John Vincent is best known today as the president of the Downey Historical Society and as a poet whose work is a favorite in the Eagle's own "Poet's corner", but as a young man Vincent served in the U.S. Army as a military policeman.
Vincent recalls sitting aboard a troop ship in Tokyo Bay, watching the battleship Missouri where Gen. Douglas MacArthur accepted the surrender of the Japanese to end the final armed chapter of World War II.
Soon after, Vincent was ashore at Yokohama, supervising a group of former Japanese soldiers who were put to work as laborers. One of these had a suspicious lump under his tunic, which on inspection proved to be a 10-pound bag of sugar.
Vincent said the MPs placed a noose around the would-be thief's neck and then threw the end of the rope over a beam. But as the man's hands were lashed behind him, they also placed a portion of the line between his hands.
Thus, while he was hauled skyward to the horror of his fellow prisoners as an example of the fate of thieves, he actually dangled there less than a minute while the others were trooped out, and was then let down. He had held his own weight by his hands, and had not been hanged as it appeared to his unhappy fellows.
Stealing was not just a problem with the Japanese. Vincent recalls one ambitious U.S. private who actually sold a U.S. Liberty Ship to the Chinese during the occupation. He eventually was caught and ended up in Leavenworth federal penitentiary.
Vincent asks in his best Shakesperian, "What’s in a name?" Then relates the tale of a G.I. named Lusher, who got so drunk one night he walked off the gangplank in full military pack. Nearby Navy personnel hauled him and the pack out of the ocean.
Of the many romantic sounding ports, Vincent has no fond memories of Subic Bay, which he says he is glad the U.S. finally gave back to the Philippines. He throws his head back to sing an old World War II song of the infamous port:
"Oh, we won't go back to Subic anymore,
We won't go back to Subic anymore,
We won't go back to Subic,
The mosquitoes there are too big!
We won’t go back to Subic anymore.."
Vincent was also a military bugler, a fact which has brought him both glory and grief on occasion. At Ft. Leonard Wood it was the latter. "Old Rex," says Vincent still shaking his head in memory of the police dog who was a mascot on the base.
Vincent suspects he was the victim of a plot, but one morning as he sounded his bugle to awaken the men the normally phlegmatic "Rex" attacked him and his horn.
"He normally liked me," says Vincent, again shaking his head.
To make matters worse, the whole company cheered on the dog. Vincent swears he (Vincent) wasn’t that bad a bugler.
He's never been a nervous type, but he admits he sweated a bit aboard a troop ship as Japanese torpedo planes attacked during the Battle of Leyte Gulf.
The biggest operation he was scheduled to see action in, the actual invasion of the Japanese Main Islands, never took place.
Following the war he came to Downey and became chairman of the science department at Santa Fe High School.
Despite the many humorous stories from his war years there is a serious side to Vincent. He helps place and American Flag at the head of a grave during Memorial Services each year at the Downey Cemetery.
Like many old soldiers, he has not forgotten his comrades from long ago.