At 96, Duane Sherman, a World War II veteran and Purple Heart recipient, has survived nearly all of his friends.
His wife of 57 years, Lois, died in 2011.
The only mail he receives at his Fullerton home these days are bills.
So Sherman’s daughter, Sue Morse, 65, put out a request on her Facebook page for friends to send her dad a card for his Dec. 30 birthday.
Morse also shared the post on the Facebook page of the Patriot Guard Riders, a motorcycle club she rides with that honors military veterans.
“I wanted to him to feel special on his birthday,” said Morse, who lives with her father.
She was expecting maybe 160 cards.
As of Wednesday, Jan. 9, Sherman has received more than 50,000 cards and letters. His daughter’s plea had spread through social media.
“I was amazed, shocked and appreciative,” Sherman said. “All the good comments people made … it just brightened my day.”
Postal bins packed with envelopes of every color are stacked high on two sofas and the floor of Sherman’s home – and that’s only a few thousand.
Thousands more are stored at a friend’s house and there are bins still to be picked up at the post office, Morse said.
Since her father is legally blind, Morse has been reading the cards and letters out loud to her dad.
Birthday cards and notes thanking Sherman for his service have come from all 50 states and from 10 countries.
Hand-written notes from elementary school students and even letters from prison inmates are among the stacks.
There are letters from the secretary of the Navy and from the commander of the U.S.S. Cowpens, a guided missile cruiser stationed in San Diego.
The captain and officers of the Cowpens came up from San Diego to take Sherman to lunch.
A group of officers from the U.S. Navy Sonar School in San Diego also paid Sherman a visit – leaning forward and listening intently, Morse said, as Sherman told stories about his WW II experience.
Ohio State University sent a card.
So did the Pittsburgh Steelers.
The mail also brought gifts of mementos such as an American flag that flew over Pearl Harbor, a scale model of a battleship and a plaque carved out of wood from the U.S.S. Constitution.
The rock band Foreigner sent a signed double CD.
Sherman even received a card sent from a family living in a motel after losing their home in the Paradise fires.
“It was very gratifying,” Sherman said. “It was hard to believe.”
Sherman was a young boy when he moved with his family from Kansas to Los Angeles.
He wanted to join the Navy, even before he graduated from high school in June 1941. He enlisted shortly after Pearl Harbor was attacked on Dec. 7, 1941.
Sherman was stationed aboard the U.S.S. Lamson, a destroyer that saw several battles in the Pacific.
On Dec. 7, 1944, three years to the day after Pearl Harbor, the Lamson was in the Philippines, positioned in Ormoc Bay to provide cover for a landing by U.S. troops. Kamikaze planes attacked from above.
“We saw this plane coming in from the starboard corner,” Sherman said. “It hit the two stacks and went into the bridge superstructure. I was up on the bridge. We jumped out because the bridge was on fire.”
Sherman, who was hit in the back by shrapnel, floated in a life raft with crew mates until another destroyer could rescue them.
Two other ships, the Mahan and the Ward, were destroyed in the attacks and 28 of Sherman’s crewmates were killed.
Sherman was awarded the Purple Heart and received an honorable discharge. Shrapnel is still lodged in his back.
So far, Morse has gone through about 1,700 letters and will be enlisting the help of several friends to open the rest. She wants to respond to most of them.
One recently opened letter moved Morse to tears.
Stephen Michael Aichele, legislative director for the Department of Veterans Affairs in Indiana, wrote her father: “All of you have sacrificed greatly to rid the world of evil and for that, again, I thank you. When you find yourself jolting awake in the early hours of the California morning, just know that you have helped mold the world that people like me were born into decades later. I hope this letter finds you well and I also hope that it is buried beneath a stack of thank-you letters and birthday cards.”
It was.
