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Marine follows father’s footsteps
YOUNGSTOWN
“Oh my goodness; you can’t imagine what it did to me,” Gertrude Partlow of Youngstown said about seeing her grandson and son graduate from Marine Corps boot camp at Parris Island, S.C.
Her grandson, Matt Partlow, graduated Nov. 19, 2010, and her son, Chuck Partlow, Matthew’s father, graduated April 6, 1970.
“To see Matt graduate just like I saw his father graduate 40 years ago was wonderful,” she said.
“The only thing, my husband wasn’t there for Matt,” Gertrude said during a telephone interview from Chuck’s home in South Carolina. Her husband, George W. Partlow Sr., died in 1990.
She said she enjoyed both ceremonies and they remain vivid in her mind. “I even remember what I wore,” said Gertrude, 84.
The Partlows are a strong military family, with some friendly Navy-Marine Corps rivalry being the norm.
George Sr. served during World War II on the destroyer escort USS Heyliger (DE-510) to which he was assigned after his first ship, a destroyer, the USS Lansdale (DD-426), was sunk by German planes April 20, 1944, off the coast of Algiers.
George Sr. spent a number of hours in the water after the Lansdale was sunk before he was rescued. Luckily, he was not injured; only his pride was hurt, Chuck said.
George Jr., who followed in his father’s footsteps serving 221/2 years in the Navy, said he arranged for his father’s ashes to be buried at sea aboard the destroyer USS John Hancock (DD-981) off the coast of Georgia, where Gertrude was born. “That would have made dad happy,” he said.
Even Gertrude gets involved in the rivalry.
She said she dated a Marine before she met her husband-to-be in Norfolk, Va. “I had to write the Marine a ‘Dear John’ letter,” she said with a laugh.
Coming to Youngstown with George Sr. was a shock for Gertrude.
“I came here in March. It was cold and snowy. I’d never seen snow before. I cried for three days,” she said.
But she adjusted to the weather and the area and worked several years as a waitress at Ravers Restaurant in downtown Youngstown and the Bill Stratos Restaurant in Cornersburg.
She lives on Flora Lane and previously lived on Gregory Avenue here, and is a member of the Golden Girls Bowling League.
George, who retired from LTV Steel, where he was a boiler engineer, attended Boardman High School but enlisted in the Navy before he graduated. He later got his diploma through the mail, Gertrude said.
George Jr.’s Navy career included a tour in Vietnam in 1967-68 as a crew member on a river boat. After retiring from the Navy, he worked 10 years for the Postal Service in Florida before returning to Youngstown in 2008.
On a serious note, George Jr., a 1966 graduate of Canfield High School, said he really respects the Marine Corps.
“I have a flagpole in the yard displaying the U.S. flag and Navy and Marine Corps flags.”
But to help keep the family rivalry alive, he jokingly referred to the USMC as Uncle Sam’s Misguided Children.
When Chuck announced he was going to break family tradition and join the Marine Corps, his father wouldn’t sign the papers, so Chuck did it on his own, Gertrude said.
In the Marines, Chuck, a 1969 graduate of Canfield High School, was a helicopter electrician at New River, N.C., and the last year of his four-year enlistment he was a special-intelligence courier at the Pentagon.
He was discharged as a sergeant.
He said it was his Pentagon experience that led to a 33-year career with the Central Intelligence Agency.
A graduate of George Mason University in Virginia, Chuck and his wife, Mary, also a CIA employee, moved this year from Virginia to Mount Pleasant, S.C., a suburb of Charlotte.
Gertrude also has two daughters, Jean Mitchell of Youngstown and Patricia Hively of Berlin Center.
Jean, a 1968 graduate of Canfield High School, works at Walgreens in Cornersburg. Patricia, a 1964 graduate of Canfield High School, is retired from the Western Reserve Auction.
Chuck got back some of his own medicine when Matt, 25, joined the Marines.
He said he didn’t try to discourage his son from becoming a Marine but does wish he would have consulted him before enlisting for six years.
Chuck said while there is a certain amount of worry, he is very proud of Matt, who is stationed at Camp Geiger, N.C., undergoing advanced infantry training.
Chuck said his mother was “absolutely thrilled” to have been able to attend both his and Matt’s graduation from boot camp.
“This is something I can remember and tell my great-grandchildren about,” said Gertrude, who has six grandchildren and six great-granddaughters. “I have a lot to be thankful for, wouldn’t you say.”