Larry Hypes
Contributing Writer
BLACKSBURG – Ladies and gentlemen: We salute the U. S. Armed Forces; Army (1775) Navy (1775) Marine Corps (1775) Coast Guard (1790) Air Force (1947) and Space Force (2019) on this Veterans Day, 2025.
Local journalists Major Gene Morrell, U.S. Army (ret.), a Vietnam veteran and long-time reporter for the News Messenger and Roy Kanode, regional author and telecommunications worker, produced a book to honor a select group of vets from the Montgomery County—Radford area who served in World War II (1941—45), a dedicated group of approximately only 66,000 souls remaining of the 16.4 million men and women who wore uniforms, including approximately 200 from the local area.
“Gene came up the with the idea to write it (book) and since I had self-publishing skills, we worked together, recalls Kanode, “and the opportunity was truly one of the best experiences of my life.”
The volume entitled “Heroes Among Us, World War II Veterans of Montgomery County and Radford, Virginia,” chronicles the brief biographies of some 100 women and men. Among those included are the late Sen. Madison Marye of Shawsville, who served in World War II, Korea and Vietnam, and whose name graces the Rt. 460 corridor around Christiansburg, Paul Jearls of Patton’s Third Army, Frances Rice, a valiant Army nurse and scores of others who put their lives on the line for freedom.
Blacksburg’s Ralph Long was one of the many heroes. Long served in the Army (1943-45), was in the first wave of soldiers to hit Omaha Beach on D-Day, June 6, 1944, reaching the sand at 5:28 a.m. He had special training as a combat engineer with an emphasis on demolitions.
Long recounted, “Our job was to use Bangalore torpedoes to blow up the barbed wire and bulkheads (concrete barriers along the beachheads to halt Allied advances) so the soldiers who would follow us could get through.”
Long, who could not swim, nevertheless jumped from his landing craft into chest-high water, made it to shore with an 83-pound backpack and went to work amid the hail of German artillery fire. He got his job done and was one of only three survivors out of his 13-man explosives unit.
He remembered, “It (Omaha Beach) looked like a river of blood. All of those guys getting killed. I was just lucky. The Man Upstairs must have been taking care of me.”
Later, after being attached to Gen. George Patton’s famed Third Army rolling through Belgium, Long was embroiled in the Battle of the Bulge, Hitler’s last-gasp attempt to break the Allied advance through Europe, in late December 1944. The attack came in the midst of one of the worst winters in recent memory.
“We were outside all the time up on the front lines. It was so cold and we couldn’t have any fires. We had to eat our (canned) C-rations and K-rations cold. But we did have those white winter weather uniforms so we managed to stay fairly warm,” he said.
Long, among his other adventures, was actually a Prisoner of War for three days.
He noted, “We were surprised in the field and one of the German soldiers hit me in the head with the butt of his rifle, they took us and locked us up, but we were freed soon after by the 44th Infantry.”
Long also served as a motorcycle messenger, riding a Harley-Davidson between units and narrowly escaping death another time when a German sniper bullet struck the back of his cycle on one trip.
He remembers seeing a horrific sight in Malmedy, Belgium, where German SS soldiers had killed some 80 U.S. Marines and would have killed him and his buddies had they been spotted. Later, Long helped liberate a Nazi death camp, recalling, “Those poor people were nothing but skin and bones.”
Long, who after serving became a member of Christiansburg Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 5311, had scores of other adventures, once helping the U.S. forces to cross the Rhine River at Remagen on the way toward Berlin. He served through the German surrender in May, 1945 and the final Japanese surrender later in August.
Although he was awarded several military medals and citations, Long confessed it was never an easy job, although he was determined to see it through.
“I was scared all the time,” he said. “Anybody who tells you they weren’t scared, there’s something wrong with them.”
