The Presidents’ Escort: The Joseph Browning Corbin Story

By Joseph B. Corbin and Susan Funk

The Presidents Escort: The Joseph Browning Corbin Story is an adventure-packed journey through time from Corbins early life in the Shenandoah Mountains during Prohibition and into the farmlands of Culpepper County, Virginia. The true story spins the reader through a tornado that leaves the toddler homeless to the ravages of World War IIcombat in the bitter cold with General George S. Patton in the Battle of the Bulge. It then weaves through the streets of Washington, D.C., and the White House, amidst its politics, relationships, and fanfare.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Dec 8, 2016
• ISBN: 9781524557713

Joseph B. Corbin

Joseph B. Corbin is a public speaker and author whose life experiences include combat in World War II under General George Patton, a career with the Metropolitan Police Department, and as a lobbyist in Washington DC, where he served alongside five US presidents. Mr. Corbin, who lives with his wife, Nancy, in Seminole, Florida, credits the Lord with seeing him through tragedies and triumphs. “God has always guided and protected me throughout life. We can accomplish nothing without his help. For the remaining days he gives me on this earth, I plan to give honor and glory to his holy name. To God be the glory!” Susan M. Funk is a radio personality, speaker, and writer whose career includes twenty-one years in ministry, broadcast, and print journalism in Southern California. Ms. Funk resides in St. Petersburg, Florida.

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Copyright © 2016 by Joseph B. Corbin; Susan Funk.

Library of Congress Control Number:         2016918532

ISBN:                  Hardcover               978-1-5245-5773-7

       Softcover                 978-1-5245-5772-0

                            eBook                      978-1-5245-5771-3

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

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Rev. date: 12/09/2016

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The Presidents’ Escort:

The Joseph Browning Corbin Story

is dedicated to Pat Choi.

Pat Choi was born in Singapore. She moved to the United States with her husband, Alfred, and son, Ben, in 1995. She loves Jesus Christ and her adopted home, the United States of America. She teaches elementary school and runs an ESL ministry in Seminole, Florida.

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Pat first persuaded Joe to speak about his extraordinary life to her fourth graders at Ridgecrest Elementary School in 2011. As a living primary source, she recognized how important it was for Joe’s rich life experiences to be passed on to the next generations of Americans. She was humbled and honored to be a part of this incredible man’s historical narrative.

Acknowledgments

For many years, I have been urged by people I came in contact with around the country to put my stories and experiences into a book. It wasn’t until I met Sharon Beardsley that I was really given the encouragement to put my stories together on paper as my first step toward a book. Sharon came to my home on numerous occasions with recorder in hand, and she sat with me for hours, asking questions and just talking with me about my life, before and after the career stories.

The real inspiration for me to want to write the book came from Pat Choi inviting me over to speak to her fourth-grade class at Ridgecrest Elementary School during the Great American Teach-In. This we have done for several years. The interest shown by her students was so inspiring that I felt that it was imperative to record this information for future generations. I thought I must do this now—otherwise, when would I? That information would be gone and lost forever.

In searching for someone to transcribe all the tapes, I was talking to a friend in church choir, Glenda Milor, who told me that she was a transcriptionist and would be happy to do this for us.

My wife, Nancy Corbin, spent many long hours putting those notes in order and doing some necessary editing.

Searching for a writer took us from Oregon to South Carolina before, finally, a friend at church, Kecia Richardson, put us in touch with Susan Funk, right here in Pinellas County, Florida, and her editing team: Rita Gottfred and Bette Jackman LoBue.

I wish to thank the many people who spoke to me and encouraged me in any way as this book began to take form. Also to those that I encountered through the years, who helped shape the experiences and stories in the pages of this book.

I am also grateful for all the generous help by my research team for their attentive reading of the text and all the revisions it took to make this story get to print.

Contents

Chapter 1…..A Man Called Browning

Chapter 2…..Shenandoah Beginnings

Chapter 3…..On Corbin Mountain

Chapter 4…..The Hollows

Chapter 5…..Mountaineer Moonshine

Chapter 6…..Tornado of Rappahannock: A Toddler’s Nightmare

Chapter 7…..The Crash: America on Sinking Sand

Chapter 8…..The Draft of World War II

Chapter 9…..Patton: Winter and the Ravages of War

Chapter 10…Farewell to War: A Final Good-bye

Chapter 11…Mickey and Joey

Chapter 12…Ellen Lewis

Chapter 13…Harry S. Truman: A Father and a President

Chapter 14…President Dwight D. Eisenhower

Chapter 15…The Funerals

Chapter 16…Queen Elizabeth II

Chapter 17…Student Tours: Fringe Benefits

Chapter 18…John Foster Dulles

Chapter 19…Charles De Gaulle

Chapter 20…Danny Thomas

Chapter 21…President John F. Kennedy

Chapter 22…Ted

Chapter 23…Arabian King Saud

Chapter 24…Day of Black: The Kennedy Assassination

Chapter 25…President Lyndon B. Johnson

Chapter 26…Khrushchev

Chapter 27…Richard Millhouse Nixon

Chapter 28…The Masons

Chapter 29…Montgomery College

Chapter 30…My Son Joey: Reunited

Chapter 31…The Grass Is Not Greener

Chapter 32…The Beat and the Heat

Chapter 33…Martin Luther King Jr.: The Man with a Dream

Chapter 34…Senator Olin Johnson

Chapter 35…National Police Week

Chapter 36…Heroes Inc.

Chapter 37…Sad Farewells

Chapter 38…Meeting Nancy Dion

1

A Man Called Browning

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Waiting in front of the chalkboard, my presentation complete, I stood in silence, eyeing the fourth graders seated in rows of wood-and-metal desks.

Did they learn something? I wondered.

The children had only known that a man would be speaking to them about a long-ago war called World War II. And he would tell them about the Honor Flight—a distinction reserved for only a few fortunate World War II heroes still alive who were flown to the National Mall in Washington, DC, and honored for their service to this country. Visiting the memorial, built in honor of those brave men and women nearly sixty years after the war, was a remarkable experience; but it was even more rewarding to share it with these fresh young faces before me.

For a moment, as I watched the students, my thoughts turned to Pat Choi, the Ridgecrest Elementary School teacher from Singapore who had insisted I give a talk for her class. Pat knew it would be a rare opportunity for her students to meet the man with the rich American history who had lived through active duty in World War II, had served as personal escort to five US presidents, and who was the only person to ever singularly escort four US presidents in one week’s time. Now, with tightened security, no one will have that singular honor again. I was grateful for having that distinction and for the opportunity Pat Choi gave me to share my experiences with her students.

Pat also insisted that I write this book to document my story, including the part of my life that sent me half a world away when I was barely ten years older than these students. Now in my nineties, I look forward to each opportunity to speak to students and adults alike, and I do so as often as possible.

That day presented me with a sense of satisfaction as I left the school building. Imagine, I mused aloud, my life is someone else’s history lesson.

My wife, Nancy, smiled as we loaded the World War II and Washington, DC, displays back into the car for the trip home. Nancy and I have been married for eight years now. Never let it be said that you can’t find happiness in your golden years. We sure have. We both had been married before and had lost our spouses. We have been blessed to be each other’s companion and best friend. She travels with me and keeps my appointments straight for speaking engagements, church activities, and Shriners’ events, in which I still participate. I certainly do not know what I would do without her.

I had shown the students my World War II service medals and photos of my amazing days in Washington, leading motorcades for presidential limousines. Many years later, I would be on the Honor Flight as one of only three World War II veterans out of the group of eighty on the flight. The three of us were flown to Washington, DC, to be recognized and celebrated. All that recognition was made up of enjoyable times that were reaped from a vast field of sorrow and hardship.

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Composite of Joe’s WWII medals used for display

at speaking engagements.

2

Shenandoah Beginnings

I was born in Rappahannock County, Virginia, near Little Washington, a town about sixty miles west of Washington, DC, on the 14th of September 1925. When the English arrived in Virginia in 1607, Rappahannock was only woodlands inhabited by Native Americans—Manahoacs and Iroquois. As the settlers moved in, the Indians relocated to the west. Rappahannock was colonized in about 1722 and included settlers from west of the Blue Ridge. There were Scotch-Irish, German, Welsh, and French settlers. Those living in Rappahannock participated in the Revolutionary War and the War Between the States.

Dr. Browning, the doctor who delivered me, told my mother that if she named her baby boy after him, she would never have to worry about medical attention for him. The doctor promised that he would see to my medical needs at any time. So my mother used Browning as my middle name. It may have pleased the doctor, but he died before my second birthday, so I never would get the free medical services he pledged, and I found myself stuck with the name Browning for the rest of my life!

3

On Corbin Mountain

My parents were both born in the United States. My father, Robert Hilton Corbin, lived up on Corbin Mountain, in Virginia. He was the oldest of twenty-one children in his family. There were other Corbin families living there as well, and thus it was called Corbin Mountain.

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George Corbin’s cabin in Shenandoah National Park in Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains. It is on the US Register of Historic Places.

My mother’s name was Nellie Florence Hawkins. She lived on Hazel Mountain, the next mountain over from Corbin. Also located in the Blue Ridge Mountains, in rugged terrain, Hazel Mountain is capped with barren white rocks.

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Joe’s mother, Nellie Florence Hawkins (on right), and her sister.

In the 1920s, there were no roads for wagons to cross from one mountain to the other, so my father would ride his horse over to court my mother, Nellie Florence Hawkins, from the moment they first met until they married on November 26, 1922. I never heard them mention exactly how they met, but it was probably at a church gathering, as my mother, Nellie, was a devout Christian. Now you might not think there was much to be said about the area, but you would be mistaken. There had been plenty going on!

There were about five key families in those parts of the Blue Ridge. It was before the Shenandoah Mountains became a national park (a story in itself, which I will tell you later).

My grandfather, William B. Corbin, settled in the area after buying land. He then married my grandmother, and they started their family there on the side of Corbin Mountain called Corbin Hollow.

In 1896, my father, Robert Hilton Corbin, was born during a blizzard. Snowdrifts of up to twelve feet high pressed against the wood cabin. It was a tough winter. That blizzard did not seem to deter my grandparents because they kept going—one, two, five, ten, until they had twenty-one children! Yes, that’s right. My grandfather sired twenty-one children. My grandmother bore every one of them. At that point, I guess my grandmother insisted that she had enough!

My grandfather was proud of his family, all right. They had built a cabin and a couple of other dwellings on the property. The tan-barking industry was their mainstay, so that’s what he would do. The men would fill wagons with bark and haul the load down Corbin’s Mountain through Nicholson Hollow to Nethers Mill and back. The mill was located about five miles from where my grandfather and my dad lived. They would get their groceries while they were down there, and they would also get their pay, which was two dollars a load. The trips were very hard on the men. They would get all the way down and have to make the trip back up the hill and then do it again the next day. All that work for just two dollars a load.

The mountain was so steep that when the automobile eventually came along, only one soul was brave enough—or crazy enough—to drive it up there. And that was a woman cousin of ours who owned a nice Model-T Ford. When she made it up that mountain, it was a sight indeed!

4

The Hollows

The Corbins and the Nicholsons were related by marriage. The area the Nicholsons lived in was called Nicholson Hollow, also known as Free State Hollow because law enforcement agents were afraid to approach the area due to the temperament and outlaw-styled actions of many of the residents.

The moonshine business was actually a family duty, pretty much. It kept a lot of the men employed. My father and grandfather