ABLES-CHARLES

 

FORMER  MARINE  FROM  GREATEST  GENERATION  PASSES

 

Excerpts from articles published in the San Diego Union-Tribune:

 

Charles Nathaniel Ables was born on July 16, 1921, in San Diego, California, and was raised there until he enlisted in the Marines at the onset of WWII.  He was always the protector and hero of his younger brother as the two boys skinned knees and elbows playing sandlot baseball and football after school.  They rode the streetcar to Lane Field on Sundays to watch the Padres of the Pacific Coast League and learned to body surf at San Diego and La Jolla beaches.  As a boy he delivered handbills and worked in a neighborhood market while earning the rank of Eagle in the Boy Scouts.  A graduate of San Diego High School, he then attended San Diego State College.  He joined the Marines after Pearl Harbor, training at MCRD Camp Elliott in San Diego and Camp Pendleton before shipping out to the newly formed 3rd Marine Division for which he designed the official "caltrop" insignia patch.  After more training in New Zealand he made Pacific beach landings on Guam, Bougainville and Iwo Jima where, as a Staff Sergeant in the Division Intelligence, he mapped enemy positions for bombardment even as the enemy bombarded him.  During the war and for nearly 50 years after, he published the FARAC Foghorn, a newsletter of and for his many Marine Corps buddies.

 

Following his discharge from the Marines after World War II, Ables returned to San Diego where he became employed by the San Diego Park & Recreation Department.  He worked for nearly 40-years as a park designer and many of San Diego’s most beloved outdoor spaces were designed by him.  Not only was he instrumental in beautifying San Diego, but he exemplified the saying “Once a Marine, always a Marine” by naming a number of the recreational landmarks for his many Marine Corps buddies.  A friend remarked, “He was a good, straight shooter.  He was a guy for making sure all the details were accurate for a park.”  Another said, “When Tom Brokaw created the absolutely correct term, ‘The Greatest Generation,’ he must have known our Chuck Ables who personified that definition.”

 

Ables died peacefully in his San Diego home on June 12, 2012, at the age of 90 and was survived by his wife of nearly 65-years, two sons, three grandchildren and 4 great-grandchildren.  He has been buried at Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery in San Diego.

 

Submitted by CDR Roy A. Mosteller, USNR (Ret)