This ain't Hell, but you can see it from here

Category: Historical

  • Home at Last

    Under the wide and starry sky
    Dig the grave and let me lie:
    Glad did I live, and gladly die,
    And I lay me down with a will.

    Could he answer, I rather doubt that that Pfc John A. Donovan, USMC, of Plymouth, MI, would agree that he “glady” died. Young men just don’t think like that. They have too much life left to live.

    Nevertheless, on a stormy April night Donovan died. He was 20.

    Donovan was lost, along with the rest of his crewmates, on a training mission in what is today the nation of Vanatu Vanuatu. During World War II. On the night of 23 April 1944.

    The precise circumstances of loss were not known at the time. And for a long, long time the wide and starry sky above Donovon and his crewmates was indeed their only grave. But it wasn’t their wide and starry sky. It was the southern sky above the island called Espritu Espiritu Santo.

    For decades, they lay under that foreign sky. It might have been pretty, but it wasn’t the sky of home.

    Fifty years later, a private search firm looking for another aircraft crash site located theirs. That information was relayed to the Department of Defense.

    It took many years and substantial effort, but eventually sufficient remains were located to allow the crew’s positive identification – and in Donovan’s case, to allow for a proper burial.

    At home.

    Donovan’s remains were returned to the United States on 6 June 2012. He was to be buried today. He’ll be buried besides his brothers in Ann Arbor, MI – with his sole surviving sibling, his sister Josephine Demianenko, in attendance.

    This be the verse you ‘grave for me:
    Here he lies where he long’d to be;
    Home is the sailor, home from the sea,
    And the hunter home from the hill.

    Welcome home, Marine We’re sorry it took so long to return you to your own wide and starry sky. But you’re now home.

    Now, rest in peace. You’ve more than earned that.

  • Remembrance of Things Past

    Today was the 68th Anniversary of D-Day. While that’s not a “magic number” anniversary – like 2009 was (the 65th) or 2019 will be (the 75th), it’s still a day worth remembering.

    By most, anyway. But not by all.

    Some people forget, I guess. They get caught up in life, and are too busy to take time to remember those who fought 68 years ago today to ensure that America remained free.

    Some whose family fought in World War II are even too busy to remember. Even when those family members were someone close – like a grandfather, or a grand-uncle. Oh well, such is modern life.

    But you’d think the POTUS would remember D-Day.

    For the third consecutive year, the POTUS has done nothing to commemorate publicly the anniversary of D-Day. His schedule today just doesn’t seem to have allowed it. The last time he did anything to recognize D-Day publicly was in 2009 – the 65th anniversary.

    And it looks like the POTUS was also too busy to post a D-Day statement on the White House Website or to make a Presidential proclamation observing today’s D-Day anniversary.

    But I’ll give the POTUS credit; he was able to find the time to issue a public statement noting yesterday’s passing of noted author Ray Bradbury. That was important enough to merit some of his time.

    I know the POTUS is a very busy man. But it seems he could find maybe a 1/2 hour to do something – somewhere – on the 6th of June to pay his respects to those Americans who fought in Normandy on that date in 1944. You’d think he’d do at least that much, since his maternal grandfather supported the D-Day landings and one of his great-uncles went ashore at Omaha Easy Red on D+4. And another of his great-uncles participated in the liberation of the Nazi forced labor camp at Ohrdruf.

    I guess the POTUS had his reasons for not publicly commemorating D-Day today. Maybe he was simply too busy. Or maybe he just plain forgot. But I still just don’t understand why he couldn’t find the time to remember and recognize those who, 68 years ago today, fought to ensure his freedom – even though he wasn’t yet born.

    After all: he seemed to have plenty of spare time 9 days ago to visit Arlington National Cemetery and the Vietnam War Memorial.

  • Life of Duty: D-Day

    The folks at the NRA and Brownells send us a 6 minute video clipped from the Army’s 28-minutes of archival footage on the subject of D-Day.

    Yeah, I think I’d rather parachute into war than to watch the ramp on the landing craft drop while machine gun fire poured in with no place to hide. I’m surprised they could drag those huge brass balls up on the beach and then alter the course of history.

  • 68 years later

    You are about to embark upon the Great Crusade, toward which we have striven these many months. The eyes of the world are upon you. The hopes and prayers of liberty-loving people everywhere march with you.

    In company with our brave Allies and brothers-in-arms on other Fronts, you will bring about the destruction of the German war machine, the elimination of Nazi tyranny over the oppressed peoples of Europe, and security for ourselves in a free world.

    Your task will not be an easy one. Your enemy is well trained, well equipped and battle hardened. He will fight savagely.

    But this is the year 1944! Much has happened since the Nazi triumphs of 1940-41. The United Nations have inflicted upon the Germans great defeats, in open battle, man-to-man. Our air offensive has seriously reduced their strength in the air and their capacity to wage war on the ground. Our Home Fronts have given us an overwhelming superiority in weapons and munitions of war, and placed at our disposal great reserves of trained fighting men.

    The tide has turned! The free men of the world are marching together to Victory!

    I have full confidence in your courage and devotion to duty and skill in battle. We will accept nothing less than full Victory!

    Good luck! And let us beseech the blessing of Almighty God upon this great and noble undertaking.

    SIGNED: Dwight D. Eisenhower


    On June 5, a cold and overcast day, John Perrozi walked between rows of white marble gravestone at the Normandy American Cemetery, on a cliff overlooking Omaha Beach. He stopped at one cross and then another, paying his respects to several buddies who died fighting in Normandy. It was his first trip back since the war. As an 82nd Airborne Division paratrooper, Perozzi fought on D-Day with the 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment. During a June 3 ceremony at the La Fière drop zone, a battlefield near where Perozzi fought, he received France’s highest military medal, the Légion d’Honneur. (Photo by Warrant Officer Patrick Brion, Belgian Armed Forces)

  • Sainte-Mère-Église in 2012

    USEURCOM has posted scores of pictures on their Facebook page of the celebration leading up to the 68th anniversary of D-Day in two days. Including this picture of John Perrozzi, a veteran of the invasion of Hitler’s Fortress Europe, as he talks to current members of the 82d Airborne Division on the former battlefield;

  • Posthumous Medal of Honor Awarded To Leslie Sabo for Actions In Cambodia

    Jonn wrote about the announcement of this award back in April, but I just wanted to highlight this hero once again who was awarded the Medal of Honor yesterday, albeit over 40 years late due to the loss of his paperwork.

    From Military Times:

    Spc. Leslie H. Sabo Jr. of Elwood City, Pa., was serving with U.S. forces near the village of Se San in eastern Cambodia in May of 1970 when his unit was ambushed and nearly overrun by North Vietnamese forces.

    Comrades testified that the rifleman charged up from the rear, grabbed an enemy grenade and tossed it away, using his body to shield a fellow soldier. And shrugging off his own injuries, Sabo advanced on an enemy bunker that had poured fire onto the U.S. troops — and then, pulled the pin on his own grenade.

    “It’s said he held that grenade and didn’t throw it until the last possible moment, knowing it would take his own life but knowing he could silence that bunker,” Obama recounted. “And he did. He saved his comrades, who meant more to him than life.”

    There’s more info and video at the link.

  • Nine Years Ago

    Our buddy, Parachute Cutie, reminds us that nine years ago today “The Herd” jumped into Iraq at Bashure Airfield when Turkey wouldn’t let the 4th Infantry Division invade from the north. There’s always a way around you Hussein-lovers. But go read her link. I’m thinking if I joined the 173rd, she might have a thing for me, too.

  • Navy MOH Recipient dies at 79

    You know I’m partial to the Navy and Docs.
    Navy Times is reporting that retired Master Chief Hospital Corpsman William Charette, Medal of Honor recipient, died yesterday at 79 years.

    Charette enlisted in the Navy in 1951 and joined Fox Company, 2nd Battalion, 7th Marines, which left for Korea in February 1953. It was March 27, 1953, during the Chinese attack on Marine outpost Vegas when Charette threw himself over his patient during a grenade attack, absorbing the blast with his own body, according to the Military Times Hall of Valor.

    In separate instances, Charette removed his battle vest to put on a patient, tore parts of his uniform to dress battle wounds and stood up in a trench, braving gunfire, to attend to a patient.

    Mr. Charette is like the  soldiers and sailors we know, trust, admire, served with: the kind of men and women we’re raising our children to be.  Unlike the filth we’ve been inundated with lately.