PFC Vaden Alexander Stewart was born on November 10, 1922 in Pineville, Escambia County, Florida, the son of Alexander Renshaw Stewart (1892-1933) and Lillian Madeline Peaden (1894-1940). His father supported his family first as a "woods rider" for the McCoy & Carter Turpentine Company in Pineville. He would later become the foreman and by 1930, had moved his family down the road to McKinnonville. His father would pass away on April 22, 1933 in Dry Springs (Escambia Co.), leaving Lillian with five children at their home in Walnut Hill. There, Vaden attended most of his early education but never getting past grammar school. By 1940, Lillian and her remaining children were forced to live in McDavid with her daughter Rosa and her husband Joe Cephas Walker. Soon, with so many out of work, Vaden was lucky enough to be offered a job with the Southern Kraft Bag Mill in Mobile Alabama. That same year, he would lose his mother on the 10th of November and would bury her with his father in Dry Springs.
After the war began, Vaden concentrated on working in Mobile and taking care of his siblings but the chance of enlistment or induction was never in doubt. He was inducted into the US Army on January 5, 1943 and left McDavid for Camp Blanding, Florida for processing and orientation. He was assigned to the 109th Infantry Regiment of the 28th Infantry Division. Subsequent training sent him to Camp Wallace, TX, Camp Stewart, GA, Camp Pickett, VA and Fort Meade, Md.
Vaden and his regiment would arrive at Normandy after the initial D-Day landing. From there, they fought across France and through the Hurtgen Forest of Germany. They would even win the honor of becoming the first troops to invade German soil since Napoleon. After the infamous Hurtgen Campaign, they received a well-deserved rest, or so they thought, in the American Ardennes sector in early December 1944.
One soldier of the regiment chose to desert before the Hurtgen campaign, knowing how bad it was going to be. He was arrested for desertion although he was given a chance to rejoin his unit. However, he chose to go to a court martial instead. Shockingly, he was sentenced by a military court to be shot before a firing squad. Private Edward Donald Slovik was executed at 10:04 AM on January 31, 1945, thus becoming the only American soldier executed for desertion in the 20th century. He was buried in the Oise-Aisne American Cemetery alongside 96 other American soldiers executed for statutory crimes such as murder and rape. Because of their dishonor, their headstones are black and bear only numbers instead of their names. In 1987, Slovik's remains were finally returned to Michigan and reburied next to his wife. Seven U.S. presidents have been petitioned for his pardon, but none were granted.
In the meantime, little did the 109th realize they were directly in the path of the entire German army. There, in the dead of winter, Hitler launched his surprise attack that would become known as the famous "Battle of the Bulge" on the 16th of December. Before they knew it, the 109th Regiment was struck by the German's entire Yolks Grenadier Guard Division plus a panzer tank division, a parachute division and many more. Throughout the night and the next day, the regiment suffered heavy casualties along with the division. All the soldiers wore the 28th Division "Keystone" patches that looked like red buckets on their uniforms. Seeing these patches on so many dead and dying American GI's, the Germans called them the "Bloody Bucket Division." However, after three days of intense fighting, the 109th had destroyed the entire 352d Yolks Grenadiers while refusing to yield to the enemy. Paid for in blood, Vaden and his regiment had blocked the enemy offensive in their sector thus dooming Germany's last great offensive of the war. By the 24th of December, the Americans had turned the tide against Hitler and opened the way to Berlin! But sadly, Pensacolian Vaden Alexander Steward would not be among his regimental comrades for the last victory. On the 18th of December he and his company were in a desperate fight. Companies were being wiped out and some just disappeared entirely. Here, Vaden was shot and mortally wounded. His remains were turned over to grave registration and he was buried in what would become known as the American Military Cemetery in Luxembourg.
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