I Will Forever Stand in the Shadow of the Greatest Generation

By Chris Bowers

The call came from our friend, Margarida, a Spotsylvania Sheriff’s deputy and former Marine. Our county’s oldest living veteran, 104-year-old Fred Moufang, had begun hospice care and wanted nothing more than to spend time with other Marines.

Margarida met Fred two years ago when he was honored during the sheriff’s annual Veterans Day celebration. She and Fred have been friends ever since.

Though Fred has never been one to share details of his time in the Pacific theater during World War II, he is immensely proud of being a Marine. I can understand the unspoken kinship he feels with others who’ve served, despite the generations that separate us.

Margarida asked if we’d like to join her for a visit with Fred this week. It would, of course, be an honor.

I brought along Maverick, a 19-month-old golden retriever who will soon graduate as a service dog for another Marine who served in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Margarida led us to Fred’s second-floor bedroom in the house he shares with his daughter and son-in-law. A front-page newspaper article featuring Fred at age 102—even then the oldest living veteran in Spotsylvania—hung on the wall next to the door.

Spotsylvania Sheriff’s Deputy Margarida Figueroa is friends with Fred Moufang, a 104-year-old veteran of World War II. 

I could tell Fred had been sleeping deeply in the hospital bed that took up the corner of the room, but he was awake now for his visitors.

Fred was 21 on Dec. 7, 1941, when the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor plunged the US into war. Some 16 million men and women served in World War II. Fred is one of a fraction of those who are still with us.

I can see that, like the Pyramids of Egypt, time had taken its toll on this old Marine, withering away the rough exterior to expose a gentler side of the man. His eyes took in each of us, including Maverick, as if he was searching his vast memory to remember us rather than wondering who we were.

We were just Marines, visiting a fellow Marine.

Margarida introduced us, and I told him how Maverick would soon be helping yet another Marine. I pointed to the logo on my hat—Leashes of Valor—and told him how we raised dogs to help veterans.

Fred Moufang at his home in Spotsylvania County with his new hat.

Margarida pointed out my prosthetic leg to him, a limb I lost to my war. I can’t be certain what I saw in his eyes, but I think it was interest, and perhaps a kind of knowing. This was a Marine who’d served during the Battle of Okinawa, a three-month fight that cost America the lives of 12,000 of its young men.

We gave him a hat like the one I wore. A nurse placed it on his head, and after she’d taken it off and set it on a chair next to him, he asked for it again. Margarida held his hand.

We owe everything to Fred and to those like him. The Greatest Generation stood tall in front of the rise of tyranny and oppression. They protected our parents’ generation so they could provide us with the life we lead now. They saved the world, really. We will forever stand in the shadow of their greatness, and I can only hope we made them proud.

In our final minutes together, I felt the time and space between Fred’s war and mine fall away. We were two Marines sitting next to each other who needed no words.

Semper Fi, Fred. I hope to visit again soon.

Chris Bowers is a retired Marine and program manager for Leashes of Valor.