August 5, 2020. That is the day 97 year old Chuck Robic of Pinellas Park, FL was admitted to hospital with a COVID-19 viral infection. Some considered his ride to the hospital a Final Voyage – surely his would be a one way trip. Though Chuck Robic’s age did place him in the High Risk category for COVID-19 unhappy endings, he was not going to go down without a fight.
“I probably hesitated for half a second before I just said ‘he’ll beat this’,” said Ken Chatelain, the husband of Robic’s great niece.
Family used the word “tenacity” when asked why they felt so certain he’d be coming home. Modest, helpful, good-natured, respected and hero are some other words that are used to describe Mr. Robic’s character. The U.S. Army seems to agree with those assessments. Early June of 2009, Redstone Arsenal invited PFC Robic and 11 other former soldiers to celebrate the Army’s 234th birthday.
“I just don’t think about it or talk about it much,” Robic said. “That all happened 60 years ago.”
Chuck Robic is a veteran of World War II, an Army scout. The ink on his graduation diploma from Chicago’s Farragut High School – Class of 1943 – had barely dried before he was drafted. After living on Army bases in Little Rock, Arkansas and Florida, Robic asked for a transfer to the U.S. Army Air Force. He wanted to be a pilot. The request was denied and Army shipped him off to the European theater where he became part of the Pennsylvania Keystone Division aka the PA National Guard aka the 28th Infantry Division.
The 28ID has lineage tracing back to Benjamin Franklin’s 1747 Associators. Old and storyed, the Division holds a hellacious reputation, well-earned. During World War I, General Pershing began calling members of the division “Men of Iron”, referring to the 28ID as “my Iron Division.” In World War II, the 28th Infantry Division landed on Omaha Beach, were the first U.S. Division to parade through Paris, breached the German Westwall and fought through the Huertgen Forest. The Pennsylvania Keystone Division got a new nick from the Germans during the second World War, the “Bloody Bucket” Division. In part because of the red, keystone shaped patches worn by these warriors. In much larger part because of destruction the division wrought on their enemies. Warriors assigned to the 28ID carry the reputations of their brothers who served before them, with pride and honor.
Chuck Robic, former Army scout for the Pennsylvania Keystone Division, was not going to be an easy takedown. He’d bested many other foes, in far more grim environments. Not even the enemy waiting for him on a Normandy beach, June 1944, found stealing his life an easy feat.
“Many soldiers died and were injured,” Robic quietly recalls.
Operation Overlord is the official name of what we generally refer to as the Normandy Invasion – a horrific space and time in human history. U.S., Belgian, Canadian, English, Polish and other national troops stormed – from air and sea – beaches codenamed Gold, Juno, Omaha, Sword and Utah. During this intense fighting, Robic was shot in the leg. The British spoiled him in one of their military hospitals for 45 days before he was released and sent back into battle.
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The next major altercation our tenacious fella found himself amidst was the Ardennes Offensive, generally referred to as The Battle of the Bulge. Far from a skirmish, this contest lasted more than a month – December 16, 1944 to January 25, 1945. Icy cold, snowy weather piled atop war’s attendant miseries. The United States lost over 19,000 soldiers in that one battle, the bloodiest for the nation. When the dust had settled, Chuck Robic emerged from the forest, miraculously unscathed.
At war’s end, Private First Class Chuck Robic was honorably discharged from the U.S. Army and returned to Chicago. Alcoa Steel snatched him up when he applied for employment with them. After 37 years as a heavy equipment mechanic, Robic retired from Alcoa and started a horse training venture in his beloved Michigan. It took years of his sisters cajoling, urging Chuck to wave goodbye to Michigan winters and move on down to sunshiney Florida where she lived, before he decided her logic was sound. Shuttering his business, he relocated to the Pinellas Park area of Florida. Family members, including a retired Air Force Colonel nephew, became neighbors. He enjoyed Florida, going fishing and puttering about, helping people wherever they needed a hand he was able to provide. Then, he caught COVID-19.
A month and a half after he was admitted to hospital with a rough draft death sentence, 97 year old World War II veteran and Purple Heart recipient Chuck Robic was released from care. He is 100% clear of COVID-19 and has been enjoying being back home with friends and family this past two weeks or so. Like many other combat veterans, he’d rather not talk about his U.S. asset days.
“I let bygones be bygones,” he said. “I don’t like to live in the past.”
Roll on, Chuck Robic . . . Roll on!