Amazingly Not 4-F

The bucolic setting of home life in Alameda, California, during the 1930s may have seemed a sheltered haven for Sam and Earle Bean. Living with both their parents, Samuel and Maud Woodworth Bean, and their paternal grandmother, Ella Shields Bean, they were free to play “Cowboys and Indians” to their heart’s content—as long as they got their homework done first.

It was only a few years until distant war eventually reached across an ocean and a continent to disrupt that peaceful ambience.

While the brothers Sam and Earle Bean showed every indication of having Marfan syndrome, amazingly, when it came to activities requiring pre-screening for medical issues, those symptoms did not disqualify at least younger brother Earle from serving during World War II. While he undoubtedly had the same astoundingly flat feet as his son had in facing another generation’s war, and while he surely manifested heart murmurs and other signs of internal weaknesses that Greg later developed, Earle was accepted into the United States Marine Corps at the age of 18. (In contrast, with the same basic physique and health limitations, Greg, facing the draft at that same age 18 during the Viet Nam war, received a Selective Service classification of 4-F.)

I don’t have many records of Earle’s service during the war. I do remember Greg having a collection of his father’s ribbons and other insignia from his time in the service, but after Greg’s passing, those treasures from their father were bequeathed to Greg’s sister.

What I do remember about it all was the story of the one place where Earle served: the Battle of Iwo Jima. Was it just my faded memory that seems to recall a Purple Heart? Perhaps not. Though I no longer have the box where those ribbons and medals were stored, while recently researching Earle’s name on military records at Ancestry.com, I found one snippet of information.

Taken from the State Summary of War Casualties from World War II for Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard Personnel from the records of the Bureau of Naval Personnel, one tiny note caught my eye:

BEAN, Earl R., Pvt., USMCR. Grandmother, Mrs. Ella M. Bean, 1807 Santa Clara Ave., Alameda.

Even though the entry didn’t spell out when or where the injury was sustained, that it was listed at all—and, thankfully, findable at Ancestry.com—helped me regain confidence in my fuzzy recollection of the stories I had heard so long ago. These are stories for which I can no longer go back and seek confirmation from family members, so I’m glad to have this second—and admittedly, more reliable—resource from which to draw as I reconstruct the life story of this one man.


Above right: photograph of first raising of the flag over Iwo Jima, February 23, 1945; courtesy Wikipedia; in the public domain.