desktop1.jpg, www.ucf.edu*************************************************************************************************************
LEST WE FORGET
*************************************************************************************************************
WALTER LEE HARLINE, SR.
Born: Feb.11, 1944, Buchanan, Michigan.
Died: Dec. 12, 2008, Reed City, Michigan.
Funeral: Dec. 15, 2008 at Hitesman-Holdship Funeral Home, Cadillac, Michigan.
Clergy presiding: Reverend Robert Kahly
Interment: Burdell Township Cemetery, Tustin, Michigan.
Served in the Military for 22 years, career in U.S. Air Force and U.S. Navy.
********************
DAVID W. BULL
Born: January 24, 1930 in Reed City
Died: December 13, 2008 at home in Hersey
Funeral: Dec. 17, 2008 at Pruitt-Livingston Funeral Home, Reed City
Clergy officiating: Rev. Dawn Pooley
Interment: Oakdale Cemetery, Hersey
Served in U.S. Army during Korean Conflict; was a member of VFW Post 2964 in Reed City.
********************
ANDREW FRANK GINN
Born: August 24, 1940 in Hamiota, Manitoba, Canada.
Died: December 15, 2008 at home in Traverse City.
Funeral: Dec.18, 2008 at Reynolds-Jonkoff Funeral Home, Traverse City.
Service: Before becoming an American citizen, Andrew served in the
Royal Canadian Air Force.
************************************************************************************************************
Notice seen at Wexford County Recreational Center this past week:
” WELCOME HOME SGT. CRAIG NELSON, CPL. CORRY SESSON,
PFC. JOHN RECCA AND SOLDIERS OF THE 126TH.”
************************************************************************************************************
memo of 12/18/08, re: Educational Benefits
CLICK HERE to Get YOUR FREE Education Benefits Guide!
Get your FREE Education Benefits Guide and find Military-Friendly Schools. Our FREE GUIDE could help you understand your education BENEFITS.
***********************************************************************************************************
national wwii memorial, By Warszawianka on Flickr
www.flickr.com
Traverse City Record-Eagle
VETERANS RECALL BLOODY BATTLE OF THE BULGE
By CAROL SOUTH
Special to the Record-Eagle
Special to the Record-Eagle
TRAVERSE CITY — Area veterans of the Battle of the Bulge plan to gather for dinner tonight and recall an event that bonds them and transcends time.
The vets are in their 80s and 90s, but six decades ago they participated in the bloodiest battle of World War II and repelled a German offensive intended to split and then destroy the Allied armies on the Western Front.
The six-week campaign began Dec. 16, 1944, just six months after D-Day, when Allied forces carved their presence into European soil at Normandy.
Ten men from that Battle of the Bulge and their wives will meet at the Firefly Restaurant in Traverse City. It’s not so much a celebration as an acknowledgement of links forged in battle and a nod to those who did not survive.
“Most of the six weeks of that battle was an old-fashioned infantry battle and, as the statistics show, a costly battle: we lost 20,000 men and another 80,000 wounded or captured,” said veteran Jim Wibby, of Traverse City.
Richard Rizzio, of Interlochen, turned 20 years old during the Battle of the Bulge. He served as a radio operator in the 274th Armored Field Artillery Battalion, one of 600,000 American soldiers in infantry and armory battalions in the 1st and 3rd Armies of the United States.
The Americans and Allied forces ferociously fought German soldiers to hold the line along an extended front that ran through France, Belgium and Luxembourg.
“On Christmas Day 1944 we fired over 1,600 rounds in one day,” Rizzio said. “It was one of the most severe winters in history.”
Battle of the Bulge survivors are connected not only by their generation’s shared experiences, but also from participating in that intensely pivotal time. The hard-fought triumph in the forests, crossroads and villages along the front helped launch the drive into Germany that spurred the European war’s end by the following May.
“Once the German attack was contained that was really the end of it. It just took a couple of months to cover the ground and meet up with the Russians,” said Wibby, a rifleman in the infantry. “That’s not negating D-Day or any other battles, but I think the historians generally consider the Battle of the Bulge to be the key turning point in the war.”
It matters little that local survivors served in different units during the famous battle; chapter members have a powerful connection to one another, even a lifetime later.
“You got very close, you know that you’re in it for the same reason: you have a job and you’re going to do it,” Rizzio said. “A band of brothers; that’s exactly what it was.”
World War II veterans are dying at an estimated rate of 1,000 a day, and numbers in Michigan’s only chapter of the Veterans of the Battle of the Bulge also have fallen. West Michigan Chapter XXIII is down from 30-35 members to about 10 who participate in monthly meetings, a summer picnic, parades and the annual anniversary get-togethers.
Some members of the group, including Rizzio and Wibby, speak to area upper elementary and middle school students. For the past four or five years, the retired salesman and banker, respectively, have visited classrooms to describe their experiences and answer questions about the Battle of the Bulge.
Rizzio, who wrote a brief memoir for his family, makes the effort despite having post-traumatic stress syndrome that temporarily halts his speech and bring tears to his eyes.
“We talk to keep the generation today aware of what happened, not let it die,” he said. “It was a turning point for our country.”
***********************************************************************************************************
 cole.jpg, gautier-ms.gov |
 navy205.jpg,www.remember.gov |
Friday, Dec. 19, 2008
USS Cole bombing suspect to be arraigned at Gitmo
Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri faces a possible death sentence if convicted on charges related to the attack on the Navy destroyer that killed 17 U.S. sailors in the Yemeni port of Aden, said Navy Cmdr. Jeffrey Gordon, a Pentagon spokesman.
Charges including murder, treachery and terrorism were formally approved by a Pentagon official, Susan Crawford, triggering a 30-day clock for al-Nashiri’s first appearance before a U.S. military commission at the Guantanamo Bay Navy base.
Al-Nashiri’s Pentagon-appointed attorney, Navy Lt. Cmdr. Stephen Reyes, called the timing “suspect” because President-elect Barack Obama, who takes office Jan. 20, has criticized the commissions and vowed to close the detention center.
Michael Ratner, president of the New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights, called the arraignment a “last gasp” for the prison in southeast Cuba.
“It’s an effort to try and lock the Obama administration in,” he said. “It’s political grandstanding of the worst sort because there are human beings involved.”
Gordon defended the Pentagon’s timing, saying hundreds of military commission hearings have been held at Guantanamo since 2004. He said the arraignment has not been scheduled.
“The commissions will continue until we are told otherwise,” Gordon said.
Al-Nashiri, a Saudi of Yemeni descent, has been imprisoned at Guantanamo since 2006. He is one of three terrorist suspects that the CIA has said it subjected to waterboarding in secret overseas prisons.
In addition to his alleged role in the Cole bombing, he is accused of involvement in an October 2002 suicide attack on a French oil tanker that killed a Bulgarian crew member and spilled 90,000 barrels of oil into the Gulf of Aden.
The Pentagon also announced that it has dismissed pending charges against another detainee, Abdul Ghani, who is accused of firing rockets at a coalition military base in Afghanistan in 2001 and 2002. The charges were dropped without prejudice and no explanation was provided.
Also Friday, Gordon rejected allegations that Guantanamo officials abused one of the first detainees ordered freed by a U.S. federal judge.
Mustafa Ait Idr told a private television station upon arriving in Bosnia this week that interrogators broke one of his fingers and that his captors desecrated the Quran, Islam’s holy book.
“The Department of Defense policy is clear,” Gordon said. “We treat all detainees humanely.”
The military prison at Guantanamo Bay opened in January 2002 and holds roughly 250 men on suspicion of links to terrorism, al-Qaida or the Taliban.
*********************************************************************************************************
Dec. 19, 2008
Cadillac News
ST. ANN STUDENTS PITCH IN TO HELP SOLDIERS
By Jeff Broddle
CADILLAC – They probably can’t sent a gift box to the soldiers in Iraq every day, the soldier’s mother told the students at St. Ann school, but there is something they can do.
“You can say a prayer,” Diane Hora told the first- and third-graders at St. Ann School Thursday.
The students responded to a request from Hora to send cards and gift boxes to her son and his fellow troops. Hora visited the school and shared photos of her son, Elton Lambert.
Lambert is in Diwaniyeh, Iraq, serving as military police. Lambert and his fellow soldiers go on patrol “outside the wire” for 12 hours a day, in stifling heat.
When they return to their forward operating base, they must secure their weapons and vehicles and often dig through care packages sent from home for food rather than risk drawing sniper fire during the three-mile walk to the mess hall. St. Ann students decided to help pitch in to send supplies and cards of support to the American soldiers.
The classes taking part were Mrs. Kecskes’ first-grade class and Mrs. Voice’s third-grade class.
Hora brought to class photos of the soldiers and passed them around, along with a helmet similar to the one her son would wear every day.
Hora gave the students a thumbnail history of the war and shared some of the amazing facts she had learned about the environment her son operates in, such as carrying up to 70 pounds of gear each day in temperatures that can reach a scorching 137 degrees.
But what made the biggest impression, drawing gasps and exclamations from the students, was the picture of the huge spiders that populate the desert and feed on the blood of camels.
The children sang “We Wish You a Merry Christmas,” which was caught on tape and will be sent to the soldiers on DVD for them to enjoy at a later date.
Hora thanked the students for their contributions.
“When you lay your head on your pillow tonight, I want you to go to sleep knowing you really did something to help the American soldier,” Hora said.
Following that, the students teamed up either to create cards of support for the troops or pack boxes to be sent overseas.
Mrs. Kecske said the activity fit in well with the theme for the school year, which is “Service.”
“We thought, who better to serve than the men and women who serve our country. We wanted to do something to make a difference for them,” she said.
—–
jbroddle@cadillacnews.com | 775-NEWS (6397)
———————————————————
JEFF BRODDLE | CADILLAC NEWS
Diane Hora holds up a photo of her son, Elton Lambert, in class at St. Ann School Thursday.
JEFF BRODDLE | CADILLAC NEWS
Students from Mrs. Kecskes’ first-grade class and Mrs. Voice’s third-grade class worked together to send cards and gifts overseas to troops in Iraq.
JEFF BRODDLE | CADILLAC NEWS
Third-grader Mary Erickson and first-grader Matthew Curtis wrap a present for a soldier.
JEFF BRODDLE | CADILLAC NEWS
Third-grader Tyler Lung makes a card to send overseas.
——————————————
How to help
The United States Postal Service is providing special boxes to send to the troops at APO or FPO addresses – boxes known as “America Supports You” boxes. A flat rate of $10.95 is charged to send them overseas, regardless of weight, up to 75 pounds. Restrictions apply; items that cannot be sent are obscene material, including photos of nude or semi-nude persons, non-authorized political materials, bulk quantities of religious materials contrary to the Islamic faith (items for the personal use of the addressee are permissible), and pork or pork by-products. The boxes are known as Priority Mail APO/FPO Flat Rate Boxes.
Send to:
Elton Lambert
FOB Echo
HHC 2nd. STB 2/4 ID
APO, AE. 09332
