Jack Snyder recently resigned as adjutant of Thomas McKee American Legion Post 28 in Monessen, ending nearly 50 years of service to the organization.
That devotion to the Legion began shortly after the Marine veteran was discharged following service during World War II.
Snyder graduated from Monessen High School in 1942 and enlisted in the Marines one year later.
After attending boot camp at Paris Island, S.C., Snyder served guard duty for a year at Iona Island, located on the Hudson River. Iona Island was the ammunition depot where ships were supplied for overseas.
In August 1944, Snyder was sent to the Pacific Theater, where he would spend the rest of the war.
A member of G Company, 2nd Battalion, 24th Marine Regiment in the Fourth Division, Snyder landed on Iwo Jima on the afternoon of Feb. 19, 1945. The 23rd and 25th regiments made the initial landings that morning.
Snyder recalls hitting the beach and sinking nearly knee-deep in volcanic ash. By dark, the Marines reached the main air base on the island.
"It was horrible just trying to get off the beach," Snyder recalled. "We were under cross fire from artillery, mortars and small arms fire."
Snyder was on the island for 26 days, finally being relieved on March 17.
Snyder recalled meeting Monessen native Rab Yannitto, a Greyhound gridiron standout, on Iwo Jima on the night he landed on the island.
"He wanted to know what I was doing there and I wanted to know how he got through the first day," Snyder said.
Although he was never wounded, Snyder will always recall the heroic actions of his squad leader on March 1, 1945.
Snyder's seven-man squad was hunkered down, surrounding an enemy anti-aircraft emplacement, when a grenade was tossed in its direction. Sgt. George L. Barlow unsuccessfully attempted to throw the grenade out. Barlow took the grenade fragments in his midsection, saving the lives of the rest of the squad, Snyder said.
Snyder yelled for a corpsman, but none came. He left his position and wandered in the dark in search of help for his fallen comrade. He found the company commander, who decided it was too risky to send a corpsman to help the badly wounded man, who eventually bled to death.
"That was the most defining moment of the battle for me," Snyder said.
"After that, the battle was pretty much of a blank. When the command came to move forward, I moved forward."
After he left Iwo Jima, Snyder trained for the planned invasion of Japan.
But then the U.S. dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and Japan surrendered, ending the war.
Historians have estimated an invasion of the Japanese mainland could have cost one million lives.
Because the Pacific Theater was a constant ship-to-shore operation with D-Day invasions of vast islands, the Marines took a significant portion of the casualties. The invasion of Japan likely would have been most devastating on the Corps.
Snyder was on guard duty when he learned that the war was over. Snyder said he had a premonition of something devastating about to occur shortly before the first of the two atomic bombs were dropped.
"We were quite relieved," Snyder said. "We knew the vastness of the plan."
Snyder made his way back to Monessen by March 1946.
He joined the American Legion that year. He has been a member for more than 60 years.
Snyder was elected post commander in 1947, at the age of 21. At the time, the post had its highest membership of 1,221 members.
He would join the Marines Reserves a year later. Snyder was called back to active duty in November 1950. He would serve a year at Camp LeJeune before being discharged.
He continued his activity in Post 28 and was appointed adjutant in 1956 by post commander Joseph Acton.
Snyder served the next 15 years in that office until 1970 ,when he stepped aside as Vietnam veteran Milton Anderson replaced him.
During his time as adjutant, Snyder served 10 different post commanders and was elected Westmoreland County commander in 1962.
In 1974, Snyder was reappointed adjutant and completed another 34 continuous years before retiring in July. During that span, he was adjutant for six additional post commanders.
During this career, his notable accomplishments were preparing a condensed roster of Thomas McKea Post 28, complete with event photos that were placed in the time capsule and buried in the Monessen City Park in 1998.
Since then, he has updated the post history to 2005, during the terms that Leonard Babinski was post commander.
In 2004, Snyder prepared and presented to the Monessen Public Library 12 volumes of pictures and events, covering 60 years since World War II, as a permanent history of the Thomas McKee Post.
Snyder married his wife, Eleanore, on Sept. 9, 1950. They met while working at Johnson's Restaurant after he returned home following the end of World War II. He was a short-order cook and she was a cashier.
The couple have four children. Tim lives in Wheaton, Ill., and Keith resides in Monessen. Keith's twin sister, Kathy Snyder, lives in Chicago. The Snyders' other daughter, Gwenn Karr, lives in Gibsonia.
Jack Snyder worked at Derby's Construction from 1947 to 1970 and at Beacon Supply from 1970 to 1988, when he retired.
