went to San Francisco then got on a ship going to Korea. We were going over there for occupation duty. So, there went my experience with heavy seacoast artillery."

He arrived in Korea in January 1947, where he was assigned to a military government unit and was promoted to technical sergeant again.

"I stayed with the military government unit all the time I was over there in Korea, for two years," Blissette said. "Then, I got a good job in a place that called for a master sergeant's rate. Well, I got in there, kept my nose to the grindstone, and next thing you know, I had six stripes. At the end of my two years, I came home as a master sergeant."

He returned to the United States in 1949 and went to Camp Chaffey in Arkansas. He learned about Civilian Component Duty while there, and requested assignment in Little Rock, the CCD headquarters.

While at Little Rock, he applied for a commission, which promoted him to 2nd Lieutenant.

"That's sometimes what we refer to as a hip-pocket promotion or commission. You've got it in your pocket, but you're not walking around with it on your shoulder."

The Korean War had begun around the time Blissette received his promotion. He tried to become a warrant officer, but ultimately received orders for duty.

"I already had my combat infantry badge, and you can only get that badge by being an infantry soldier in an infantry unit in actual combat," Blissette said. "Nobody else can get that.You can only get one badge for one war.

"I said, 'Look, Mrs. Blissette's little boy don't need to go back to Korea, especially under the conditions like that. If I go back, they would call me to active duty as a 2nd lieutenant of infantry. He's right up there with the boys, and those bullets don't care who they hit.

"Here comes this message one day. Whose name was on there next to two or three others? This guy Jon Blissette. 2nd Lt. Jon Blissette.

"(It said), 'Take your physical, and send it in. If you're physically qualified, you'll be ordered to active duty.'"

He was sent to Camp Roberts in California in January of 1952.

Col. Daniel Norman allowed him to stay at Camp Roberts because of his administrative skills, though Col. Norman thought about sending him to a training regiment for Korea.

"By then, I was about 22 or 23 years old, maybe even 25," Blissette said. "I said, 'I've already talked to the adjutant out here, and I'd like to get out there and help him. I think I could be an asset to the regiment.'

"'You probably could be,' Col Norman said. 'But I'm thinking of you.'"

Lt. Col. Benjamin Quigley helped convince Col. Norman to keep Blissette as an assistant adjutant.

"I never did go down to the battalion," Blissette said. "Col. Norman left for Korea. I stayed there as the assistant adjutant. We got in another regimental commander, and he thought I was a fixture there. So, he didn't worry about me.

"We got in another lieutenant colonel, and he was determined to get me into one of the battalions. By that point (in 1953), I had become a 1st lieutenant."

Blissette was later promoted to adjutant of Camp Roberts, and later replaced an S4 in logistics and supply at the base.

After taking over logistics and supply, Blissette was tested a number of times by the regimental commander.

One of those tests landed him on the cover of the Army Times, the military magazine.

"We did have a problem of boys tearing up their boots," Blissette said. "They would stomp cans and flatten them out, like milk cans. They were tearing the heels (of the boots). They would flatten the cans so they can get more cans in a gondola."

The regimental commander asked Blissette to create a device that would keep the soldiers' boots from tearing up and flatten the cans.

"He gave me the word picture of what he wanted," Blissette said. "No equipment to do it with, no machine shop to do it, and I didn't know what he was talking about to begin with.

"One day, I was going down to the tech services where we dealt with clothing, equipment and food. I noticed out on the side of the road, and I had this driver of the jeep who had worked for the railroads before he was drafted in, and here were these steel rails just laying off to the side."

Using these rails, Blissette created a flattening tool for the soldiers to use instead of their boots. His invention was on the front of the Army Times.

"I almost won an award on that thing," Blissette said. "We have an incentive program. They can evaluate it and figure out how much you're saving the government. You know what they said? Everything was fine except it mashed it so flat until the inside milk retained in there couldn't get out. It interfered with melting them down somehow."

When he left Camp Roberts for Taiwan, each mess hall still had the flattening tools he had created.

Blissette arrived in Taiwan in January of 1954. When he received his orders, the country was called Formosa.

"Taiwan, back in the old days, was called Formosa," Blissette said. "That island was controlled by Portugal. Formosa, I understand, is a Portuguese word, but the Chinese didn't like it, so they changed it to Taiwan.

"My orders said I was going to Formosa, and after I got over there, the terminology was changed to Taiwan."

He stayed in Taiwan until 1956, "advising the Chinese on routine things, the army program and how to use the equipment that we would send over there," Blissette said.

He was then sent to Sault Sainte Marie in Michigan. Here, Blissette said, he convinced his colonel to send him to Fort Benning for branch school.

"Here I am at this time, and all I've had is a high school education," Blissette said. "I said, 'Colonel, I have a hip-pocket commission. I didn't go to OSC, and I didn't get a battlefield commission. Somebody decided that I stirred up enough trouble that I was qualified to be a lieutenant.

"I do know this, I'm in a position where I'm watching people leave my own little unit up there because they don't need us anymore," he said. "I believe I would have a better chance of staying if I could at least go to my branch school down at Benning."

He spent five months at school at Fort Benning, from August to December, before returning to Michigan.

"You can't stay up there all the time," Blissette said. "It seemed like they just loved us infantry boys, and they'll send us just anyplace."

He was given orders to go to Korea for a one-year tour in September 1958. He learned about becoming an information officer and decided that's what he would do for his next job in the military.

"I had a friend in Washington that I had served with him on that Mag assignment in Taiwan," Blissette said. "The Army has always been short on IO type people. They never had enough IO's that were school trained. Now, we can just stick any old infantryman in there and he can do the job, but he's not school trained.

"I wrote (my friend) and told him when I was leaving (Korea). I said that I would like to go to that school, and maybe I could get plugged into a certain location in Texas.

"In about 2-3 weeks, here comes some letters. He said, 'You're going to go to the IO School at Fort Slocomb in New York, but I couldn't do you good on the assignment. The nearest I could get you to San Antonio was up at Mineral Wells.'"

He attended school during the last few months of 1960, and became the IO for the post at Fort Wolters in Texas in 1961.

In 1962, while at Fort Wolters, Blissette was given orders to report to Fort Hood to prepare to go to Cuba with the 1st Armored Division.

While traveling to Fort Hood to find housing, Blissette was involved in an automobile accident.

"I got out of that with an automobile accident," Blissette said. "(It) about killed me too. Broke my neck and knocked my hip out of the joint. I had gone from Walters that day down to Hood to look for housing. I had that accident, and that canceled everything there. I was out of action for about two months."

He was then given orders to go to Germany in 1963.

"We had Operation BIG LIFT in the fall of '63 where we had the equipment from that armored division in Fort Hood prepositioned in German locations already," Blissette said. "The division itself, men-wise, got on planes, and they put them in these places. They got the vehicles and everything, and got organized."

He worked in the public affairs division, handling community relations, as an IO just south of Heidelberg.

His tour was cut short in Germany after word came that Fort Rucker needed an IO.

"I got here, and the general said he wants a rated officer as an IO," Blissette said. "The heck of it is, they already had a guy here.

"They couldn't send me back. (The colonel) said, 'Blissette, I can't send you back over there. You shouldn't have been sent here to start with. What do you want to do?'"

He was, instead, assigned to be an S4 over the troop brigade at Fort Rucker until he was given orders to report to Vietnam in 1968. He returned to the United States in 1969.

He was originally assigned to Fort Campbell in Kentucky. This was his last assignment before he retired, so he asked for a re-assignment.

While on an "R&R" trip to Hong Kong, he received word that he was being sent to Fort Rucker. He returned to his position as an S4 in logistics and supply.

He retired in 1972 as a lieutenant colonel.

"After getting involved with the Army like that, and still at a very young age, I came back at an unusual trying time in our country," Blissette said. "I'm not sorry that I did now. After it's all over with, well, I'm better off than if I'd have become a college professor.

"I've travelled a lot. I've met a lot of fine people, and I think, as you travel along, if you just keep your mind and eyes open and attentive, you'll learn something."

Since he retired, Blissette has received his bachelor's degree from Troy State University in history, and graduated with higher honors than any of his four children: Gail, Scott, Patricia (Trita) and Brett.

Today, Blissette spends his days with his wife Reba, who was his secretary during his first assignment at Fort Rucker. They met in July 1967, and were married that December.

"All in all, it's been a beautiful journey," Blissette said.