Great Falls Tribune from Great Falls, Montana • Page 39

May 29, 2011 Puzzles Fashion Books Celebrations Public radion schedule For tips or correction: Contact Features Editor Matt Ochsner at 791-6532, 800-438-6600 or tribfeatures Ogreatfallstribune.com SUNDAYLIFE GREAT FALLS TRIBUNE WWW.GREATFALLSTRIBUNE.COM "We rub shoulders with heroes every dmj, and we just don't know their stories. DURL GIBBS, Veteran of the Battle of Okinawa, 1945 NEW CDS TUESDAY Black Stone Cherry, "Between The Devil The Deep Blue Sea" Death Cab For Cutle, "Codes And Keys" II i I h.i 1 'TV 4 I ABOVE: Retired Buffalo rancher Durl Gibbs shows a picture of the battle to take the "Big Apple," a ridge on Okinawa, Japan, during World War II. UPPER RIGHT: Photo of Durl Gibbs just before shipping out to battle in the Pacific LOWER RIGHT: This wallet was taken from the body of a Japanese soldier and is being returned to his daughter 66 years later, tribune photos and wes gibbs photos Eddie Vedder mct photo Eddie Vedder, "Ukulele Songs" Egypt Central, "White Rabbit" Flogging Molly, "Speed Of Darkness" Jordan Knight "Unfinished" Kate Bush, "Director's Cut" My Morning Jacket "Circuital" Seapony, "Go With Me" The Melvins, "Sugar Daddy Live" The Vaccines, "What Did You Expect From The Vaccines?" JUNE 7 Above Beyond, "Group Therapy" All Time Low, "Dirty Work" Arctic Monkeys, "Suck It And See" Battles, "Gloss Drop" Black Lips, "Arabia Mountain" ChillyGonzales, "The Unspeaklble Chilly Gonzales" Cults, "Cults" Dale Earnhardt Jr. "It's A Corporate World" Duncan Sheik, "Covers 80's" Frank Turner, "England Keeps My Bones" Jessica 6, "See The Light" Peter Murphy, "Ninth" Robert Pollard, "Lord Of The Birdcage" Ronnie Dunn, "Ronnie Dunn" Sondre Lerche, "Sondre Lerche" Tech N9ne, "All 6's And 7's" The Ladybug Transistor, "Clutching Stems" The Postelles, "The Postelles" The Rosebuds, "Loud Planes Fly Low" Tom Vek, "Leisure Seizure" NEW DVDS pssic mlh lie pai mrnmg To see more photos that accompany this storv. visit mmmm I' j.

-v www.gftribune.com rWV he said. "The message I want to leave with her is I care. I'm not apologizing, but I can feel for her loss." The wallet held a dozen photos of young men and boys, among them Hojo in his Army uniform, his brother who was killed in battle in 1943 and Hojo's commanding officer. Its contents took on new meaning as Gibbs raised his own family. Ten years ago, Gibbs opened the small envelope in the wallet, though he wishes now he hadn't.

ABOVE: Durl Gibbs and his son Wes following a memorial ceremony at black granite wall containing the name of Sgt Keijero Hoio the soldier who owned the wallet. The contents of the wallet and other war memorabilia are pictured at right photo" (V TUESDAY "Biutiful" "Drive Angry" JUNE 1 "Undertow" He'd always suspected it held a lock of hair Buffalo rancher and Okinawa vet recalls horror of war, returns enemy's wallet 66 years later Story and photos By KRISTEN INBODY Tribune Staff Writer LEWISTOWN-For more than six decades, Durl Gibbs did his best to forget his part in the bloody battle for Okinawa. He put his mementos in a trunk under his bed, lost his medals and tried to carry on with his life. "This is forcing me to remember things I had buried," the Buffalo rancher said as he recounted, sometimes choked with emotion, his World War II service. Sometime around June 14, 1945, Gibbs and his buddy, Sgt.

Frank Dowell, dug into a foxhole along a rice paddy. Gibbs dozed while Dowell kept watch, but the young private was uneasy "right on the front line." Dowell spotted a Japanese soldier creeping toward them. They knew firing at the enemy soldier would mean a muzzle flash betraying their position. "It turned out to be a hand-to-hand thing," Gibbs said. "It made it a lot more personal than a rifle-shot 200 yards away." During the struggle in COURTESY WES GIBBS their foxhole, the Japanese soldier was killed.

The next morning, Gibbs saw the soldier, recently iden from a sweetheart, as an American GI tified as Sgt. Kei-jiro Hojo, dead beside the foxhole. He wanted Hojo's pistol as a souvenir, but as he reached for might carry into battle. Instead, the envelope held Hojo's own hair and i some nail clip- pings. The envelope, inscribed with his name, most likely repre- sented Hojo's JUNE 7 "Another Year" "The Company Men" "Just Go With It" "Sanctum" "True Grit' it, "here was this wallet," he said.

"I just put that wallet in my pocket. NE, bOOKS only hope of having a piece It looked fancy at 1 of himself family. Ashe prepared to Gkeaher leave for Japan, "The Greater Journey: Americans in Paris," by David McCullough "The Psychopath Test: A the time." The pistol was stolen sometime after Gibbs returned to the U.S., but he hung onto the wallet for 66 years. Now Gibbs is in Japan with his three grown children to present the wallet to Hojo's daughter, Noriko Kikuchi. nm return home if he died.

With the Japanese losing the war and dying in such huge numbers, their dead rotted where they fell. At best, Hojo was probably plowed into a mass grave, Gibbs figures. See VETERAN, 4L While Gibbs, now 85, went on to marry, raise a family and fulfill his dream of owning a ranch in Montana, Hojo left behind a young widow and a baby in a war-devas tated country. Gibbs has been warned that life was hard for the Gibbs said he's been weighing what to say to Hojo's daughter about the father she never knew. "I've been worrying and thinking but it's going to come from the heart," They're back! College kids bring chaos home for summer Journey Through the Madness Industry," by Jon Ronson "Blind Allegiance to Sarah Palin: A Memoir of Our Tumultuous Years," by Frank Bailey, Ken Morris and Jeanne Devon "2030: The Real Story of What Happens to America," by Albert Brooks "Reckless Endangerment: How Outsized Ambition, Greed, and Corruption Led to Economic Armageddon," by Gretchen Morgenson and Joshua Rosner "Frankenstein: The Dead Town: A Novel," by Dean Koontz "Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty," by Andrew Bolton, Solve Sundsbo, Tim Blanks and Susanna Frankel several times with her two oldest boys, a junior and senior in college.

"I remember crying when they first went to college. Now I'm crying when they come home," she jokes. Don't get her wrong Jez loves having the boys back home. And yet, she also knows their return means piles of dirty laundry, a perennially lost TV remote, a disconnected security alarm to accommodate their late nights out, and jealousy from her two younger sons as the big men on campus suddenly get all the attention. "The first time they come back there's always an adjustment period," Jez said.

See COLLEGE KIDS, 3L eagerly awaited by the students, their parents and siblings is often a mixed-up time of happy reunions, unexpected challenges and weird new family dynamics as not-quite adult kids return temporarily to the nest. "They have a whole new world, filled with new friends and new ideas, new independence," and that sometimes clashes with things back home, said psychologist Karen Levin Coburn, a consultant at Washington University in St. Louis and author of "Letting Go: A Parent's Guide to Understanding the College Years." Cindy Jez, a 55-year-old real estate manager in Richmond, has gone through these transition summers By LINDSEY TANNER Associated Press CHICAGO -Like thousands of college students this time of year, Northwestern University freshman Jim Sannes can't wait to spend time at home this summer. Sannes, 19, is looking forward to relaxing and "just being around the surroundings I grew up with, the same house I grew up with. It will be a nice feeling." He grew up in Kasson, 350 miles from Northwest-ern's campus in Evanston, 111.

But after nine months away, campus and the place where college students grew up may seem worlds apart. Summer at home so often a Northwestern University freshman Jim Sannes in his dorm room in Evanston, III. Like thousands of college students this time of year, Sannes can't wait to spend time at home this summer. Sannes, 19, is looking forward to relaxing and "just being around the surroundings I grew up with, the same house I grew up with. It will be a nice feeling." He grew up in Kasson, 350 miles from North western's campus in Evanston.

apphotcvdavid banks.