Category: We Remember

Stars & Stripes reports that PFC Gerald F. Wipfli is coming home after he was declared missing in action from his unit, I Company, 3rd Battalion, 112th Infantry, at Schmidt, Germany, during the battle of Hurtgen Forest in November 1944. More than 30 American soldiers were declared missing from the same battle on November 9th – five days after the fighting.

His remains were classified as “unrecoverable” until power company workers uncovered him in 2010.

Hondo told us that DPAA had identified him in July.

S&S says that he will be buried in Nekoosa, Wisconsin on Saturday.

Stars & Stripes reports that which we already know – training for war is dangerous work;

One soldier died and 23 servicemembers were injured in three days during training exercises at Fort Hood, Fort Bragg and Camp Pendleton, defense officials said.

One day after 15 Marines were injured in a sudden fire during training at Camp Pendleton in California, an explosion during training Thursday morning at Fort Bragg in North Carolina injured eight soldiers, officials said. The incidents followed the death Tuesday of Army Staff Sgt. Sean Devoy, who was killed after falling during helicopter training at Fort Hood in Texas, according to the Army.

Devoy, a medic with the 2nd General Support Aviation Battalion, 1st Aviation Regiment, 1st Combat Aviation Brigade, 1st Infantry Division at Fort Riley in Kansas, had three deployments to Afghanistan in his seven years of service, before his untimely demise on Tuesday.

We get the sad news from CBC that three Canadian soldiers were killed and five others injured when their armored vehicle came under attack in Afghanistan. They were all members of 2nd Battalion, Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry;

Cpl. Andrew Grenon, Cpl. Mike Seggie and Pte. Chad Horn were killed in the Zhari district of Afghanistan’s southern Kandahar province.

Thompson said that when the insurgents attacked the soldiers at about 9:30 a.m., the Canadians returned fire. Even the wounded soldiers pulled themselves out of the armoured vehicle and started firing back.

The eight soldiers were rushed out of the area, and three were pronounced dead at the Kandahar Airfield. Thompson said one of the wounded is now in critical condition and another in serious but stable condition. Two are in good condition, and one has been treated and released from medical care.

Cpl. Andrew Grenon had been awarded the Canadian Expeditionary Forces Commander’s Commendation just a week ago for saving the lives of two soldiers and preventing a civil riot in March.

The Department of Defense identifies the soldier who is still missing from a helicopter which crashed off the coast of Yemen last week.

The Department of Defense announced today the identity of a soldier listed as Duty Status Whereabouts Unknown (DUSTWUN). The announcement resulted from an Aug. 25 incident in Yemen where the soldier was supporting Operation Inherent Resolve.

Staff Sgt. Emil Rivera-Lopez is listed as DUSTWUN from the Aug. 25 incident. The incident is under investigation.

WCRB reports that Marine Corporal Henry Andregg will come home after 75 years from Betio Island. He was assigned to Company C, 2nd Amphibious Tractor Btn, 2nd Marine Division before he fell in the first wave of Marines to assault the Japanese defenses on that island.

He was posthumously awarded the Purple Heart, and was memorialized as one of the missing Marines from the Battle of Tarawa at The Honolulu Memorial National Cemetery of the Pacific.

Funeral services will be held in at The Reed Funeral Home on Friday, August 25, 2017 at 10:00 am CDT. Cpl. Andregg will be escorted by 1st Sergeant William Conner, of Battery M, 3rd Btn, 14th Marine Division Burial will follow at Chattanooga National Cemetery with full military honors provided.

The family will receive friends on Thursday, August 24, from 3:00 until 7:00 pm CDT. Online condolences can be made at www.reedfamilyfh.com

The family has asked that in lieu of flowers, donations be made to the Sequatchie Valley Honor Guard, P.O. Box 786, Jasper, TN, 37347

Hondo told us that he’d been identified last Spring.

According to Stars & Stripes, Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam has ordered flags there lowered to half-staff on Friday to honor Corporal Andregg’s “ultimate sacrifice”.

Back in June, Hondo told us that Sergeant Max Harris’ earthly remains had been identified after he was recovered from North Korea, The Journal & Courier reports that he’s expected to return home to Monticello, Indiana this week.

According to Hondo, he was assigned to L Company, 3rd Battalion, 31st Infantry Regiment, 7th Infantry Division, US Army, and he was lost in North Korea on 12 December 1950;

[Patsy] McCall hadn’t seen her brother, who was nine years older than she was, since he left their Monticello home in the mid-‘40s to go to Lexington, Kentucky, to work as a jockey and eventually enlist in the U.S. Army. She was only 13 by 1951, the year the Army listed that Harris had died, his body unaccounted for, as a prisoner behind North Korean lines.

“I didn’t let it go,” McCall said. “It was always in your mind that maybe someday he will return – that he could be in a prison camp or something. I don’t know, but you hope. I thought, you know, one day, he may return – one way or another.”

Late Friday night, McCall will surround herself with her sons and some extended family to wait for a military procession, flanked by motorcycles of the Indiana Patriot Guard Riders, carrying her brother’s remains nearly 66 years after he was declared dead.

On Sunday, after a noon visitation and 2 p.m. funeral at Springer-Voorhis-Draper Funeral Home, 202 S. Illinois St., Max Harris will be buried next to his mother, Lela Harris Skaggs, in Riverview Cemetery near Monticello.

“I’ve just been so happy ever since they came to tell me they’d found Max,” McCall said. “All my family is gone, only except for me. I said that God must have left me here for a reason. And this has to be the reason – to put him with my mom.”

The Department of Defense reports that Staff Sergeant Aaron R. Butler was killed in an IED explosion while he was battling ISIS in Afghanistan this week;

The Department of Defense announced [yesterday] the death of a soldier who was supporting Operation Freedom’s Sentinel.

Staff Sgt. Aaron R. Butler, 27, of Monticello, Utah, died Aug. 16 in Nangarhar Province, Afghanistan, of injuries suffered from an improvised explosive device while conducting combat operations. The incident is under investigation.

Butler was assigned to the 19th Special Forces Group (Airborne), Camp Williams, Utah.