For Marsh Curry Pickett Sr., ensuring that veterans and their families got the health care and benefits they were entitled to was part of a noble crusade.
“Marsh Pickett was an advocate for veterans, today, tomorrow and next week. ... Rain, shine, sleet or snow, you couldn’t keep Marsh away from the courthouse,” said Leflore County District 2 Supervisor Robert Moore, a Marine veteran who served in Vietnam.
Mr. Pickett, former Leflore County Veterans Service Officer, died Wednesday, June 19, 2013, at Golden Age Nursing Home.
Funeral services will be at 10:30 a.m. Saturday at the Veterans Memorial Monument on Claiborne Avenue next to the American Legion Hut.
The monument — dedicated to all veterans who served — was completed in large part through Mr. Pickett’s tireless efforts, according to American Legion Post 29 Commander Johnny Favara.
Mr. Pickett, a U.S. Army veteran of World War II, saw action in Europe and received the Bronze Star and later the French Legion of Honor.
Mr. Pickett’s devotion to veterans was well-known.
“He was a great American. He was a person who helped veterans. He went out of his way and above and beyond the call of duty,” said Sam Abraham, Leflore County Chancery clerk.
Mr. Pickett served as the county’s Veterans Service Officer from February 2000 through April 2010.
Favara said he recalled seeing Mr. Pickett mowing the Legion Hut’s yard sometime back in the mid-1990s.
“He asked me, ‘Are you a member of the American Legion?” Favara recalled when he stopped to offer Mr. Pickett some assistance.
When Favara replied no, Mr. Pickett asked him if he was a veteran who had been stationed overseas.
Mr. Pickett then asked, “You got $20?” which was the price for legion membership.
“That’s how I got in. Marsh told me to do it,” Favara said.
It wasn’t very long before Favara became commander of the post, a position he’s served in ever since.
Mr. Pickett’s service in uniform had at least one interesting turn.
In an interview with the Commonwealth in October 2001, Mr. Pickett recounted taking part in a a secret three-day mission in Nazi-occupied Holland in late 1944.
The soldiers — dressed in GI clothing and driving an American jeep — were met by curious German sentries with guns drawn.
Mr. Pickett said he was more than a little worried.
“I like to have swallowed my tongue. I was extremely nervous,” he said.
A U.S. general who was part of the secretive team spoke up in perfect German and told the soldiers that the group were actually German soldiers dressed and equipped as American GIs.
The real Germans soldiers began to laugh, one of them even slapping Mr. Pickett on the back over the ruse.
Later that same year, during the Battle of the Bulge, real German troops did dress as American GIs in an attempt to disrupt U.S. operations during the failed offensive.
Mr. Pickett said he believed that the mission in Holland was to identify the locations of possible concentration and prisoner of war camps.
In 2009, Mr. Pickett was awarded the Legion of Honor from the French government for his services during the war.
The order was established by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1802 and is the highest honor in France.
“The French people will never forget your courage and your devotion to the great cause of freedom,” said Pierre Vimont, French ambassador to the United States.
Mr. Pickett said the award had a larger meaning.
“I think it is honoring a lot of American soldiers as well as naval and Air Force personnel who fought to liberate France.”
• Contact Bob Darden at 581-7239 or bdarden@gwcommonwealth.com.
