![]() ![]() ![]() Operation Market Garden wasn't "Pee Wee's" last jump. So teenage kids put on their gear to go in for freedom around the world." ![]() "He said he wanted people to remember that they didn't want to go in there, but we were the ones who were attacked. "I asked Jim what he wanted people to remember," Waldrup told. Read: A Nashville Singer and a World War II D-Day Veteran Co-Wrote a Song About Normandy She presented the song, called "Normandy," to him in April 2022, in time for his 101st birthday. The two collaborated in writing a song recounting his experiences in World War II. In 2021, Martin met country singer Karen Waldrup, who performed at his 100th birthday party. Soon after his return stateside, he married his wife, with whom he would stay married for nearly 73 years, until her death in 2019. James Martin was discharged in September 1945. Fortunately, Japan surrendered before it became a reality. The 101st briefly prepared to go back to the United States and redeploy to the Pacific Theater, where they might have dropped into Japan. Martin not only survived D-Day he would later drop into occupied Holland during Operation Market Garden, find himself surrounded by Nazis at the Battle of the Bulge and fight his way into Germany, where he helped capture the Berghof, Adolf Hitler's private home. While there, he also got a new nickname: "Pee Wee" for his small stature. ![]() He ended up at Camp Toccoa, Georgia, where he trained to be a new kind of soldier, a paratrooper. He initially wanted to enlist in the Navy, but there was a six-month wait to get in, so he joined the Army instead. He joined the Army not long after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. ![]()
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