{"id":19738,"date":"2010-07-15T09:38:25","date_gmt":"2010-07-15T13:38:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=19738"},"modified":"2010-07-15T10:15:51","modified_gmt":"2010-07-15T14:15:51","slug":"rip-vernon-j-baker","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=19738","title":{"rendered":"RIP Vernon J. Baker"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/07\/PH2010071405694.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-19740 aligncenter\" title=\"PH2010071405694\" src=\"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/07\/PH2010071405694.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"228\" height=\"504\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The Washington Post <a href=\"http:\/\/http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/wp-dyn\/content\/article\/2010\/07\/14\/AR2010071405693.html\">reports<\/a> that the sole liveing African American MOH recipient of WWII has left us.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>First Lt. Vernon J. Baker, 90, an Army infantryman who, more than 50 years after the end of World War II, became the only surviving African American to receive the Medal of Honor for his heroic actions during the war, died July 13 at his home near St. Maries, Idaho.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The article goes on to describe Lt. baker&#8217;s actions agaionst the Germans in Italy.\u00a0 It reads like something out of a movie:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Two hours after starting their mission on April 5, Lt. Baker and his men came within 300 yards of the castle. While attempting to find a suitable place for a machine gun, Lt. Baker observed two rifle barrels hanging out of a concealed slit in some rocky earth.<\/p>\n<p>After stealthily crawling to the opening, he popped up and emptied the clip of his M-1 rifle into the observation post, killing two sentries.<\/p>\n<p>While searching for more camouflaged emplacements, Lt. Baker spotted a machine-gun nest occupied by two soldiers distracted by their breakfast. He shot and killed them both.<\/p>\n<p>A German soldier then hurled a grenade that landed at Lt. Baker&#8217;s feet. Undeterred, he fired two fatal rounds at the fleeing German, while the grenade by Lt. Baker&#8217;s boots failed to explode.<\/p>\n<p>He found the door to another bunker and blasted it open with a grenade. A wounded German soldier stumbled out in confusion, and Lt. Baker shot him. After tossing in a second grenade, he raided the bunker with a submachine gun blazing, killing two more Germans.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Apparently, Baker spent 23 years in the Army and retired in 1968.\u00a0 My favorite part of the article was the end:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>He spent much of his later life hunting big game in Idaho. During one expedition, he discovered a mountain lion lurking behind him. After receiving his Medal of Honor, Lt. Baker was asked by Clinton what happened to the cougar.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Why, it&#8217;s in my freezer,&#8221; Lt. Baker said. &#8220;I&#8217;m going to eat him.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>BZ Lt.\u00a0 Rest In Peace<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Washington Post reports that the sole liveing African American MOH recipient of WWII has left &hellip; <a title=\"RIP Vernon J. Baker\" class=\"hm-read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=19738\"><span class=\"screen-reader-text\">RIP Vernon J. Baker<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":609,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[83,10,84,130,121],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19738","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-breaking-news","category-historical","category-military-issues","category-real-soldiers","category-war-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19738","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/609"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19738"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19738\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19738"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19738"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19738"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}