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Note: James Clifton Rieson February 12, 1922 - July 10, 2019
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U.S. Veteran
Mr. James Rieson, age 97 of Dodson, passed away Wednesday, July 10, 2019 surrounded by his family. He retired from Rock Island Railroad and was a long time member of Dodson Assembly of God. He was a devoted family man and a veteran of the United States Army. He proudly served his country during World War II receiving numerous medals including the American Theater Campaign Medal, Asiatic Pacific Campaign Medal with two bronze stars, Phillippine Liberation Ribbon with two bronze stars, Good Conduct Medal, and World War II Victory Medal.
Those left to cherish his memory is his daughter, Gracie Mae Walsworth (Micheal); son, Tommy Edward Rieson (Carol); daughter, Judy Kay Whittaker; grandchildren, Jason Walsworth, Adam Walsworth, Cagney Rieson, Dana Alexander, Melissa Dodson, Thomas Whittaker; great grandchildren, Alyssa, Ariella, Ellie, Adrianne, Blake, Sydney, Kody, Lexie, Tessa; two sisters, Colleen Ponder, Nell McDaniel; a host of nieces, nephews, other relatives and friends. Mr. Rieson was preceded in death by his wife, Helen (Evans) Rieson; parents, Burley and Virginia Ladora (Neal) Rieson; sons, Adrian Rieson, James Rieson; great grandchild, Amanda "Mandy" Walsworth.
Friends may visit with the family 1:00-2:00PM Sunday, July 14, 2019 in the chapel of Edmonds Funeral Home. Funeral services will begin at 2:00PM Sunday with Reverends Elton Gunter and Author Robinson officiating. Interment will follow in Springhill Cemetery near Jonesboro under the direction of Southern-Edmonds Funeral Home.
J.C. Rieson recalls service in Pacific
Visitors to the Dodson, Louisiana postoffice around 9 a.m. on most days are likely to see J.C.(Cubby) Rieson leading "Miss Daisy," his petite thoroughbred Jack Russell canine companion on a leash, slowly making his way from his home down the block and around the corner on Second Street, stopping occasionally while Miss Daisy sniffs a fresh scent along the way. She accompanies her master inside the postoffice lobby, where Mr. Rieson (pron. Rye'-zon) takes his mail from a box. Daisy also carefully sniffs other patrons who may be about, but never makes a fuss.
The morning walk to the postoffice brings Mr. Rieson in contact with a stream of other patrons, whom he stops to chat with, not ever in a great hurry to get straight back home. His six-foot frame is slightly stooped from his 86 years, but his eyes are bright and his disposition is always cheerful as he comfortably engages whomever happens to be on the scene--school-age youngsters or codgers not quite as old as himself. In a recent postoffice conversation, he noted the recent passing of Jack Broomfield, another Dodson resident old-timer, and said, "I guess that leaves me the oldest Veteran in Dodson. And maybe the oldest person, too." It's hard to imagine today's slow walking, easy talking J.C. Reison dodging Japanese bullets and bombs as a young Army communications specialist with the 96th "Deadeye" Division on Iwo Jima dozens of years ago, but he has the documentation, the decorations, and the stories to prove it.
James Clifton Rieson was born February 12, 1922 in the Walker community in southern Jackson Parish, just up the road from the Winn Parish line. His father, Burley Rieson, farmed and held jobs in the area as Rieson and his siblings grew up into the tough times of the Great Depression. He recalls that "Five dollars would buy a wagon load of groceries," during that period preceding the war years of the 1940s. He acquired the nickname "Cubby" from a younger brother who probably mispronounced some baby word and gave J.C. a name that stuck with him through adulthood.
As a youth growing up in rural Jackson Parish, Louisiana, Cubby bought a single-shot Remington .22 caliber rifle and learned to hunt squirrels with it--giving him an edge which made it easy to qualify for the top Expert Rifleman rating with the straight-shooting "Deadeyes" of the 96th. He still has the gun, which he bought as an 18-year-old for $7.20 from Cox's Hardware and Furniture in Jonesboro. In that period, squirrels "was all we had" for game. The re-stocking programs which re-filled the woods with deer and wild turkey came later, in the 1950s.
After graduating from Walker High School, Cubby did what many young unemployed men did at the time<197>he enlisted in the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), a Roosevelt-era New Deal program to create jobs and set in motion what eventually became the full-blown resources conservation programs of today, replanting cutover forest lands, building bridges and drainage structures, and other services. The semi-military type organization offered cash payments to the young men, who were able to provide some cash to there families many of whom otherwise had little or none in the severe Depression which saw unemployment rise to 25 percent in the nation.
Rieson joined a group of other young CCC corpsmen, who met at the CCC camp at Calvin, a small community in Winn Parish. From Calvin, about 200 "CC boys," as they were universally called, went to Ruston where they boarded a train bound for Truckee, California, a mountain town just across the state line from Reno, Nevada. After a four-day train trip, the group deployed for work in the Truckee-Grass Valley area, laying telephone lines.
Rieson recalls that when the group arrived it was July, and he was puzzled to ask why the group was issued wool blankets and uniforms. Before the first night was over, they knew--temperatures in the high mountain altitude dropped into the 30s overnight.
During their time out West, the CC boys were given military-style close-order drill training, learned military-style discipline, and lived in barracks with responsibility to see after themselves. All this was a prelude to what came soon after they were shipped back to Ruston and discharged from the Corps.
By this time, it was 1941, and then came Pearl Harbor. Earlier, a young girl named Helen Evans, born in Atlanta, in the southern part of Winn Parish, who had moved with her family to Wisner, in Franklin Parish, had come to visit relatives at a farm home up the road from the Rieson residence. Cubby Rieson had bought a bicycle, which he rode up to the neighbor place, and got acquainted with Miss Evans. They began dating, and as things developed, Cubby got his draft call for military service. Before reporting for induction Cubby and Helen were married on October 6, 1942 when they both were 20 years old. On October 27, he reported to Ft. Humbug in Shreveport, and thence to Camp Beauregard near Alexandria for duty in the U.S. Army.
As a new member of the Army, Rieson covered some of the same Western territory he had seen on the CCC trip. First came a five-day train ride to Camp Adair in Oregon, where he was assigned to the 96th Division Headquarters battery, 361st Medium Artillery, working as a lineman and telephone operator. The Division trained at Ft. Lewis, Yakima Washington, at Cam p White, Oregon, San Luis Obispo, California, and finally to Camp Beal, California for amphibious training. They were now ready to ship out, and sailed through the Golden Gate passage at San Francisco bound for Hawaii. From there, it was to the Philippines, where the Division participated in the battle for Leyte, when General Douglas MacArthur famously returned to the islands on his way to Japan.
After fierce fighting secured the Philippines, the last major battles were on the island of Okinawa, where Rieson recalls that the Japanese "fought to the bitter end."
A 300-plus page book issued in 1947 titled "The Deadeyes," chronicles in minute detail the entire history of the 96th Division. The Okinawa campaign was the deadliest, with 37,763 Japanese dead counted, and the 96th suffered 7,222 casualties, including 1,598 killed and missing.
After 63 years, Cubby Rieson says, there are times when he goes to bed at night that he still thinks about all the shooting, all the foxholes they dug, all the death and injuries.
After Okinawa, U.S. troops were regrouped to Mindoro in the Philippines to prepare for the final invasion of the Japanese home islands, when Japan finally surrendered after the U.S. dropped two atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. From there, it was a matter of time until the troops were shipped back to San Francisco, where they boarded a troop train to Camp Fannin, Texas and discharged.
Upon returning home, Cubby said, "All the jobs were taken," and he found employment with the Rock Island Railroad as a construction worker, building railroad bridges throughout the South. Hen retired after 30 years.
Cubby Rieson and his wife Helen were the parents of five children, three of whom survive. A daughter, Gracie, in California, a daughter Judy in Tyler, Texas, and a son, Tommy, of Jonesboro, Louisiana. Two sons died early, Adrian at 18, and James Lee at 58, from complications of diabetes.
Helen Rieson died in 1993, and Cubby lives alone at the family home in Dodson, where he does woodworking at his backyard shop, making miniature covered wagon night lights, bird houses, and other wood articles.
('Greatest Generation' ranks are thinning By Tom Kelly Editor and Publisher, The Piney Woods Journal)
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