Waterloo Iwo Jima Marine gets final ‘Oorah!’

He died April 17. It could have happened 81 years earlier.

A artillery shell blast buried him and a fellow Marine buddy alive on Feb. 19, 1945 in the black volcanic sand of a little Pacific island named Iwo Jima.

It was a good thing Greene had his helmet strapped around his chin.

Instead of flying off his head in the blast, his “steel pot” slid down around his face. It provided enough of an air pocket for him and his buddy to dig each other out.

He made it to his birthday on March 8. Thousands there never saw another. More than 6,800 of Greene’s fellow Marines and soldiers and almost 18,000 of the opposing Japanese died. The fighting raged on for five weeks. It was one of the costliest battles of World War II.

Greene carried that with him the rest of his life.

He made the most of every moment after he clawed out of that shell hole, until he passed away April 17, at age 101 — in his career, his community and perhaps most notably, as an ambassador for peace with his one-time Japanese foes.

His life will be celebrated at a reception with military honors May 27 at the Sullivan Brothers Iowa Veterans Museum, part of the Grout Museum District, where Greene served many years as a board member. The reception will begin following a 3 p.m. service at the adjacent First Congregational Church across South Street from the museum.

He was, quite literally, one of the last men standing from Iwo Jima.

An April 1, 2024 article by the Stars and Stripes military organization reported that, according to a Marine Corps source, there may have been as few as three or four survivors of the battle still living at that time.

Greene, a 1943 graduate of Waterloo West High School, served as a radio operator in the Third Battalion, 26th Regiment of the Fifth Marine Division at Iwo Jima.

“February 19, 1945. They let us off on the beach at nine o’clock in the morning,” Greene said at his 100th birthday reception in 2025. He was far down the beach from the dormant volcano Mount Suribachi when, on the morning of Feb. 23, “all the ships started tooting their horns,” he said. He looked up and saw his fellow Marines raising an American flag atop Suribachi, an iconic image captured by Associated Press photographer Joe Rosenthal.

But “The fight wasn’t over,” Greene said. The Americans finally secured the island March 26. Excerpts from an oral history he gave the Grout Museum District in 2006 can be viewed by clicking on the link here.

Greene served three years in the Marines, and decades more as a warrior for peace.

He and his wife of 71 years, Marian, who passed away in 2021, hosted a number of Japanese foreign exchange students and, on a trip to Japan, were able to return the ancestral battle flag of a Japanese soldier who had fallen at Iwo Jima to his family.

David and Marian wed in 1947. He worked as an engineer for the city of Waterloo while still earning his degree through correspondence courses.

He was then recruited by Jens Olesen & Sons Co., which later became Prairie Construction. He spent 36 years at the company before retiring. He also was very active in Scouting and a recipient of the Silver Beaver Award, the highest possible Scouting recognition for an adult volunteer.

In 2021, Greene’s family established the Tyler Greene Foundation at the Community Foundation of Northeast Iowa. It’s named for David’s grandson, a disability rights advocate with cerebral palsy who was killed in a traffic accident that year. The foundation promotes disability awareness and inclusion. Information about that fund, including how to donate, may be found here.

David Greene gave a number of talks on his service and experiences at Iwo Jima, as well as his thoughts on peace and reconciliation with one-time enemies.

In 2012, Greene returned to Iwo Jima and also saw the Pacific battleground islands of Guam, Saipan and Tinian, with a handful of fellow World War II veterans and students from Ohio State University. The trip was courtesy of the Greatest Generations Foundation, a Colorado-based organization sponsoring veteran trips to World War II battlefields.

Retired longtime Grout executive director Billie Bailey said she got to know Greene in 1989 when he was working on a major renovation at the Grout for Prairie Construction as she assumed the directorship.

“When David joined the Grout Board, I got to see more of him and learned more about his life story. What a remarkable man!” Bailey said. “He and Marian attended many events at the Grout, and it was always fun to be seated at their table.”

When Greene made a major donation to a Grout renovation project in 2021, Bailey, her staff and Greene and his son Paul agreed that it would be only appropriate to name a bar in the museum “mess hall” reception area for the old Marine.

Since he often signed his correspondence “Dave Greene, The Old Marine,” the area was dubbed “Ye Olde Marine Tavern.”

That’s where his family and friends will deliver a final “Oorah!” to a Marine who made the most of every one of his 81 years of “borrowed time” after being buried alive on Iwo Jima.