Lt. Phil Jackson / Photos courtesy of Mary Jackson
Most of you this Sunday morning have never heard of Phil Jackson, a former Los Angeles lawyer who retired in Rancho Mirage in 1989.
He was a quiet, but brilliant man who cherished the courtroom and the legal battles that ensued there. Being a lawyer appeased his mother, but deep inside, this man from New Mexico longed to be a stand-up comedian.
Maybe that's why he was always cracking jokes. Jackson's biting sense of humor kept his friends in stitches.
He was a proud USC Trojan fan, never missing a football game that his alma mater played.
More than anything, though, he loved his wife, Mary. They married in 1990, blending a family of seven sons and daughters. He doted on seven grandchildren and one great-grandson.
Mary called him “Punkin” - but only when no one else was around.
And on Thursday afternoon, this 92-year-old man was ready to do something he had never done before.
You see, after weeks of cajoling and encouragement from Mary, Jackson had agreed to meet with a reporter and discuss his service in World War II.
He was going to reach back, way back, to 1944 and share his memories of roaring across Europe with Lt. Gen. George Patton, and his crusading Third Army.
For the better part of 60 years, what Jackson saw and what he endured were locked in secrecy.
Perhaps haunted by those memories, Jackson - like so many other Coachella Valley veterans reporter Denise Goolsby has encountered since launching our “Heroes of World War II” series in November — rarely discussed outside of his family his experiences.
Fighting Hitler and the Japanese was merely a job that needed to be done, he and others have said. Often, the sights, sounds and losses were too painful to resurrect.
Besides, even if others didn't know their stories, history never will forget their contributions.
But Mary had other plans.
Phil's exploits with Patton and the Third Army needed to be shared, she insisted.
Not because his valor should boastfully be trumpeted in big headlines in the newspaper, she said. No, Phil's story of sacrifice, courage and deep devotion to country needed to be preserved for younger generations.
“Every morning, he would sit at the kitchen table with his coffee and The Desert Sun and read Denise's series and talk about the stories of that day's veteran. I told him how important it was to share his story, too.”
Phil finally relented and agreed to meet Goolsby.
In preparation of Thursday's visit, he had pulled down a box of pictures from the war and a book about his 87th Division.
After the D-Day invasion June 6, 1944, the Third Army played a pivotal role in freeing France from the stranglehold of Hitler.
Phil planned to talk of finding and destroying German strongholds, the brutal winter of 1944 in the Ardennes Forest during the Battle of the Bulge and the horrors of the Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camps the Third Army liberated.
“He was in reconnaissance and flew ahead to scout the enemy,” Mary said.
“He was involved in 140 combat missions and was shot down once. He spent the night in a tree in the Ardennes Forest. And to this day, he hated snow. Just hated it.”
Sadly, Phil never told us his story.
Four days before his meeting with Goolsby, he passed away. It was April 18 - 68 years to the day that Col. James Doolittle led the first raid by American bombers against Japan.
Mary and some of the kids were by his side when the end came. It was a peaceful death.
Mary invited me to her Rancho Mirage home Saturday morning. I saw Phil's well-preserved discharge papers and the pictures he planned to share with us.
The boy from Carlsbad looked so brave in his uniform, standing proudly in the snow next to his plane.
All of us involved in this ambitious project have reflected often about the fragile and fleeting nature of life as we tell the stories of our desert veterans who fought in Europe, the Pacific and around the globe. We know that around the country, an estimated 1,000 World War II veterans die daily.
We're committed to telling as many of the local veterans' stories as possible during 2010, the 65th anniversary of the war's end.
Mary understands why.
“It's important that our kids and our community never forget these stories and never forget what they did for all of us.”
Rest in peace, Lt. Phil Jackson. Your story has now been shared.
A grateful desert salutes you and all others who served in that great war six decades ago.
As always, thanks for reading The Desert Sun and mydesert.com.
<b>Rick Green</b> is executive editor of The Desert Sun and mydesert.com. E-mail him at rick.green@thedesertsun.com, or call (760) 778-4637.
