'He was trained to persevere'

Veteran's daughter pays tribute to her father

William F. "Curly" Hutcheson was one of the many soldiers who landed at Normandy on June 6, 1944. His daughter, Nita Fran Hutcheson, said he never liked to talk about the experience. "He referred to the boats and being wet," she said. "When we could get him to talk  he referred to stories more amusing in nature. He would skip past the landing on the beach and talk about his medical unit." Photo courtesy of Nita Fran Hutcheson
William F. "Curly" Hutcheson was one of the many soldiers who landed at Normandy on June 6, 1944. His daughter, Nita Fran Hutcheson, said he never liked to talk about the experience. "He referred to the boats and being wet," she said. "When we could get him to talk he referred to stories more amusing in nature. He would skip past the landing on the beach and talk about his medical unit." Photo courtesy of Nita Fran Hutcheson

The first memory Nita Fran Hutcheson has of her father, William F. "Curly" Hutcheson, is him coming off the troop train that brought him home after serving in the Army in World War II.

"I was 2 and a half years old at the time and was born six weeks after he shipped out," she said. "But in the intervening time, my mother (Juanita Hills Hutcheson) showed me pictures of him. And when he came off that train, I knew exactly who he was."

Memories are what connect human beings to each other and to what came before. But when it comes to D-Day, it was or is very difficult for many veterans to cast their mind's eye back on that day, much less share those memories with anyone else, even those to whom they are close.

"When we asked about it, he would not talk about it, and he never volunteered the information," Nita Fran said. "I think whatever happened that day was so embedded in his consciousness, his conscience, he wouldn't open about it."

"He referred to the boats and being wet," she said. "When we could get him to talk he referred to stories more amusing in nature. He would skip past the landing on the beach and talk about his medical unit. He and the other soldiers he was with were so eager to get out there and help, that they sometimes would set up way in advance of the established lines. Infantry soldiers would have to come up and get them and pull them back in, telling them they were too far forward."

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NWA Media

NWA Media/JASON IVESTER --10/30/2014-- Justin Scheuer; photographed on Thursday, Oct. 30, 2014, in his favorite place, the front porch of his Bentonville home

Curly Hutcheson was a tailor before joining the Army and had a trade established when the Army came calling.

"He was drafted at 36, right at the edge of eligibility, inducted July 17, 1942," she  said. "But when he headed out (Feb. 20, 1944), he took his tailor's tools with him. And when he was with the U.S. forces in Europe, he found they had need of his tailor's skills as well as that of a medic. They were there, living rough, fighting and uniforms got torn. So he made a nice living running a side business as a tailor there. Officers got charged more, of course. The money was sent home to me and mamma."

Nita Fran remembered that day he came home, hearing about the troop ship arriving at Ellis Island on Nov. 11, 1945 (Armistice Day).

Seeing her father for the first time when he came off that train in Texarkana, "I knew him on sight," she said.

"But he kept that part of himself shut away for many years," she said. "I think of the horror, the carnagewhen they were getting off those boats, it was just too horrible to remember. He was trained to persevere in the face of all that violence, surrounded by death. There was more dead on that beach than living. So many had fallen, but he and those with him had a job to do, were trained for it, they simply did it."

Nita Fran recalled that something happened on the 50th anniversary of D-Day (June 6, 1994), though she is not certain what happened.

"It was around that time he became a bit more open about that day and his war experiences," she said. "It seemed that was the year many veterans of that generation opened up more. There was enough distance in time, that it was almost like a signal passed, though enough time had flowed and a curtain passed between them and their memories, that they could look back on it almost like a story. It became permission for them to let go."

Nita Fran went on to a career in broadcasting and media, holding positions in various local organizations using her media skills, even making a bit of history of her own.

"I was the first TV newswoman in the region," she said. "I had my own shows on radio and television, including one called 'Petticoats to Politics.' I was also the third woman in such positions in Louisiana. So I think about my father's story and his reluctance to talk about it. I wish I had done more to get him to open up before he passed away (year 2000, age 93). We are steadily losing that generation and so many of their stories go unrecorded. So I wish I had asked more. I'm not sure he would have answered, but I do wish I had asked."

"It is typical of so many of Daddy's generation, to not talk about themselves," she said. "They tend to be planning and task oriented. They want to talk about the future and building a better world. And they would rather talk about the people they are talking to, rather than themselves, being very outwardly focused," Nita Fran said.

"They did not always understand the events going on around them and the reasons it was all happening. They never saw themselves as important. But my father influenced me and made me realize the importance of getting those stories and the responsibility of carrying on."

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