Bragg receives Bronze Star for WWII service:Local veteran reflects on meaning of Memorial Day
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The 80-year-old U.S. Army veteran from McMinnville recently received the Bronze Star for his service during World War II, 60 years after his time in the Pacific.
“It means far more to me now than it would have at 19,’ said Bragg, now a Franklin resident. “At 19, I just wanted to get home. I wanted to get back and go on to school. I wanted to forget a lot of things.”
But on Memorial Day weekend, Bragg can’t fight back the memories of war, some good and some bad.
“Memorial Day has different meanings to different people and they’re all special,” said Bragg. “We were all over there and I left behind some great friends.”
Bragg carried a camera with him during his two-and-a-half year tour of duty and took some snapshots that still bring back tears. Many of those pictures are of large American cemeteries in Iwo Jima and Okinawa.
“Seeing those pictures makes me think of all the good people who didn’t come back,” said Bragg. “And I think about all the Japanese soldiers who died too.”
Bragg came from a military family. His father, John Roy Bragg, was a World War I veteran who was wounded in combat. He operated Cumberland Valley Nursery in the Dibrell area.
“He served in France and got shot up there,” said Bragg. “He was wounded in the leg pretty badly. But when he came home, he threw his crutches away before he got to Dibrell. He didn’t want anyone to see him with them.”
Bragg takes pride in making sure a flag remains on his father’s grave at Mt. View Cemetery. His sister, Joy Bragg, still lives in McMinnville and has retired after 30 years as a public school teacher.
Bragg says he still vividly remembers his time at war. “In a way it seems like it was another lifetime,” he said. “But in another way it seems like it was a month ago.”
As a member of the 147th Army Regimental Combat Team, Bragg served on the islands of Guadalcanal, Samoa, Tonga, Emirau, Iwo Jima and Tinian, the island from which the attack on Hiroshima was launched.
According to Bragg, his regimental combat team was cited by Lt. Gen. Robert C. Richardson, commanding general of the U.S. Army forces in the Pacific, as having ‘engaged in exceptional and meritorious service in the war against Japan.’
It was this service for which he earned the Bronze Star, awarded to any combat serviceman who has distinguished himself or herself by heroic or meritorious achievement while in a combat zone.
Just recently, the military has made the awarding of the Bronze Star retroactive to include all soldiers who had earned the combat infantryman badge during World War II, which Bragg did.
When Bragg returned from the war, he attended the University of the South at Sewanee, then did graduate work at the University of Virginia before receiving his graduate degree from MTSU.
Bragg had a distinguished career at Battle Ground Academy. When he retired in 1990, he was only the ninth headmaster in the school’s history and has the longest tenure in the position at the 116-year-old school.
‘I was there one year as a single teacher and then I met Jane, who was from Mount Pleasant, through a fraternity brother of mine at Sewanee,’ Bragg said. ‘We met on a blind date, fell in love and married. We were married for 52 years. She died; it will be two years in July.’
In 2001, Bragg received the Dr. Joe T. Nunley Award, presented to a distinguished veteran of World War II from Middle Tennessee who has also been of service to his community. The award was presented by John Furgess, national commander in chief of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, who also played a role in Bragg receiving his long-overdue medal.
Bragg is touched for having received the award, and with Memorial Day ceremonies taking place across the country tomorrow, he says it’s an appropriate time to stress the importance of U.S. history.
‘The appalling thing to me is so many young people today, although I am sure this is not the case at BGA, are not aware of what happened in World War II,’ Bragg said. ‘They are not aware of names, of people, of leaders. It has been a long time, but yet, it has not been that long that we should forget. At this time of the year, at Memorial Day, we like to remember those who were not as fortunate as we were.’
With the quickly diminishing numbers of World War II veterans, Bragg wants to make sure his two children and two grandchildren know more about his service than he did of his father’s service in World War I.
‘My father served in World War I. I was interested in wars, as all young people are, in the 1930s, but I could never get my daddy to talk about it,’ Bragg said.
‘He was a decorated veteran. He was wounded in the war. I just got very little out of him. When he died, there were some papers left that I went through. I learned more after his death than when he was alive. He just did not talk about it.”