A Patriot's Heart: A Summary and Analysis Of An Oral History of Colonel William S. Fulton, Jr., United States Army (Retired) (1943-1983); and Addendum To Oral History, The Clerk of Court Years (1983-1997)

• Author: Major Mary M. Foreman
• Pages: 05

252 MILITARY LAW REVIEW [Vol. 175

A PATRIOT'S HEART: A SUMMARY AND ANALYSIS OF An Oral

History of Colonel William S. Fulton, Jr., United States Army (Retired) (1943-1983); and Addendum To Oral History, The Clerk of Court Years (1983-1997)1

MAJOR MARY M. FOREMAN2

1. Introduction

   pa·tri·ot 'pA-trE-ät, -"ät, chiefly British 'pa-trE-ät

   Function: noun Etymology: Middle French patriote compatriot, from Late Latin patriota, from Greek patriOtEs, from patria lineage, from patr-, patEr father3

   2a. One who disinterestedly or self-sacrificingly exerts himself to promote the well-being of his country4

   On 20 January 1961, John F. Kennedy became the thirty-fifth President of the United States; and in his Inaugural Address in Washington, D.C., when the United States was facing difficulties both foreign and domestic, he issued his now famous challenge to the American people: "ask not what your country can do for you-ask what you can do for your country."5

   William Sherwin Fulton, Junior, was stationed at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, the day President Kennedy spoke those words, but already the soldier-lawyer from Iowa was living them, having enlisted in 1943, fought in World War II and Korea, and accepted a battlefield commission that eventually led to a commission in The Judge Advocate General's Corps. Already Bill Fulton personified those words, and he continued to do so throughout his lifetime of service to the nation. Throughout his fifty-four years of service to the country, his tireless work ethic and selfless response to the call of duty were a model for emulation and significantly impacted the lives of those with whom he worked. While the term "patriot" has since become the name of an air defense artillery system, the title of a motion picture, and most recently the name of anti-terrorist legislation, Bill Fulton's service to the United States-as an enlisted soldier, a commissioned officer, and a federal civilian-defines the term in its purest sense.

   This article is a summary and analysis of interviews conducted with Colonel (Retired) Fulton in March 1990, an addendum that he added to the text of his interviews in February 2001, and interviews conducted with him and others in April 2002. The initial interview and his addendum have been bound in "An Oral History of Colonel William S. Fulton, Jr., United States Army (Retired)" and are maintained at the Judge Advocate General's School in Charlottesville, Virginia. Presented in the context of dedication to country, dedication to the law, and dedication to service, this article examines Colonel Fulton's fifty-four years of service, from his enlistment

   in 1943 to his final retirement from federal service in 1997, a history that both defines and reveals the legacy of a patriot's heart.

2. 1925-1951: Dedication to Service: A Patriot's Duty

   I was at home on Sunday afternoon, December 7th, 1941, in our apartment across the street from Drake University, about a half-block from our church, preparing to attend an evening youth service, when we learned the Japanese had attacked Pearl Harbor

   . . . . [I]t wasn't long until the names of some began to appear with gold stars on a wall we had reserved as a memorial at North High . . . [for those] killed in action.6

   1. Iowa: From Hawkeye Boys' State to Enlistment at Camp Dodge

      Born on 14 September 1925, in Des Moines, Iowa, William Sherwin Fulton, Junior, heard the call to duty early in his life. The son of William Sherwin Fulton, Senior, and Hazel Marie (Douglas) Fulton, "Sherwin Junior," as he was known until high school, was attracted to the military lifestyle as a young boy, despite having no military family background. At age eight, having read about a nearby military school in Boys Life, he requested literature from the school, explaining in a letter that although the minimum age for admission was eleven, "it might take three years for me to persuade my parents to send me!"7

      Apparently unsuccessful in convincing his parents to send him to military school, Bill Fulton graduated from North High School, Des Moines, in 1943, having been elected president of his student council. Unable to enlist because he was not yet eighteen, and eager to begin his college education, he enrolled in the summer session at the University of Iowa in 1943. That same summer, the Army established a college training program for enlisted reservists called the Army Specialized Training Reserve Program (ASTRP), which permitted men at least seventeen years of age to enlist in the Enlisted Reserve Corps, a precursor to the Army Reserve. In return for an agreement to serve on active duty once turning eighteen, the program assisted in providing a college education. While attending classes at Iowa, Bill Fulton joined the ASTRP in order to enter the Army as soon as poss

      ble, with full knowledge that his enlistment would invariably thrust him into World War II. Indeed, while the program enabled him to attend a semester of college at the University of Kansas, by November 1943, Private Fulton had received active duty orders to Camp Dodge, Iowa, with follow-on orders to basic combat training at Fort Benning, Georgia.

      While at North High, Bill Fulton had become interested in attending law school, and it was there that he "tried [his] first case."8 While involved in a mock-government program for high school students called "Hawkeye Boys' State," he was elected a county attorney and earned the distinction of prosecuting a fellow county citizen for urinating in the shower, arguably a violation of the Iowa Code.9 More noteworthy during his time at North High is that he met Marjorie Porter, who would later become his wife.

   2. World War II: The 86th Infantry Division and the European and Asiatic-Pacific Theaters

      Just months after his acceptance into the ASTRP, Bill Fulton turned eighteen and was called to active duty. After completing basic training at Fort Benning in March, 1944, Private Fulton was assigned to the 86th Infantry Division at Camp Livingston, Louisiana, a unit that had been largely dismantled to provide replacements for casualties in Europe. As a member of Company F, 341st Infantry Regiment, 86th Infantry Division, Private Fulton served as a rifleman, handling the bazooka and later the flame thrower for his squad, until he was promoted from private first class to sergeant while training at Camp San Luis Obisbo, California.10

      The 86th Infantry Division had initially been earmarked for amphibious warfare operations in the Pacific, which resulted in training exercises for the Division at various training camps in California. In February 1945, after the Battle of the Bulge, the 86th Infantry Division was needed in Germany, and Sergeant Fulton soon found himself at Camp Myles Standish, near Boston, Massachusetts, en route to Europe. His life had changed dramatically in the eighteen months since his enlistment. In addition to briefly attending college, completing basic training, and rising to the rank of sergeant, he had become engaged to Marjorie in April 1944, and just

      months later, had unexpectedly lost his forty-one year-old father to a heart attack.

      The Division arrived at Le Havre, France, on 2 March 1945, and settled at Camp Lucky Strike. It was there that Sergeant Fulton's company commander offered him the position as communications chief, which led to a promotion to staff sergeant. Staff Sergeant Fulton was then responsible for managing and maintaining all of the company's internal and external communications equipment when the 86th Division moved east into Germany, relieving the 8th Infantry Division near Köln and occupying the west bank of the Rhine River, opposite what had become the "Ruhr Pocket."11

      Staff Sergeant Fulton's service with the 86th Infantry Division took him deep into Nazi Germany, where his division assisted the XVIII Airborne Corps in eliminating the resistance in the Ruhr pocket, then through Frankfurt and south of Würzburg, where the Division joined the III Corps of General Patton's Third Army. In April 1945, the 86th Infantry Division captured Ingolstadt on the Danube, became one of the first divisions to cross that river under fire, then moved in pursuit toward the Austrian border, encountering surrendering German soldiers, displaced persons, POWs, and other casualties of the long-standing war in Europe. Passing north of Berchtesgaden and Hitler's "Eagle's Nest," Sergeant Fulton's unit crossed the Salzach River into Austria on 4 May 1945, just days after Hitler's suicide on 30 April 1945. Germany surrendered unconditionally one week later. The Division was not to return home, however; "[a]s soon as the war in Germany ended, we were told we were going to the Asiatic-Pacific Theatre, for which we had trained and where the war was not yet over."12

      After returning to the United States for a brief period of leave, the 86th Infantry Division reassembled at Camp Gruber, Oklahoma, for deployment to the Pacific theater, and soon moved to Camp Stoneman, California, for transportation to the Philippines. The Division departed for the Philippines on 21 August 1945, shortly after the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima on 6 August 1945, and the Japanese surrender a week later. Once in the Philippines, Sergeant Fulton's division patrolled the mountain areas in central Luzon "searching for recalcitrant or uninformed Japanese soldiers."13 Sergeant Fulton later learned that his division would

      have been one of six divisions from Europe constituting follow-on forces for the planned invasion of Japan, had the war not ended when it did.

      For his service in the European and Asiatic-Pacific Theaters, Sergeant Fulton's awards included the Combat Infantryman's Badge (CIB), the World War II Victory Medal, and the Bronze Star.14 He was twenty years-old when he returned to the United States in April 1946.

   3. Return to Iowa: Law School

      Sergeant Fulton's three-year enlistment was to expire in July 1946. On 23 April 1946, at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, he...