16-150 Garand Picture of the Day

[Mark in Rochester]

A Marine kneels at the grave of SgtMaj Lawrence J. Letellier on Peleliu. The SgtMaj served with HQ Co, 2nd Bn, 5th Marines and was killed in action by a Japanese mortar explosion on D-Day, 15 September 1944. He was one of the 1,361 Marines and FMF medical personnel who died in the assault on Peleliu. USMC Photo

Marine's death molded legacy



Sunday, September 20, 2009
By JACK FLYNN

jflynn@repub.com

SPRINGFIELD - The first postcard was mailed from New Haven, Conn., just hours after Marine Sgt. Lawrence J. Letellier left his wife and 6-week-old son at the train station in Springfield.

Letters, telegrams and photos followed - from Washington, D.C., North Carolina, Australia and the "tropical hell" of battle zones in the South Pacific during World War II.

"Please don't worry about me, and I'll try hard to get back to you," he wrote in 1943, in what amounted to a will.

"I would like to see (his son Patrick) grow up to be a real man, and he can only do that by getting sufficient education including college."

Letellier never made it back to Springfield, and never realized how his death in combat would transform the fortunes of his family.

Guided by his father's wishes and a windfall of government scholarship money, Patrick J. Letellier graduated from Classical High School and Tufts University, joined the U.S. Air Force and retired a colonel before going to work for the CIA.

The sergeant's grandchildren followed similar paths, with two graduating from Ivy League schools and a third now working for the government in Afghanistan.

All of this, Patrick Letellier realizes, was set in motion on Sept. 15, 1944, the day his father was killed in a mortar attack on the island of Peleliu.

"I'm 67 now, and I know what my father missed. He never saw his family again, never saw his grandchildren, never got to live his life," he said.

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