FAIRHOPE — One came home by hitchhiking from Birmingham.

Another found himself drawing Christmas cards for an entire military division in China.

One parachuted from a failing aircraft over a Japanese rice paddy, while another survived one of World War II's bloodiest battles, possibly thanks to a medic who would become a national hero.

This Veterans Day, Gulf Coast Media shares the stories of these four local veterans and the remarkable lives behind their service. Though their paths to war were different, the men share something far greater: a willingness to serve, a lifetime of memories and a deep appreciation for the lives they were fortunate enough to live.

Herbert O'Neal Pierce

Earlier this year on June 11, on what would have been Herbert O'Neal Pierce's 102nd birthday, his wife, Ruth Pierce, reflected on the life of her late husband who served in the U.S. Army and Air Force.

Pierce was born in 1924 and grew up in Clanton. In his early teens, he would travel to Montgomery to see his older brother. At the time, a singer named Hank Williams was playing around the capital city, and Pierce joined him as a guitar player.

When he got older, Pierce was drafted into the U.S. Army during World War II. He served in France and Germany, transporting ammunition and supplies. After Germany surrendered, Pierce supervised around 500 prisoners of war.

Among the military honors he accumulated, Pierce received a Croix de Guerre from the French, an award that recognizes heroism, bravery and valor by individuals and units. He served in Europe for around three years.
He was almost sent to the Pacific to fight against Japan, but according to his wife, he was sent home at the last minute.

"They must have known about the bomb," she said. "It was gonna end, so they sent him home."

When he got back to the United States, he arrived in New York, got put on a train to Birmingham and had to hitchhike back to his hometown of Clanton. Pierce was honorably discharged from the U.S. Army in 1947.

He met Ruth through the husband of a girl she graduated high school with. He had come to Fairhope to work for Mercury Freight Lines. At the time, Ruth was living behind him on her grandmother's property on Greeno Road. The two married in 1968 and remained together until his death.

Pierce was unable to work after undergoing back surgery, so the couple moved to Dublin, Georgia, where his nephew lived and owned a Dari Delite. They remained there for around three years before returning to Fairhope, where the couple found that local planners were looking to build a new restaurant. They opened a restaurant called Herb's in the 1970s on the corner of Greeno Road and Morphy Avenue where Dollar Tree is now. They ran the restaurant until they sold the business following the graduation of their youngest son, Scott, from Fairhope High School.

Outside of the restaurant business, Pierce was also a truck driver until the age of 80, during which he and Ruth traversed all 48 continental states along with Canada and Mexico. During his trips, he would also meet up with some of his buddies from the war.

"We traveled from Florida to Vancouver, Washington and Vancouver, Canada," Ruth said. "He'd find out where some of his buddies were, and we'd stop. He would be talking to them at a truck stop someday, saying 'Meet us there.' I'd go to sleep, and he would sit there all night long and talk to them. He said it was just like he was 18 years old again."

She said her husband was a huge Alabama Crimson Tide fan and a fan of NASCAR, having had the privilege of driving around the Talladega Superspeedway three times.

"He was fair. He was honest," Ruth said. "If he told you something, you could go to the bank on it. You knew it was true. He was always willing to help and he loved his family. He loved his kids, and he loved me and vice versa. He's sure gonna be missed."

Horace "Bubba" Jackson

Horace Jackson, who was born in 1928, is a native of Mobile and grew up with one older brother and two younger sisters. He came up in a military household, with his father having been part of the Coast Guard and his older brother, Johnny, having joined the U.S. Marine Corps.

Jackson would try to follow his brother but was told he would have to graduate high school before he could join the Marines. He attended Murphy High School and then Marion Military Institute. He graduated in 1946 and enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps at the age of 17.

In the Marines, Jackson was sent to North China in the fall of 1946, where he spent 19 months as part of an engineer battalion repatriating Japanese soldiers and helping Chinese nationals fend off Communists.

Jackson loved to draw, crafting pen-and-ink pieces depicting landscapes and buildings while he was in China, which also came in handy for tasks such as mapping. On one occasion, he was working on a drawing of his general's old headquarters.

"I was working on that drawing, and I felt the presence of somebody, just something, and I turned around and the general was looking over my shoulder," Jackson recalled. "I jumped off that stool and said, 'Good morning, General. Can I help you with something, sir?' He said, 'Well, I was just looking at what you were doing now. Could we use that for our Christmas cards this year?' That was quite an honor for an 18-year-old, and so we printed up I think like 22,000 of them. They went to the whole division."

He learned Mandarin while he was in China, a skill that became useful when he and his reserve unit were activated and sent to Korea in 1950.

Jackson was a student at Auburn University at the time he was activated, which is where he met a girl named Gloria and fell in love. With only a limited time before he reported for duty, the two got their mothers on the phone and got together before he left for the war.

"She came down, and we had just a wonderful week together," Jackson said. "We went to the Gulf, and guys were throwing parties for me. They knew I was heading back up."

In Korea, Jackson was part of the landing at Inchon. He and his unit were heading toward the Yalu River when they found out they were surrounded by 10 enemy divisions, which they held off, taking out two divisions during the conflict.
Jackson was also involved in the Battle of Chosin Reservoir, a battle often considered one of the most brutal in the Korean War, where more than 75,000 soldiers were killed.

Despite the violence of the war, Jackson said he doesn't remember the hard times anymore.

"I've forgotten all the hard times, bad times in Korea," Jackson said. "I remember the times that my family was probably praying for me and we were probably throwing snowballs at one another having a good time. A bunch of kids, you know."

Jackson was in Korea for a year before returning to the United States in 1951. One month after his return, he married Gloria and went on to have a family that includes six children, 29 grandchildren, 51 great-grandchildren and eight great-great-grandchildren.

Reflecting on his life, Jackson, who is now 98 years old, said it had been nothing but beauty and love.

"Once a Marine, always a Marine. It's like a priest, you know," Jackson said. "You join the Marines, you stay a Marine."

Ivan Turner

Originally from Everett, Washington, Ivan Turner entered the military in 1946 in the Army Air Corps, later the Air Force. He was sent to central Georgia to help transport patients and medical personnel to military hospitals around the country for around three years.

Turner was stationed at Brookley Field in Mobile when he met his future wife, Rosella "Rose" Turner, who was from Barnwell, on a blind date to a party. The two married in 1951, and Rosella traveled by ship to Japan where Turner was based during the Korean War.

"I didn't think she would be able to come," Turner said. "She was just following me along, and by the time we got out around Texas, (they said) 'We can send her.'"

While in Japan, Turner flew military personnel in and out of Korea, around Asia and to every corner of Japan. He remained in Japan for around two and a half years.

At midnight one night, an incident occurred when Turner and his crew had to bail from an airplane after losing control in low visibility. As Turner tried to get the door open, he broke his jaw as he exited the plane by parachute.

"We landed on a little path in a rice paddy," Turner recalled. "Fortunately, a Japanese master sergeant lived in a tent and had heard us yelling at one another. He came running down this path."

The master sergeant thought they were North Koreans penetrating a camp that he was responsible for before he identified them as Americans. They were taken to the local camp, where it took four days for them to be transported out safely.

Following his time serving in the Korean War, Turner and his wife lived in New Jersey and California, where their two daughters, Deb and Terry, grew up. The Turners returned to Barnwell in 1986.

Rosella died March 18, 2025. Turner keeps a small photo book filled with photos of them and other memories in his pocket.

Bob Hasewinkle

Born and raised in Indianapolis, Indiana, Bob Hasewinkle and his wife also spent time living in Wisconsin and Minnesota before settling in Fairhope in 1993.
Hasewinkle grew up relatively poor, having lost his father when he was 10 years old and living with his widowed mother.

He was a freshman in high school when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. After graduating in the summer of 1944, he was immediately eligible for the draft.

"There was a deal where they said if you go into immediate induction, you could choose your branch of service," Hasewinkle said. "I had some friends who were going to go in the Navy, so I asked to go in the Navy. There was a pause for several weeks, and finally I was called. You go down to the draft board, and there's an assignment board there. I had a big blue 'N' on my papers, and when I went to the assignment board, they took a great, big red pen and put a great big 'A' on it for Army and put me in the Army."

After going through 17 weeks of infantry training, Hasewinkle and others were put on a boat and ended up in Hawaii, where they remained for seven to eight weeks for more preparations and processing, which, according to Hasewinkle, was to give them more of an idea of what the war was going to be like.

Finally, Hasewinkle was put on a troop ship and arrived in the Philippines, where the Americans were in the middle of battling the Japanese, becoming a replacement in the 77th Infantry Division, where he remained for several weeks.

Hasewinkle would go on to fight in the Battle of Okinawa. He and the American troops pushed south toward the Japanese main defensive line. During a particularly brutal conflict, Hasewinkle was hit by a mortar shell fragment as they tried to take a hill. An American tank saw them and radioed for help, and a Jeep came up to rescue them.

"An interesting part about this whole thing, there was a guy. He put a tourniquet on my arm, filled the sulfur powder and gave me a shot of morphine," Hasewinkle said. "Putting the whole thing together, turns out, there is a 99.9% chance that guy that treated me was this guy named Desmond Doss who got the Congressional Medal of Honor."

Doss was a combat medic who became famous for refusing to carry a weapon during the war due to his personal beliefs. He saved between 75 and 100 men during the Battle of Okinawa. His story was depicted in the 2016 film "Hacksaw Ridge."

Hasewinkle was transported to a field hospital, where he was told he had a "million-dollar wound" on his arm. He was told it wasn't life-threatening but that he wouldn't be able to return to combat, so he was transported away from the conflict to have his arm worked on. Hasewinkle returned home from the military in 1946.

After returning to the United States, he attended Butler University but didn't graduate. He later worked for an automotive industrial battery manufacturer and in sales and marketing before retiring in 1988.

Hasewinkle was a part of the shrinking margin of World War II veterans who are still alive. As of 2026, 30,607 World War II veterans are still living, according to data from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.

"I turned 100 years old Dec. 31, and I really don't understand why I'm here," Hasewinkle said. "Too many things happened and other people didn't make it."

Hasewinkle remembers watching a show from the United Service Organizations (USO) at the amphitheater at Schofield Barracks when the war ended.

"Pearl Harbor was in the background behind the show and they still had Pearl Harbor in blackout," Hasewinkle said. "They said if the Japanese (lost), because things were developing, they said they'd turn on the lights in Pearl Harbor. We were watching the show and all of a sudden, the background, Pearl Harbor lights up like a Christmas tree, and of course we just go crazy."