Portraits of Courage: Bob Gindling

WASILLA — While many veterans would prefer to forget many of their wartime memories, one man has.

Bob Gindling of Wasilla has Alzheimer’s and doesn’t remember what unit he served with or where.

His wife, Joann, can recall some of the stories he shared with her, but all she has as a reference is his company training yearbook for an infantry battalion from Camp Elliott, Calif., in 1944. Bob is listed with Company D, combat intelligence, and was a Marine.

Joann recalls her husband was 17 when he volunteered to join the Marines in 1942. He was living in Indianapolis, Ind., and going to school.

“He was in 26 months and spent 22 (months) in Guam,” she said.

Bob was part of the contingent that took back the island from the Japanese. When he and his company landed at the beach, the ships didn’t bring them in very close, so they had to wade in carrying their rifles above their heads.

“They were too scared to get any closer,” Joann recalls Bob telling her. She also remembers him saying that they didn’t have many food provisions.

“There were some days orange marmalade was all they had,” she said. “He can’t stand it to this day.”

Orange marmalade isn’t the only thing he got turned off to during the war. After he was out of the service, his friends would sometimes invite him to go hunting with them. He turned them down.

“He said he had enough of that,” she said. “He wanted nothing to do with guns anymore.”

Joann also remembers him talking about coming across a soldier the Japanese had tortured who was hanging in a tree.

“He begged the soldiers to kill him because (his captors) had mutilated him so bad,” she recalled. She doesn’t remember her husband mentioning what became of that soldier, though.

Bob was honorably discharged in 1945 and went back to Indianapolis. He worked at the American Can Co., then at the Indianapolis Times.

The Gindlings came to Alaska about a year ago to live with their son and daughter-in-law.

Note: According to the Veterans Administration, in 2008 there is are estimated 558,492 veterans with dementia, including 295,771 who are enrolled for VA health care and 175,621 who receive VA health care services. The number with Alzheimer’s would be slightly smaller, said Laurie Transter, VA public affairs.