“I dropped out of high school to join the Army. All I knew was I didn’t want to be a farmer and there ain’t nothing else to do in the Delta. Farming’s hard work.”
He chuckles as if everything else he’s done in his life has been a piece of cake compared to the life of a Black sharecropping family in 1940’s Yazoo City, Mississippi. Even though that’s definitely not true, he’s never regretted his decision to join up.
We’ve been friends for a couple of years now, and he allowed me some time to talk about his life as research for an upcoming novel. I’m quite certain, though, that I can never write a fictional character who’s more interesting than Bill Rucker.
At one of our favorite places, the patio at Bonefish Grill, he allowed me to pull memories from a deep well. Bill is 91 years old, in great health mentally and physically. He goes to Bonefish between five and seven times a week, driving his 2023 Dodge Charger, and holds court on the patio or at the bar. Bill is a people magnet with mischievous eyes and a truly infectious chuckle.
In 1950, he took a bus to basic training in Fort Jackson, South Carolina. After that, jump school in Fort Benning, Georgia. “My first ride in an airplane,” he laughed, “was to jump out it.” Ranger school was next, then to Korea.
On his nineteenth birthday, he was in South Korea. This, he told me, is where he developed his lasting opinion about racial differences. “I was in combat, and I learned right then, regardless of your color, a bomb will kill you just as quick as it will a black or green man, don’t care who it is. That’s where I learned, I think, that everybody’s the same. We die together.”
The winter he was in Korea was one of the coldest on record. I’d read accounts of soldiers—pathetically ill-equipped for the harsh conditions—who froze to death or had fingers or toes that snapped off. Bill’s unit didn’t lose anyone to the cold. You don’t care what color the person you’re huddled next to is, he said, when you’re trying to stay alive. They took turns warming their boots on each other’s chests and talked to make sure no one fell asleep for too long.
In Korea, Bill earned two Purple Hearts. Stateside, he spent some time in a California military hospital. “They called it battle fatigue then, now they call it PTSD. They said my unit was all half-crazy.” And . . . there was that laugh again.
I told you . . . he’s amazing. As much as his service to our country sets a very high bar, so does his attitude toward life and people. He swears to me that, even growing up in the region and time that he did, he never received any bad treatment because of his color. All the trouble he got into, he winks, is what he deserved. Another chuckle. Another sip of scotch. Another story about a bar fight in the boondocks.
After California, Bill went to Japan. Then Master Sergeant Rucker returned to Fort Benning and became a jump instructor. After four years in and out of Vietnam, Bill accepted a post at Arlington Cemetery, in charge of the guards at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. He retired from the Army in 1976 to join the Secret Service, serving there for twenty years.
This man, who left the Mississippi Delta for a career that took him all over the world in the service of his country and in the company of heads of state, keeps the simple, optimistic philosophy he developed in those early Army days. Work hard. Enjoy life. Treat people the way you want to be treated.
“You know, a lot of times we make it about the differences. But I don’t. You hear me say this all the time, I like people. I don’t pick you for your color. I could care less. I get phone calls now from guys I was with, and they tell me all the time, ‘Sergeant Rucker, you treated us all the same.’ That was my intention. Your skin is different, but you bleed the same way I bleed. I treated them all the same. They thank me right now. They call me all the time and tell me, ‘We appreciate it.’”
Bill still has this heart as is evident by the number of times we were interrupted by staff and Bonefish regulars of different skin tones and backgrounds. Everybody loves Bill. I’d love for the whole world to have a chance to soak up his attitude. The good news is that this veteran is not done sharing his life with others.
“Overall, I had a good life. I still have a good life. I ain’t done. I enjoy living. I enjoy people.”
