Vietnam
DPAA Brings Another Home
Spring of ’68 – phase 2 of the infamous Tet Offensive was still raging when in the A Shau Valley one of our choppers was shot down, crashed, and broke into two sections. The door gunner, Donald P. Gervais, was from Bravo Company, 1st Battalion, 9th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Cavalry Division. He was declared missing […]
Valor Friday
I wrote about Philip Conran a while back. He’s a personal hero of mine, and the efforts to get his Air Force Cross upgraded to a Medal of Honor continues. News broke a month or so ago that legislation was (again) introduced in Congress to that effect. Closer to home, Conran’s home county of Santa […]
Fun in the Air
Jeff LPH dropped this on on me – being a sloppy sentimentalist I just had to go with it. Joe Peterburs was a P-51 pilot in WWII who had a unique 100th birthday celebration last weekend. Lt. Joseph Peterburs of the U.S. Army Air Corps was barely 20 when he flew “Josephine” — named […]
“Napalm Girl” controversy
You would think that the provenance of a fifty-year old photo would have been laid to rest long since, especially if it was a photo which not only won a Pulitzer Prize but became the iconic face of civilian tragedy in war, wouldn’t you? Seems you would be mistaken. World Press Photo is claiming the […]
Valor Friday
When Captain Riley Pitts’ posthumous Medal of Honor was presented to his widow Eula Mae, President Lyndon Johnson said, What this man did in an hour of incredible courage will live in the story of America as long as America endures – as he will live in the hearts and memories of those who loved […]
CA Governor Pardons MOH Awardee for Drug Conviction
Sergeant Richard “Butch” Penry Gov. Newsom pardons Petaluma Vietnam War hero for drug offenses committed after returning home By John Ramos On Friday, California Gov. Gavin Newsom issued a posthumous pardon to a North Bay Vietnam War hero for drug offenses committed after returning home. The park overlooking downtown Petaluma is named for Richard Allen […]
Valor Friday
Harold Bascom Durham Jr was born 12 October 1942 in Rocky Mount, North Carolina. The city of his birth is deep in cotton and tobacco country, and was the site of a 1962 Martin Luther King Jr. speech where he used his “I have a dream” line a year before he delivered it on the […]
Valor Friday
I’ve been talking in this section a lot lately about Vietnam War POWs, and those who nearly became one. We’re also about two weeks away from the 52nd anniversary of the start of the repatriation of those POWs, so lets take a look back. In mid-February 1973, after all major American ground troop formations had […]
Recent Comments