O’Brien: Oldest living CC passes
Cy O'Brien waves to other combat correspondents during the conference in 2009.
Combat Correspondent Cy O’Brien made it to one day past his 92 birthday before passing to Heaven’s Scenes following surgery complications. Don Knight, USMCCCA Merit Awards Chair and a close friend of Cy recounted the history of this diminutive, but expressive, Marine.
Marine Cyril J. O’Brien cheered when he watched the American flag being raised over Japanese soil in 1945. He wasn’t atop Mt. Suribachi but he was close, watching from the invasion beach and coming ashore on Iwo Jima as a combat correspondent with the 3rd Marine Division.
It may have been the most memorable moment of his long life as a newspaperman, a corporate media chief, a community activist, and much more.
We won’t know for sure what his very best moment was. We do know that he was a wonderful husband and a father for three beautiful daughters and a son. He knew from a very early age that he wanted to write, to be a reporter. He was a native of Canada (Newfoundland) but at a young age became a U.S. citizen, earned two college degrees, one in journalism, wrote for several New Jersey newspapers, and many other publications, reporting from Washington on politics, the U.S. Congress, the White House and much more.
He wrote reams of copy about combat on two islands (Guam and Iwo) during World War II, later led an effort to create a 3rd Division memorial on Guam after the war. The islanders made him an honorary citizen and the National Park Service brought him back to Guam a few years ago to help dedicate the memorial and make a speech.
Cy O’Brien was never short on words, either by mouth or typewriter, but the words were never about himself. He labored for hours over one of his last speeches, delivered to a large holiday audience of fellow senior citizens in Silver Spring, MD on July 5, 2010. He spoke under the shade of an umbrella in 95-degree heat and talked about some of his most favorite people: Leathernecks of the United States Marine Corps, especially the good deeds of the Marines serving in Afghanistan.
A few days later O’Brien underwent heart surgery in Bethesda, MD. He recovered but over time it became a tough haul for a 91-year-old. He went back to the hospital in January and on January 31, 2011, one day after his 92nd birthday, he passed away.
He left behind a box full of mementoes, faded copies of some of his writings, , copies of testimonials from others, including a commendation from the famed Fleet Admiral Nimitz of WW II praising Cy for his deeds of bravery on three islands (Iwo, Guam and Bougainville) and for writing about his fellow Marines in the Pacific.
Also in the box of mementoes: newsletters, magazine articles and tributes focused on his 34-years as the post-war media chief at the Johns Hopkins U. Applied Physics Laboratory in Maryland.
And, there it was, an item that mentioned his failure to qualify for officer training in the Corps following Pearl Harbor. Why? Because he was one half inch shy of the height requirement. That was when everyone learned that Cy knew how to cuss. “Can you believe it?” he shouted. “One !#%&!X# half inch!”
Instead, he went to Parris Island and Marine boot camp. Later, there might have been an opportunity to go to Officer Candidate School. Instead, he turned it down to “stay with my buddies” for further training for combat as an enlisted warrior.
He was back on duty during the Korean conflict, however, and when he finally left the Marine Corps in 1962 he was wearing two silver bars as a captain.
I didn’t know any of this until his daughter and I sorted through a stack of documents he left behind. O’Brien didn’t talk about O’Brien.
We were fortunate to know this great American for what he really was: a good man, with a strong heart, compassion for his fellow Americans, especially for his fellow Marines. –By Don Knight,
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