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Vazken Alemian answered the call to serve in the South Pacific during World War II

Beaver County Times - 6/27/2017

June 27--NEW SEWICKLEY TWP. -- During World War II, Vazken Harry Alemian served in the Navy, working at factories in the South Pacific to make oxygen used by pilots during the war.

Veterans of Beaver Valley: Vazken Alemian

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"They put me in a factory making oxygen for the pilots and in industrial use. We built a plant in Guadalcanal," Alemian, now 91, of New Sewickley Township, said. "I didn't see any actual combat... we were what they called a support unit. We supplied all the units what they needed."

It wasn't an exciting assignment.

"It was boring. It drove you crazy," Alemian said. "We worked 24 hours a day, in eight hour shifts, 21 days straight."

That cycle was followed by a week off and then it was repeated.

It wasn't exactly what he envisioned doing when he enlisted in the Navy in 1943.

A Massachusetts native, Alemian was in trade school when he found out it was inevitable that he would be drafted, so he enlisted in the Navy.

After training to be an electrician's mate, Alemian ultimately ended up working in the makeshift oxygen factories in the South Pacific during the war, although he tried to get transferred to a combat unit.

"I would have gone under fire. I tried to move up," he said.

But to move to another unit, the officer above Alemian had to sign off on the move and he wouldn't. He tried to sidestep the process by talking to the personnel officer.

"I said 'I joined the Navy to fight, not to do what they want me to do here,'" Alemian said.

The personnel officer commiserated with him, but said he couldn't do anything to circumvent the system.

He remembers being punished with grunt work for a couple months because he tried to get transferred, getting "crap" work like cutting grass and making coffee each morning.

He was also tasked with digging a new latrine -- a hole that had to be 9 feet long, 3 feet wide and 6 feet deep.

"That's what I did for about three weeks, digging that hole," Alemian said.

A couple of explosions at ammunition dumps on the Navy bases where he served were the closest calls to danger that he experienced.

"I was lucky," he said.

The war was different for Alemian's older brother Sooren, who served in Europe.

Sooren Alemian was the "brains of the family," his brother remembered.

He attended Northeastern University and signed up for Reserve Officer Training Corps while there, Vazken Alemian said.

Then, Sooren underwent specialized training and ultimately was sent to Europe "the same month" Vazken was sent to the Pacific.

They'd write each other letters during their service. But at one point after Nov. 21, 1944, the letters Vazken sent his brother were returned.

He knew his brother had been killed, but his parents made no mention of it in their letters. Ultimately, a chaplain delivered the grim news. Recounting it 74 years later still brings Vazken Alemian to tears.

"He was 20 when he was killed," Vazken said of Sooren.

Vazken Alemian returned to Massachusetts after his service and also lived for a time in Nashua, N.H., as he married and made a family, ultimately settling here after retirement to be close to a daughter.

For the last decade, Alemian has served with the Beaver County Special Unit, a group of veterans that provide military honors at veterans' funerals.

"The first few, it was kind of eye-tearing," Alemian said of serving in the unit. "But it's a job you do. Somebody's got to do it."

Veterans of Beaver Valley -- Special Edition Volume 1 DVD

Exclusive DVD Two-Pack with Stories from the Veterans of Beaver Valley. A video collection of stories and interviews of the Beaver Valley's men and women of service from September 2014 -- November 2016.

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