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DENTON – What began as a kindness towards a family friend has only enhanced what is now a passion project for Denton native, Colonel Robert Rouse of Blackstone, Virginia.
Rob, 54, a member of North Caroline High School’s Class of 1989 and a U.S. Army veteran, earned kudos last year when he presented a detailed story and battle maps with local connections to World War II Buffalo Soldiers’ military campaigns in Italy.
One of those soldiers was the older brother of a longtime family friend, veterinarian Dr. Hilliard Gardner of Hillsboro. Discovering the final resting place of his older brother Lt. John Bailey and two more African American soldiers with Caroline County connections was a quest well worth pursuing, Rob said.
A passion for research
After high school, Rouse earned his bachelor’s degree in Geography and Urban Planning from Salisbury University, but he had already joined the Maryland National Guard in 1988. He knew he wanted to be commissioned an officer and make the Army his career and, over time, he became a “World War II military buff,” he said. He was also following in the footsteps of his great-uncle Oswald Vogl of Harrington, who survived “all the major campaigns throughout Italy” with the First Armored Division.
Rouse went on to earn two master’s degrees: the first in Aviation Management and Safety from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University and the other in Strategic Studies from the Army War College. Rouse retired after 31 years in 2019. He and his wife Amy have been married 26 years, have three children, and recently became grandparents for the first time.
Dr. Gardner, also an Army veteran, would chat with Rob and his dad Bob about his experiences in the Army, as he tended to their hunting dogs. He would ask Rob, “Hey, what’s next for you in the Army?”
In Feb. 1999, Rob met another World War II veteran who would have a “tremendous impact on me,” he said. 1st Lt. Vernon Baker was part of the 92nd Infantry Division and survived that assault on Castle Aghinolfi in northern Italy. He was awarded the Medal of Honor in 1997 for “conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty.”
While his great-uncle’s service was the initial impetus for Rouse’s quest to know more about World War II heroes, Baker’s demeanor and character inspired him, too.
“So I knew more about the 92nd Infantry Division because of (Baker), and he was just an amazing leader,” Rouse said. “You could see he was by the way he carried himself and the stories he told, and he answered all our questions and shook our hands and thanked us for our service. He's just a very humble man.”
Baker’s story was “one of the catalysts” that piqued Rob’s interest in the Buffalo Soldiers, African American warriors, and in many cases former enslaved men who first served in the old West following the Civil War. Legend has it that they earned the title from Native Americans who admired their tenacious bravery.
Discovering Caroline’s WWII Buffalo Soldiers
Another, more local connection also spurred him on – that of Dr. Gardner’s older half-brother, 1st Lt. John Bailey, who served in Italy, fell in battle, and is buried in a military cemetery near Florence. Like Baker, he also was a member of the 92nd Infantry Division.
“Halfway through my tour, my dad (Bob Rouse of Denton) calls me and says, ‘Hey, Doc Gardner has a brother that was killed in Italy. Can you find him?’ And I'm like, I'll do my best,” Rouse said. On a 4-day pass, he and Amy visited the U.S. military cemetery in Florence.
“It's right outside the city, and it's beautiful. When you look out, there's over 4,000 white crosses, and all these soldiers look like they're standing at attention,” Rouse said. Initially, the superintendent didn’t see Bailey’s name until Rouse asked him to try again.
“He found him,” Rouse said. “And then all of a sudden, two Italians come around the corner with buckets of soapy water and a sponge and a bucket of sand, and escort my wife and I out to Lt. Bailey's grave, and they begin to wash the stone, and then they rub the sand into the letters. And the sand is from Anzio beach.” The Italian government donates the sand to the cemeteries from one of the major WWII landing locations in Italy.
Rouse took lots of photos and a charcoal rubbing of his brother’s grave marker and sent them to Dr. Gardner, who was “elated,” Rob said.
Baker’s and Bailey’s stories intersected in Italy, while another local soldier, Tech Sgt. Oliver King of Ridgely, did as well. Killed in action at the age of 21 and awarded the Purple Heart, he also is buried in Florence. Rouse has mapped all three soldiers’ battle histories. He carried tracing paper and charcoal to rub the inscriptions on the stones and sent the tracings, photos and three short biographies he composed to the soldiers’ loved ones, and presented the same to the Museum of Rural Life in Denton. A woodworker, Rouse even carved and painted a replica of the Buffalo Soldier badge. He said the museum’s “military section is very well done.”
Rob confesses he’s in awe of the valor of these Buffalo Soldiers amid the racism that drove tactical decisions on the part of their commanding officers.
Spurred on by curiosity and a request by the museum to share the story of his quest, Rob started reading and building his own battle maps of the major engagements of the 92nd. “I was, like, if I'm going to do this talk, I want to do it justice … (that) I've captured everything and give people the full unvarnished picture of what these guys went through.”
“The racism that impacted their military training really angered me,” he said. “I've had to go overseas into harm's way, and soldiers need to be focused and get all of the best training they can get. It's like the Super Bowl when you don't want second place. You don't survive that.”
Frustrating to Rob was discovering that the 92nd Infantry Division “was split up in four different geographic locations to train because white America was afraid to have 15,000 black soldiers in the division with M1 Garands (semi-automatic rifles).”
It was “a huge missed opportunity when you split them up,” Rob said. “That goes against the combined arms training theories of logistics, artillery, infantry and armor – all collectively trained. You have to train together, because it's an orchestra on the battlefield that has to be synchronized.”
Despite the “dysfunctional” training strategy, the WWII Buffalo Soldiers of that division performed with heroic valor, sustaining many casualties against the daunting high-ground position of the German army at Castle Aghinolfi.
The Buffalo Soldiers entered combat in August 1944 in Italy, spending 200 days in combat and suffering nearly 3,000 casualties “until the enemy surrendered, 2 May 1945,” according to armydivs.com.
“They really fought hard and well, despite all the racism that followed them into the fight in Italy,” Rob said.
Rob said he’s grateful for the opportunity to learn about the African American heroes with ties to Caroline County. “It just all kind of lined up, and it was easy to do.”
From his perspective as a soldier and tourist, he “went through a lot of the towns that the 92nd Infantry Division liberated. The Italians still celebrate them today. These different towns and villages have their own independent Liberation Day, and they celebrate these soldiers because that knowledge has been passed down from generation to generation.”
The Caroline County Historical Society’s Museum of Rural Life will host Rob Rouse, who will present his multimedia talk about the Buffalo Soldiers at 6 p.m. on Saturday, May 23.
