WWII Marine Raiders meet for first time

Two Marine Raiders from W.Va. meet for first time in Welch
By BILL ARCHER
May 20, 2012
Bluefield Daily Telegraph

WELCH — Three score and 10 years ago, two men from southern West Virginia landed on the beach at Guadalcanal and fought in one of the most terrible, yet important battles in U.S. military history. Last Wednesday, the two men met for the first time.

“This is an important picture that your taking,” Ed “Shep” Shepard of Welch said as he pointed at a photographer. “You may never see two Marine Raiders together like this ever again.”

Shepard, 88, of Welch, was mustered out of the U.S. Marine Corps’ 1st Raider Battalion — Edson’s Raiders” — in 1946 and never saw another Marine Raider until last week. He joined the Marines one month after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

Rhel “Cookie” Cook, 91, of Frankford, had joined the Marines in 1938, and was in training with the 1st Raider Battalion at Quantico, Va., when the attack on Pearl Harbor catapulted the U.S. into World War II. By February, Cook, soon to be a gunnery sergeant, was taken from Edson’s group of highly-trained Marines along with 209 other Marines, to form the nucleus of the 2nd Marine Raider Battalion — known as Carlson’s Raiders.
read more here