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www.southernsenior.info 17 Mississippi, told Henley he wanted Stuart’s immediate family to know what had happened that dreadful day at Iwo Jima. Henley told the preacher that all of Bill Stuart’s family had died over the years except for Bill’s sister that lived in Baton Rouge. The preacher asked him if he could somehow get the information to her, and Henley agreed he would. “He told me that he got hit (shot) first, and they took him down to the beach to get him out to the hospital ship. Bill came down to check on the preacher, and on his way back to the front line, he was shot in the hip. He said they took Bill down the area to await transport to the hospital ship, but Bill bled to death before they could get him off the island. The corpsman medic who was working on Bill said that the dying Stuart asked the corpsman to reach in his pocket and give him the new testament Bible he had been carrying with him. The medic placed the Bible in Stuart’s hand, and he died holding the Bible,” Henley explained. Henley, while serving in the Marines, missed his high school graduation, but his mother Mae walked across the stage to receive his diploma. When Fred returned home from the service in December, 1945, his parents asked what was he going to do, and he told them he had no idea. His stepfa- ther, Almer Spiers, suggested Fred go to college, and after he thought about it, Fred felt like it was a good idea. He went to Hattiesburg to register at Mississippi Southern College (today’s USM), but when he arrived, he found out he was a few days too late to register for that quarter’s classes. As Fred started to leave the campus, he heard someone call out his name shouting “Fred! Fred! Hey wait a minute.” Henley looked around and it was his high school superinten- dent J.H. Napier, Jr., who was teaching a class up there. He asked Fred what he was doing on campus and he told him what had happened, and Napier promptly took Henley with him and was able to get him registered after all. When the spring rolled around, Fred went out for the team. It didn’t take long for the coaching staff to notice Henley during scrimmages where he was playing defensive back while making about every tackle on running plays and cover- ing receivers like he knew the play being called. Henley said he was doing the things he had learned during high school, particularly his sophomore and junior seasons when he played for Dobie Holden. “Coach Holden taught us things that most college coaches didn’t teach. He knew everything there was to know about football,” Henley stated. As well as Henley had performed that spring, he didn’t make it back to Mississippi Southern due to his buddy Calvin Triplett who was one year older than Fred. Triplett had been at Mississippi Southern the previous year for the fall and spring. When the fall came around and it was time to go back to Hattiesburg, things changed swiftly. “Back then, it was nothing to thumb a ride to get where you need to go. So me and Calvin started our trip, and it was amazing how you could put your thumb up and everybody would stop to offer a ride. We took the approach to only ride in Cadillacs and Oldsmobile and turned down Chevys and Fords,” Henley said as he laughed remembering that day. As they were going through Poplarville, Triplett suggested that they go by the school (Pearl River Junior College) and see what’s going on. Fred had lived his entire life in Pearl River County and had never been on the campus. When they got on campus and went to the practice field, over a half dozen of the players on the team were from Picayune. “They told me to get a uniform and practice with them. I did, and after practice, I told Calvin to go on to Hattiesburg. I’m staying here to play. “ And young Henley did.