Wondering why my cousin, Milton Lee Olive, III, chose to pay the ultimate price 47-years-ago today

By Chinta Strausberg 

 

It was 47-years ago today that my cousin, Milton Lee Olive III spotted a live grenade during a search and destroy mission in Vietnam and without hesitation placed it on his stomach allowing it to explode saving the lives of four of his comrades who were behind him.

For his act of bravery, Skipper, as my family called him, was the first African American to received the Congressional Medal of Honor during the Vietnam War. He was just an 18-year-old kid from Englewood raised by my paternal grandparents after Clara, his mother, died giving birth to him. Skipper was a breech baby.

To this day, no one in my family or any of the remaining survivors know why Skipper chose to pay the ultimate price, but what we do know is that Skipper had a love affair with America. He loved being a soldier and had already received a Purple Heart as a paratrooper.

Upon his death, President Lyndon B. Johnson posthumously awarded him with a Congressional Medal of Honor and a second Purple Heart.

Earlier this year, one of the survivors, retired Army Captain Jimmy Stanford e-mailed me a statement on honoring Skipper.  “As I approach my golden years, as some would say the twilight years, I sometimes wonder what and why I have been given the opportunity of growing old, of seeing my son and daughter grow up and prosper in life,” wrote Stanford.

“Seeing my grandchildren grow up, marry and provide me with great-grandchildren, seeing them grow. I say today as I say most every day, thanks, Skipper for giving me this opportunity.” Captain Stanford is the father of two children, nine grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.

But, then all four survivors were able to have children and grandchildren thanks to Skipper’s act of bravery. Lionell Hubbard from Texas City Texas, now deceased, had children, as did the late John Foster who lived in Florida. Sgt. Vince Yrineo had children, but I have not talked to him in a while. The last I heard he was in a nursing home. I met him in 2006. Skipper took his job and pledge to protect this nation seriously.

Skipper paid the ultimate price, his life, but in doing so he saved the lives of four of his comrades who were behind him. Of the four, only two are alive with one being in a nursing home in Washington State. Retired Captain Jimmy Stanford is alive and well and resides in Texas. We e-mail and call each other often and sometimes each other. Stanford candidly admits to once being a racist that is until Skipper saved his life.

As he once explained, hating blacks was the norm if you were white and grew up in Texas. It was part of his culture, but all that changed on October 22, 1965 when Skipper chose to save his life.

In a taped interview on May 30, 2010, Stanford said back in 1965 he was assigned to Skipper’s U.S. Army, Company B, 2d Battalion (Airborne), 503d Infantry, 173d Airborne Brigade in Phu Cuong, Republic of Vietnam.

“I had a young black soldier assigned” to his unit “by the name of Milton Olive. I did not know Milton Olive. I had only been there a few days. I had learned who the platoon sergeant was…and who the people were that caused a lot of problems, but the people in between I did not get to know them too well before we started our operations,” Stanford recalled.

Referring to that fateful day, Stanford said, “We were assigned a mission of clearing this area…. On that day, we had been operating in conjunction with the other platoons in the company.

“We were moving through the jungles and we had been ambushed for the third time that day, and this time Milton was about a foot and a half to my left…. We were lying on the ground. The grenade fell between Milton Olive and me. I was scared. I left. I was very scared probably more so than my rank called for me to be, but I’m lying there and I’m looking at the yellow writing on this grenade and Milton grabbed this grenade and put it under him….

“The last thing I remember hearing him say was, ‘Look out, lieutenant, grenade and the next thing I knew was the grenade was going off and he died in the blast saving my life,” said Stanford. “A lot of times people have asked me why did he do this. What type of person does this? But, these are questions I can’t answer. There are a lot of what ifs…. What would have happened if he had picked it up and tossed it aside of me?

“A lot of times I go sleepless at night,” said Stanford. “I think about this and it’s been on my mind for many years. I’m beginning to be an old man and I’m still thinking about this, and I still don’t have the answers for this.”

Referring to Memorial Day, Stanford said, “this is the day that we need to think about things such as this and the sacrifices made not only by Milton Olive but by many soldiers like him.

“We can have our barbecues and our picnics and things like that, but we still need to think about these people. Our freedom is not free. People like Milton Olive have given their life to ensure that we have a life of freedom and prosperity,” he stated.

Asked how did Skipper’s saving his life change him, Stanford said, “It has changed my life tremendously. You might say I was a pretty redneck up until this time. It caused me to stop and think. He gave me another chance of life to do something with it, and I think I’ve done the best that I can. I’ve enjoyed it, but I think about this daily. There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t think about this young man.”

“I was very much a racist,” he admitted. “I guess it was the atmosphere in which I was raised in. This changed my life. It wasn’t an over night, complete 380-degrees, no. It was not that, but it began as an acceptance and from there it evolved to 480 degrees. It took many years to undue what I had been taught as a youngster,” Stanford admitted.

Today, Stanford says he thanks God every day he wakes up but admits he doesn’t know why Skipper sacrificed his life for his friends.

Well, my family doesn’t understand why Skipper did what he did either, but as a teenager who was born in Chicago, we are proud of this Englewood war hero who was born on November 7, 1946 to Milton B. and Clara Olive. My dad’s parents, Jacob Augustus and Zylphia Wareagle Spencer, raised Skipper at 6012 S. Loomis, a building Skipper’s dad purchased for the family.

Skipper went to several schools in Englewood including Copernicus where I once planned Thanksgiving turkey giveaways for the children and their parents. I wanted to go there to see if I could feel some sort of connection with Skipper.

Dr. Barbara Penelton, my cousin who grew up with Skipper, described him as being 5’6” and never weighing more than 140-pounds.

Penelton said Skipper “was often in the process of trying to prove that he could do what the ‘big guys’ could do” and that he was proud to be a paratrooper. It is with deep pride and respect that we recognize and appreciate his courage and his bravery because he truly did demonstrate that he could do what few others, big or small, could do. He could save the lives of others knowing that it would be at the expense of his own.”

Penelton admits she often tried to discourage Skipper from going to the service but he would write her back. “His letters often included descriptions of events that verified that he could be a soldier with the best of them,” she said. “He was proud of his uniform.

“I remember a time when he and my brother were both on leave. My brother hurried up and changed from his uniform so that he could go to the clubs to party. Skipper was too young to go to the clubs so he kept his uniform on and watched television with my grandparents,” Penelton recalled. Skipper, she said, “felt great pride at being a service man and we feel great pride in his heroism.”

 remember and cherish the many conversations I had with his father, Uncle Milton, especially his asking me over and over again to always let the world know what his son did for his country.

So, once again, Uncle Milton, I am keeping my promise to you and I miss our long talks. I miss seeing how your face and eyes would light up when you talked about your son, but if you were here today, I would tell you that your son’s blood that spilled in Vietnam is still having a healing effect today.

I would tell you how it has changed the life of Captain Stanford who is no longer a racist and like the others Skipper saved, Platoon Sergeant Vince Yrineo who is in a nursing home, Lionel Hubbard, a private from Texas who like John Foster, boxer from Pittsburgh are no longer alive, all have children and grandchildren because of the love and respect Skipper had for his comrades and his country.

Skipper’s life could have been quite different for he dropped out of high school because he was not challenged and went to Lexington, Mississippi to be with his paternal grandparents. When his father found out where his son was he was afraid that the KKK would kill Skipper so he gave him three choices: go back to school, get a job or join the military. The rest is history.

Thank you, Skipper, for paying the ultimate price for our nation. Thank you for being a good role model for your peers in Chicago and in the foxholes of Vietnam for your comrades told me how you would read the bible while they would go drinking. They told me how you did not swear. Thank you for adhering to my grandmother’s social standards but more than anything, Skipper, thank you for taking a stand on October 22, 2012—47-years-ago today. The blood you spilled in Vietnam is still healing the lives of others, but we all are still wondering why did you chose to pay the ultimate price that day.

Chinta Strausberg is a Journalist of more than 33-years, a former political reporter and a current PCC Network talk show host. You can e-mail Strausberg at: Chintabernie@aol.com.