WWII paratrooper decorated at last

Now the old man of Easy Company has a chest full of medals and ribbons to go with his memories.

Ed Mauser is a 93-year-old retired Omaha watch repairman and jeweler who was an Army rifleman with the 101st Airborne Division's famed “Band of Brothers'' unit in Europe during World War II.

Mauser and other members of the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment's Easy Company participated in some of the war's most critical battles. They dropped into France on D-Day morning in 1944. They spearheaded the Market Garden and Rhine offensives and fought at the Battle of the Bulge. They liberated a concentration camp and occupied Hitler's Eagle's Nest retreat at Berchtesgaden.

Mauser never sought glory, but he never forgot.

And during a Monday afternoon ceremony in a west Omaha office park, the oldest surviving member of the Easy Company paratroopers proudly basked in a bit of glory as America showed that it didn't forget.

Sixty-five years and two days after Germany's unconditional surrender, Mauser stood at relaxed attention and received the Bronze Star, the Purple Heart and 10 other awards and pins for his military service from 1942 to 1945.

“I'm flabbergasted. That's all I can say,'' Mauser said as heavy medals and pins stretched his red polo shirt out of shape.

Among the 30 people witnessing the ceremony in the offices of Rep. Lee Terry, R-Neb., were Mauser's daughter and son-in-law, Laurie and Mike Fowler of Bellevue, and grandson Travis Fowler, who graduates Saturday from Bellevue West High School. Another grandson, Robert Fowler, is an assistant manager for Wells Fargo Financial in Port St. Lucie, Fla.

Mauser said he finally pursued the awards not for himself, but for his grandsons.

“I'm happy, don't get me wrong,'' he said, “but this is for the kids.''

The medal ceremony was a belated hurrah in a whirlwind year of remembrance and celebration for Mauser since stepping from the shadows of history. The World-Herald told his Easy Company story during the Fourth of July weekend last year.

Easy Company's story was chronicled in Stephen Ambrose's 1993 best-selling book “Band of Brothers'' and a 10-part miniseries in 2001. Easy Company veterans were feted at conventions, reunions and tours across the country and in Europe.

But Mauser didn't make the trips. His wife, Irene, was ill during much of period, and he didn't leave her side.

“He made that choice,'' Laurie Fowler said. “When the war was mentioned, she got quiet, and in honor to her he didn't pursue anything like this. He loved my mom so much. Since her passing, he's been able to fulfill a lot of dreams he's had.''

Mauser traveled to Europe last September for a two-week tour following Easy Company's trail from its training base in England to places he fought and bivouacked in Normandy, Holland and Belgium and on into Germany and Austria.

In December, Mauser gathered with five other Easy Company buddies at the Strategic Air & Space Museum near Ashland, Neb., for his first reunion with Army buddies since the war ended in 1945.

Mauser was a rifleman in Easy Company's 2nd Platoon. His two Purple Hearts were for wounds suffered at Bastogne, where shrapnel and rocks kicked up by German artillery shells peppered his face, and in Belgium, where shrapnel from a mortar shell cut his right hand.

The awards were pinned to Mauser's shirt by Terry, Army Brigadier Gen. (retired) Jim Murphy of Omaha and John Hilgert, director of the Nebraska Department of Veterans Affairs.

Terry also presented Mauser with an American flag that was flown over the U.S. Capitol on Veterans Day last year.

Despite saying at the end of the ceremony that he hoped this was the end of the celebrations, Mauser's Band of Brothers tour rolls on. He plans to participate in a Philadelphia reunion next month and will be an Easy Company veteran on a return tour to Europe in September.

“I expect to be around for a few more years,'' he said.

Contact the writer:

444-1127, david.hendee@owh.com

« Metro/Region

Share