Today’s heart warming moment is some pictures of our own Sporkmaster’s homecoming from his tour in Iraq. Enjoy them at the link.
Category: Support the troops
-
First killed in Vietnam remembered 50 years later
The Associated Press and Stars and Stripes writes about a ceremony held yesterday at the Vietnam Memorial for the first two casualties of that war;Six northern Vietnamese had attacked the Army’s residential compound in the town of Bien Hoa, killing two American men while they watched a movie on a home projector. Karnow wrote three paragraphs about it for Time.
“It was a minor incident in a faraway place,” said Karnow, who reported from southeast Asia from 1959 to the early 1970s. “Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine that these two guys would be the first in a memorial to 50,000-some others.”
On Wednesday, those guys — U.S. Army Maj. Dale Buis and Master Sgt. Chester Ovnand — were remembered on the 50th anniversary of their deaths during a special ceremony near the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.
The article recounts the events leading up to the first casualties of the Vietnam War;
According to Karnow’s 1959 Time article, Ovnand, of Texas, had just mailed a letter to his wife and Buis, who was from California, was showing off pictures of his three sons. They were two of eight men who lived at the compound, and among the six who took a break in the mess hall that July 8 to watch “The Tattered Dress,” starring Jeanne Crain.
The soldiers were sprayed with bullets by “terrorists” when Ovnand turned on the lights to change the home projector’s first reel, Karnow wrote.
The beginning of a list of over 58,000 and still growing.
-
Vet sets out on world record cruise
Valerie emailed us to let us know about these intrepid brothers, Ralph and Robert Brown, who have recently set out on cross-Atlantic cruise in a boat that they designed and built. But it’s not just a record setting cruise;This voyage keep a 29 year old solemn promise Ralph made to honor fallen heroes from the ill fated 1980 EAGLE CLAW mission to rescue the US Embassy hostages in Iran in 1980. Ralph, as a United States Marine, was on the original roster to go, but a different unit was called up, and Sgt. John Harvey, Cpl. George Holmes, and SSgt. Dewey Johnson lost their lives. Setting out on June 27, 2009, the goals of this heroic adventure are to set new Guinness Book World records for a Transatlantic crossing and to raise money for Wounded Heroes from the USA, UK and Canada.
There’s more at their website and an article from Tampa Bay.com. You can follow their voyage on the Google GPS Map, and of course, donate to their voyage and their cause.
-
Vietnam Vets find each other after 42 years
This is just a great story and highlights how long the brotherhood bond lasts among combat veterans;
Of course, the part of the story that gets me is that Ken Thompson recognized Richard Perricone’s name while reading the paper 42 years after he assumed Richard was dead. I hope this isn’t the last we hear of these two guys.
Welcome home.
-
The Return of Sporkmaster
Some of you may have noticed that Sporkmaster has been pretty quiet lately. Mainly it’s because he’s been slowly moving towards the US from his deployment to Iraq.
He emailed me today to let me know that he’s safely back in the loving arms of his family and he has all of his body parts attached as they were before he left.
I thought y’all’d like to know.
-
Phony 4-star ID’d by POW Net
1stCavRVN11B and Olga both sent me this article from the Marine Corps Times about a number of folks who were inflating their bios in the Marine Corps Association’s directory. the biggest boob was listed as a 4-star Marine General;
Questioned about his past, Laisure, 80, initially insisted it was all legitimate. But when pressed, he said he was never an officer and served less than a year on active duty before leaving the service as a private. California records also show he was once married to convicted murderer Susan Atkins, the ex-wife of serial killer Charles Manson, and Greenville officials say they have no record of his company ever existing.
“I guess I just wanted to be something I wasn’t,” he said. “I’ve just always admired the Marine Corps, and I hope I’ve done no harm.”
It was our pals at POW Net that started the wheels rolling to clean out the defective directory;
Mary Schantag, co-founder of the P.O.W. Network, expressed outrage that MCA published the directory, available to members through a third-party organization, without proper background checks.
“It negates the true honor of the Marine Corps when you’re filling up your membership with phonies,” she said.
Association officials say that’s blowing things out of proportion. Tom Esslinger, MCA’s chief operating officer, said some entries are wrong simply because of data entry mistakes.
Now, it seems to me that an organization that calls itself the Marine Corps Association would be more familiar with the words “honor” and “faithful” and they’d try a bit harder to get their directory right.
The article quotes a spokesperson of the association that claims they don’t want to embarrass their members – what about how embarrassing it is to all of us that there are fakes wandering around pretending to be generals and who, when they finally admit it, say “Oops, sorry. Can’t we all just get along?”.
-
Where in the world….
Y’all probably know that TSO is off this weekend and hanging out with the USO Girls and Uncle Jimbo at Dallas/Fort Worth airport.
Jimbo says they’re fund raising for Warrior Legacy Foundation, but I don’t know how – apparently they can’t even give candy away to troops in the airport.
I dunno – judge for yourselves at Blackfive.
-
Independence Day News
An Independence Day message from the Republican National Committee;
The Stars and Stripes reports on a celebration at FOB Echo in Iraq sponsored by the State Department;
Task Force 1-2 commander Lt. Col. Steve Miska told the Iraqis that American culture is very informal.
“When we come together we don’t have a seating arrangement or people who come to wait on us,” he said. “We thought today we would teach you a little bit about that. When you get your food you serve yourself and you can sit anywhere and talk to whoever you want.”
Joe Biden began his 4th of July in Iraq by welcoming 200 new citizens at a naturalization ceremony at Camp Victory in Iraq.
The crown of the Statue of Liberty opens today for the first time since September 11, 2001.
And North Korea celebrates the 4th by firing off seven (SCUD?) missiles.
