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Meet Gerald Heffernan Life Member of American Legion Post #19 Bristol

photo provided Serving his country in World War II, Gerard Heffernan and his entire family believe in service before self.

Friday May 24, 2013

By Cookie Steponaitis

Gerald Heffernan enlisted in the U.S. Navy on June 28, 1945 shortly after graduating from Bristol High School. Gerald was in boot camp when the war officially ended and was sent to radar training in Point Loma, California and later to Japan in December 1945 where he served as part of the occupation that took him to the islands of Japan and Korea and China.

    His next assignment was to the Subic-China Ship Group stationed in the Philippines and he arrived on July 6, 1946 just two days after their independence day.  
“Our task was to outfit a variety of recently decommissioned U. S. Naval vessels for use by the Nationalist Chinese led by Chiang Kai-Shek in their struggle against the Communist forces of Mao Zedong,” shared Heffernan. “We once transported an exchange of prisoners via LST between Chefoo and Tsingtao during one of the Nationalist-Communist cease-fires. I was stationed in the Philippines until the end of March 1948 and enjoyed my second and last home leave in April 1948. I spent the remainder of my service at several bases in California and was discharged from my ‘minority cruise’ enlistment just short of my twenty first birthday.”

    Heffernan is one of seven sons and feels that all of his siblings felt a combination of, “obligation to serve their county and pride in doing so. My older half-brother Joe served in the Sea Bees from 1944 until 1946 and was in the Philippines when it was re-occupied,” remarked Gerald Heffernan. “I am the oldest of six Heffernan boys. My brother John served in the Marines during the Korean War but did not see combat. Our brother Kevin received two Purple Hearts while serving in the Army's First Cavalry during the Korean War. My brother Vincent enlisted in the Air Force and served from 1954 until 1957. My brother Francis served in the Army's 53rd Infantry from 1954 until 1957 and our youngest brother Timothy served in the Air Force from 1956 until 1960. All of us were enlistees.”

    For Heffernan not only was his time in the service an honor but the GI bill enabled him to attend school. “I thoroughly enjoyed the thirty three months I served,”
remarked Heffernan. “I made friends. I visited places and met fascinating people in every country I visited. I had a chance to read, an activity which prepared me better for college than I would have been right out of high school. Like many of my fellow veterans I became a college freshman at age twenty one.”

    Heffernan is a lifelong member of American Legion Post # 19 in Bristol, Vermont and speaks about Memorial Day with the same reverence and focus as did all the veterans spoken to. “Those who have made the supreme sacrifice cannot speak for themselves,” shared Gerald. “But, almost without exception, they did not consider themselves heroes, just because they served.”

    For all those serving now and those who never came home, the voices of Gerald Heffernan and his fellow veterans remind all of us to pause, reflect and understand that those who earned our freedom and continue to do so do not ask for fanfare but an understanding that America passes to the hands of the next generation and their role is to keep it safe and honor those who came before.

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