Mom Exhibits Love: Colt .45<o =""></o> <st1:date year="2006" day="11" month="11">November 11, 2006</st1:date> By JESSE <st1:city><st1 ="">LEAVENWORTH</st1></st1:city>, The <st1:city><st1 ="">Hartford</st1></st1:city> Courant<o =""></o> <o =""></o> <st1 ="">WEST HARTFORD</st1> -- William Doran kept his Colt pistol close by through the long battle of <st1 ="">Iwo Jima</st1>. Even when he found a moment to sleep, the gun was in his hand. The powerful .45-caliber weapon had solved a problem. It was a lifeline in the valley of death, and in the end, a symbol of his mother's love. <o =""></o> Doran, 82, still has the Colt and a copy of the plaintive letter his mother sent that secured it for him. She had written to the most influential person she could think of - a plea dispatched with great hope, but little expectation of an answer. Doran was a U.S. Marine veteran of three Pacific island campaigns when he wrote his mother, Marion Avery, back in<st1 =""> West Hartford</st1> in 1944, telling her about trouble he was having. Doran's job was to lay communications lines, and like most young, enlisted Marines, he carried a rifle. The carbine, however, was awkward to shoulder while stringing phone lines. He'd feel better, Doran wrote, if he had a pistol. But that was the other problem: The Colt .45 was the standard sidearm for officers, but not generally available to junior enlisted men. Avery wanted desperately to help her son. So sometime late in 1944, she wrote to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Dear President Roosevelt, I am begging you a big request. Have an only Son was twenty years old in April. Has been in the 4th Marine Division twenty one months Only saw him once in that length of time. Over there for nine months has been in the <st1:city><st1 ="">Marshalls</st1></st1:city> + <st1 ="">Saipan</st1> + Tinian Invasions didn't get a scratch. He wrote home he would like a Colt #45. But is impossible to get even a used one. Have been trying for a week or more there isn't a thing I wouldn't do to give him his request So I am taking the privilege to write you to see if you could do anything for me. My Billy said they come in handy and he has had close calls. He would get Permission from the C.O. before we mailed it to him. His Buddy was killed in <st1 ="">Saipan</st1> was a terrible blow to him. I don't want that to happen to the only one I have to live for. He is a grand boy that is every Mothers feeling I know. Hoping to hear from you real soon with good news. Oblige Mrs. Ed Avery Doran says he doesn't know what happened at the White House, but the Colt Arms factory in Hartford was contacted by Avery and a .45 procured. Doran received it in time for the invasion of<st1 =""> Iwo Jima</st1> in February 1945. Avery, who died in 1948, was amazed that her simple letter had produced such quick action, Doran said. "You feel," he said, "like such a little person in this big world." Last year at a ceremony at the <st1 ="">Iwo Jima</st1>, Doran said, he approached a general. Doran had a copy of the letter and told the officer he might get a kick out of it. The general read the letter, Doran said, and called over three of his staff officers to read it. Then he put an arm around Doran's shoulder and said, "You know, if your mother wrote that letter today, by the time you got that .45, you'd probably be too old to pull the trigger." <!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--> <!--[endif]--> JT
