Orion Township resident Charles Ring, Jr. was just 18 years old when he was drafted for the United States Marine Corps in 1943, but he said he never had to think twice about his decision to go into the service.
“I got a deferral so I could finish high school, then I went right in,” said the West Bloomfield native and graduate of Pontiac High School. “I never regretted it.”
Ring, who currently works in the mail room and as a carrier for Sherman Publications, got his boot camp training in San Diego, California, then was sent to Pearl Harbor, Hawaii to join the second marine division on the main island for advanced training. He arrived at Pearl Harbor on Dec. 25, 1941.
“I wanted to join the Marines because they were the best,” said Ring. “You knew when you were going to combat, you were ready.”
After Hawaii, Ring went into combat on Saipan, in the Marianas, where he was wounded when shrapnel hit his leg on June 17, 1944. He was put on a hospital ship, where he had surgery and spent time recuperating. From there Ring traveled to New Hebrides Islands for rehabilitation.
After rejoining his division, Ring received more training in Saipan and on Easter morning 1945 he fought in Okinawa in a surprise attack. He then fought at Ei Shima (Ei Jima) and traveled back to Saipan.
“After that the atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki and the war came to an end,” he said.
Ring was the first of his family to serve in the military, and he remembers sending numerous letters back home while he was overseas.
“I still got them,” he said of the letters that were sent to him. “On D-Day, the first combat we went into, before we hit the beach, they let us write a letter. I wrote five letters home…Afterwards they gave them back to us, they never mailed them.”
Ring, who was discharged from the service on Jan. 26, 1946 after serving nearly three years, said he remembers a lot of what he wrote in letters being censored by the military.
“You couldn’t tell where you were or what you were doing,” he said. “It was a big secret.”
After he got out of the service, Ring said he was “traumatized for years,” and was able to cope because of his family. He found peace and quiet by working on a farm, raising animals, for several years.
Fifty-five years ago, he met his wife Vivian at a square dance.
“My father was the square dance caller,” he said. “We have two girls and one boy.”
Ring doesn’t usually do anything special for Veteran’s Day, just spends it remembering and “breathing.”
“If you can breathe, you’re lucky,” he said.
Ring still keeps in touch with one of his friends from the Marines, who now lives in Louisiana. They talk every Christmas.
“By the time we got to Japan, there were only six of us left,” he remembered. “We never had a reunion.”

The grounds of Clarkston United Methodist Church in Independence Township were alive with American pride Saturday as hundreds showed up to partake in free food and fun before watching the fireworks sponsored by Independence Township Parks and Recreation at nearby Clintonville Park.
The church sponsored event was in its third — or fourth — year; no one seemed to remember for sure.
Time flies when you’re having fun, we say.