LT. COL. Charles Alex
National Guard and US. Army
169th Infantry – Company M
Guadalcanal, Philippines, Korea, Vietnam
1940-1971
National Guard and US. Army
169th Infantry – Company M
Guadalcanal, Philippines, Korea, Vietnam
1940-1971
Charles Alex was born in New Britain, CT on Sept 24, 1919. He had three brothers, all of whom served in the U.S. Military. Charlie lived his entire life in New Britain, CT, which at the time was a close-knit community with various ethnic enclaves. After graduating from New Britain High School in 1939 he went to work for a local manufacturing company. In 1940 he enlisted in the National Guard rather than be drafted for World War II.
Charlie was in Company M of the 169th Infantry of the Connecticut National Guard. “Almost everybody in our company was from New Britain. We had three sets of brothers from New Britain and two sets were killed.” The local newspaper, The New Britain Herald, reported on exploits of the men of the 169th. His family would faithfully read the Herald to see who had been killed or wounded.
Charlie did his training at Fort Blanding in Florida and Fort Shelby in Mississippi. I asked Charlie what he thought about boot camp “It was easy.” He went for additional training at Fort Ord in California. When it came time to deploy the 169th boarded a ship in San Francisco and headed to New Zealand. From there he went to Russell Island, which is part of the Solomon Islands. On February 16, 1943, the men loaded onto four ships for the voyage to Guadalcanal. The ships came under heavy attack by the Japanese and one ship was sunk.
Charlie hit the beach in Guadalcanal with a good friend from home. In the confusion they were separated. Later his friend was sent home after becoming shell shocked. “There was a lot of that over there”, Charlie recalled. When the friend returned to Connecticut he told Charlie’s mother that Charlie was dead, claiming to have seen his boot sticking out of the mud. His mother was so mad she said to him, “You came home and left Charlie there! You get out of my house!!”
The next stop was the Philippines. Charlie had risen to Staff Sergeant, and he recalls arriving in the Philippines after General MacArthur arrived but there was plenty of fighting remaining. Charlies remembers the jungle as being hot and full of bugs. He particularly remembers lying in his foxhole at night and having lightening bugs everywhere. The Japanese had snipers in trees and they targeted anyone carrying an automatic weapon. “They were good pop shots. We lost a lot of men that way.”
I asked Charlie if he was ever worried while in combat. “You’re always worried. You had thick jungle overhead and no streetlights. The word would filter down the line about who had been killed. I was more worried about my parents at home than I was about myself.”
I asked Charlie if he was ever concerned that the Allies would not prevail. His answer was short and firm, “No”. I asked why. He replied, “Confidence!”
Charlie recalled constant bombing by the Japanese. “Every time we’d make a move, we would dig a hole. I was standing up in a foxhole waist deep. They dropped a bomb. A friend of mine on the high ground got hit and nothing happened to me. He was from West Hartford, Talhurst Hyers.” “We’d get a lot of tree bursts. They’d drop a bomb, and it would hit a tree and the shrapnel would shower down on you. If you’re lucky you didn’t get hit. Luck and a few prayers.”
The fighting was fierce, and Charlie didn’t recall taking that many prisoners. “We just annihilated them.” I asked Charlie if he had any memories of the Japanese soldiers. “I always had a personal feeling for the enemy. I always kept thinking they are the same as I am. I’m there to fight a war. They’re there to fight a war. I didn’t have that much dislike.”
The casualty rate was high and was exceeding the replacements arriving. To keep the fighting forces at full strength they had to take men from non-combat roles and have them fill in on the front line until replacements arrived. Charlie had a friend, Freddy Rotondo from Avon, CT. He was a cook. When they ran short of men Charlie took Freddy out of the kitchen and put him under his command. Later Freddy would tell his wife that Charlie saved his life. Charlie would say, “I didn’t save your life, but I’d like to think I contributed to it.”
I asked Charlie how often he would get to take a shower and get a clean uniform. That produced a big smile and a hearty chuckle. “We didn’t have the opportunity to bathe often. Being along the shore I would go into the ocean and that was the extent of my bath.”
Food consisted of canned rations. Charlie recalled being in New Caledonia and going downtown for something to eat with a few buddies. They went into a restaurant, and he ordered some chicken. As he waited for his food he looked up and saw “an enormous rat” walking across a beam. “Right away I cancelled my chicken.”
Charlie and Freddy Rotondo accumulated the maximum number of points necessary to come home but they had to wait. Preference was given to married men. When they were able to come home, they caught a plane to San Francisco and then hitchhiked to Chicago where Charlie had relatives. Sometime between San Francisco and Chicago, the war in the Pacific ended. “Everyone was tickled pink.”
After a short visit they hitchhiked to Hartford, CT. When they arrived in Hartford Freddy invited Charlie to his house in Avon. Charlie accepted and then Freddy told him they were going to walk to Avon, which is nearly 20 miles away. Charlie said, “do you know how far that is? I spent so many years walking (through the jungle). We’re not walking!”
They arrived at Freddy’s house where Mr. and Mrs. Rotondo were uncontrollably happy to see their son. “I never heard anything like it before. His mother and father screaming and his father hitting his head on the wall and crying. They never expected to see him.” Charlie thought, “well I’m gonna go home but I’m not going to subject my mother to this.”
“When I went home, I saw almost 100 people in front of the house. I said to my mother, ‘What are all these people doing here?’ Well, she says, ‘word got out that you lost both of your legs and they wanted to see how you were going to navigate getting home.’” Charlie said, “Sorry to surprise them.”
New Britain was a small, tight community with ethnic enclaves. Charlie came from a religious family and his mother made a pledge that if her sons all returned from the service alive and in one piece she would crawl on her hands and knees across the street and up the stairs of the church. The local newspaper, The New Britain Herald, came to cover the event.
After Charlie arrived home, he went to Fort Devens in Massachusetts and was discharged from the National Guard. Charlie returned to work at the New Britain Machine Company where his old job was waiting for him. He also rejoined the National Guard and “I was called in for Korea.” That was 1956 and Charlie had risen to the rank of Captain. Eventually Charlie transferred into the Army and he didn’t retire until 1971 after 31 years of service which included stints in Germany, Paris, Vietnam and New York City.
In 1948 Charlie married Juanita Francis Badrigian in an arranged marriage. They had three children, and they were married until 1981 when Juanita passed away. Charlie recalled his wedding having 500 guests and being criticized for not inviting some people.
How did Charlie and Juanita end up in an arranged marriage? When the Armenian genocide was taking place in turkey in the early 1900’s, Juanita’s family escaped to Cuba where many other Armenians took refuge. Juanita’s father was sponsored by an Armenian family in Wooster Massachusetts. He worked there for seven years before he was able to bring his family to the United States. By the time Juanita arrived in the United States she was 18 and only spoke Spanish and Armenian. Charlie’s father’s family bought papers that allowed them to immigrate to the United States from Armenia through Ellis Island. Those papers changed their name from Garabedian to Alex. Through the Armenian network, Charlie and Juanita were an arranged marriage that lasted 33 years.
Today Charlie is three months sort of his 104th birthday. “The Army was good to me. We did a lot of traveling and spent three years in Paris. I’d do it again.”
Thank you, Charlie, for those days in nights in the jungle fighting to save the world and sacrificing everything to get those mortars on the enemy. We are all lucky those weren’t your boots sticking out of the mud!!!
Charlie was in Company M of the 169th Infantry of the Connecticut National Guard. “Almost everybody in our company was from New Britain. We had three sets of brothers from New Britain and two sets were killed.” The local newspaper, The New Britain Herald, reported on exploits of the men of the 169th. His family would faithfully read the Herald to see who had been killed or wounded.
Charlie did his training at Fort Blanding in Florida and Fort Shelby in Mississippi. I asked Charlie what he thought about boot camp “It was easy.” He went for additional training at Fort Ord in California. When it came time to deploy the 169th boarded a ship in San Francisco and headed to New Zealand. From there he went to Russell Island, which is part of the Solomon Islands. On February 16, 1943, the men loaded onto four ships for the voyage to Guadalcanal. The ships came under heavy attack by the Japanese and one ship was sunk.
Charlie hit the beach in Guadalcanal with a good friend from home. In the confusion they were separated. Later his friend was sent home after becoming shell shocked. “There was a lot of that over there”, Charlie recalled. When the friend returned to Connecticut he told Charlie’s mother that Charlie was dead, claiming to have seen his boot sticking out of the mud. His mother was so mad she said to him, “You came home and left Charlie there! You get out of my house!!”
The next stop was the Philippines. Charlie had risen to Staff Sergeant, and he recalls arriving in the Philippines after General MacArthur arrived but there was plenty of fighting remaining. Charlies remembers the jungle as being hot and full of bugs. He particularly remembers lying in his foxhole at night and having lightening bugs everywhere. The Japanese had snipers in trees and they targeted anyone carrying an automatic weapon. “They were good pop shots. We lost a lot of men that way.”
I asked Charlie if he was ever worried while in combat. “You’re always worried. You had thick jungle overhead and no streetlights. The word would filter down the line about who had been killed. I was more worried about my parents at home than I was about myself.”
I asked Charlie if he was ever concerned that the Allies would not prevail. His answer was short and firm, “No”. I asked why. He replied, “Confidence!”
Charlie recalled constant bombing by the Japanese. “Every time we’d make a move, we would dig a hole. I was standing up in a foxhole waist deep. They dropped a bomb. A friend of mine on the high ground got hit and nothing happened to me. He was from West Hartford, Talhurst Hyers.” “We’d get a lot of tree bursts. They’d drop a bomb, and it would hit a tree and the shrapnel would shower down on you. If you’re lucky you didn’t get hit. Luck and a few prayers.”
The fighting was fierce, and Charlie didn’t recall taking that many prisoners. “We just annihilated them.” I asked Charlie if he had any memories of the Japanese soldiers. “I always had a personal feeling for the enemy. I always kept thinking they are the same as I am. I’m there to fight a war. They’re there to fight a war. I didn’t have that much dislike.”
The casualty rate was high and was exceeding the replacements arriving. To keep the fighting forces at full strength they had to take men from non-combat roles and have them fill in on the front line until replacements arrived. Charlie had a friend, Freddy Rotondo from Avon, CT. He was a cook. When they ran short of men Charlie took Freddy out of the kitchen and put him under his command. Later Freddy would tell his wife that Charlie saved his life. Charlie would say, “I didn’t save your life, but I’d like to think I contributed to it.”
I asked Charlie how often he would get to take a shower and get a clean uniform. That produced a big smile and a hearty chuckle. “We didn’t have the opportunity to bathe often. Being along the shore I would go into the ocean and that was the extent of my bath.”
Food consisted of canned rations. Charlie recalled being in New Caledonia and going downtown for something to eat with a few buddies. They went into a restaurant, and he ordered some chicken. As he waited for his food he looked up and saw “an enormous rat” walking across a beam. “Right away I cancelled my chicken.”
Charlie and Freddy Rotondo accumulated the maximum number of points necessary to come home but they had to wait. Preference was given to married men. When they were able to come home, they caught a plane to San Francisco and then hitchhiked to Chicago where Charlie had relatives. Sometime between San Francisco and Chicago, the war in the Pacific ended. “Everyone was tickled pink.”
After a short visit they hitchhiked to Hartford, CT. When they arrived in Hartford Freddy invited Charlie to his house in Avon. Charlie accepted and then Freddy told him they were going to walk to Avon, which is nearly 20 miles away. Charlie said, “do you know how far that is? I spent so many years walking (through the jungle). We’re not walking!”
They arrived at Freddy’s house where Mr. and Mrs. Rotondo were uncontrollably happy to see their son. “I never heard anything like it before. His mother and father screaming and his father hitting his head on the wall and crying. They never expected to see him.” Charlie thought, “well I’m gonna go home but I’m not going to subject my mother to this.”
“When I went home, I saw almost 100 people in front of the house. I said to my mother, ‘What are all these people doing here?’ Well, she says, ‘word got out that you lost both of your legs and they wanted to see how you were going to navigate getting home.’” Charlie said, “Sorry to surprise them.”
New Britain was a small, tight community with ethnic enclaves. Charlie came from a religious family and his mother made a pledge that if her sons all returned from the service alive and in one piece she would crawl on her hands and knees across the street and up the stairs of the church. The local newspaper, The New Britain Herald, came to cover the event.
After Charlie arrived home, he went to Fort Devens in Massachusetts and was discharged from the National Guard. Charlie returned to work at the New Britain Machine Company where his old job was waiting for him. He also rejoined the National Guard and “I was called in for Korea.” That was 1956 and Charlie had risen to the rank of Captain. Eventually Charlie transferred into the Army and he didn’t retire until 1971 after 31 years of service which included stints in Germany, Paris, Vietnam and New York City.
In 1948 Charlie married Juanita Francis Badrigian in an arranged marriage. They had three children, and they were married until 1981 when Juanita passed away. Charlie recalled his wedding having 500 guests and being criticized for not inviting some people.
How did Charlie and Juanita end up in an arranged marriage? When the Armenian genocide was taking place in turkey in the early 1900’s, Juanita’s family escaped to Cuba where many other Armenians took refuge. Juanita’s father was sponsored by an Armenian family in Wooster Massachusetts. He worked there for seven years before he was able to bring his family to the United States. By the time Juanita arrived in the United States she was 18 and only spoke Spanish and Armenian. Charlie’s father’s family bought papers that allowed them to immigrate to the United States from Armenia through Ellis Island. Those papers changed their name from Garabedian to Alex. Through the Armenian network, Charlie and Juanita were an arranged marriage that lasted 33 years.
Today Charlie is three months sort of his 104th birthday. “The Army was good to me. We did a lot of traveling and spent three years in Paris. I’d do it again.”
Thank you, Charlie, for those days in nights in the jungle fighting to save the world and sacrificing everything to get those mortars on the enemy. We are all lucky those weren’t your boots sticking out of the mud!!!