This weekend lets not forget those who gave their all so we could live free today

Electronic Hospital is my YouTube channel.

Penn Central Shops

1 Like

Warning: Have a box of tissue ready before viewing. Highest regards mike endmrw0522261732

2 Likes


Remembering that Memorial Day started out as Decoration Day in 1868. This is my great grandfather’s grave. He was a surgeon in the Grand Army of the Republic during the Civil War.

2 Likes

What a great photo! Thank you for sharing.


My dad fought in the Pacific, thats him in the photo after stationed in Occupied Japan. He was a paratrooper when I asked him why he chose that he said because very simple they got $25 more a month..

1 Like

Speaking of great grandfathers: Mine immigrated from Germany and his parents, proud to be Americans allowed their 14 year old to be a drummer boy. He was taken captive at the Battle of Shiloh. As a youth, he escaped and ran home. A neighbor turned him in. He returned to POW camp. Learning his age the camp let him loose. My mother was into ancestry and had a copy of the bounty receipt. Would you believe, in those days, $25. Wow.
Then on the other hand. My father had a troubled family situation. To escape this he joined the Army to be stationed in Dutch Harbor, Alaska. After his tour was up, he was returning on a ship to Ft. Lewis Washington. The war broke out en-route. His ship turned around and he spent WW2 in the Aleutians Islands.
God Bless the USA. And never forget, some served, others gave their all. It is encouraging that some European citizens to the fourth generation STILL remember what the USA did for their freedom and honor that to this day. If anyone is interested research the “Wreath Eleven” regards to all mike endmrw0523261201

1 Like

Amaknak was on the cutting edge of Japanese strategy between 1942 and 1943, and I think only because the Battle of Midway went as it did there were no more invasion attempts in the Aleutians.

Did he have anything to do with recovering the Zero fighter?

1 Like

The photo was taken early April when my son and I were on a road trip in Ohio to see the house where my mom grew up and visit my maternal grandfather’s family plot where my maternal grandparents are buried. Before this visit, my great-grandparents were names in my baby book and subject of a few comments about family history. Walking around the graves and seeing the memorial for my great-great grandparents made their existence much more real.

My maternal grandfather served as a dentist in WW1, my dad and his brothers served in WW2 - though my dad’s deployment started Sep 3, 1945, so was involved with the post war clean-up and preparations for post war bomb testing on Bikini Atoll.

3 Likes

No, BUT

  1. My dad was from IL. along side him there were Arkansas Antiaircraft national guardsmen. Now we live in AR. with them.
  2. He was a movie projectionist, and served along side medical people.
  3. He told me long ago about the island held/evacuated by Japanese. Now this story is common knowledge. The FIRST special forces (US & Canadians) had as a mission to take back the island. Upon landing they found a dog and a boiling coffee pot. Escape of the Japanese was by submarine at high tide. endmrw0523261241
2 Likes

My father and his brother were of German descent, so when they enlisted they could choose either European or Pacific Theatre. My dad went to the Pacific since he did not want to possibly shoot a relative. His brother my uncle went to the Europe and fought all the way from Normandy to Germany.

My dad help liberate the Bataan prisoners and that’s is where his deep hate of the Japanese was formed.

1 Like

When you are young, time seems to drag. WWII was ancient history. I watched Midway on TV tonight and realized it was less than 5 years before I was born. The atomic bomb was dropped less than 2 years before I was born. Dad was still in the Army Air Force the year before I was born. Time no longer drags, it flies. Dad also had 2 sons that were veterans and 3 grandsons. When dad passed, the Offutt AFB Honor Guard gave the flag to dad’s grandson (who was in his Army uniform) and he passed it on to his grandmother. Dad was a photo technician with the atomic bomb group at Wendover, Tinian and Roswell. My wife and I have done the paperwork and will be buried at Keokuk National Cemetery which also has Union and Confederate veterans. It is close to remaining trackage of the Rock Island’s K&D which ran through the town I grew up in.

2 Likes

Was futzing around on the computer the other night - and for whatever the reason a name form Junior High School popped into my head - he was a neighbor and did not run with the friend circle I was in back in those days. Looked him up through Google - he stepped on a land mine in Viet Nam and was killed two days after I got married in 1969. RIP to an acquaintance that never got the opportunity to live to old age.

2 Likes

I find it very sad that today kids are not taught about the sacrifices that give them the freedom they have. I wish it was more like Europe where families get on a waiting list to take care of our soldiers graves and children try to find the families in the US and send them photos at the holidays showing “we take care of your loved one and will never forget the price they and your family paid for our freedom”.

1 Like

The Red Arrow wreck thread made me think of the wreck in September 1950, when the Spirit of St. Louis rear-ended a troop train taking members of the Pennsylvania National Guard to Camp Atterbury for training to serve in the Korean ‘police action’ as it was then. Many of those killed and injured were from the Wilkes-Barre area, about the same age as my father (who was halfway through P&S then). They deserve remembrance.

2 Likes

They do thanks for sharing

1 Like

I have at least two relatives who fought for the Union in the US Civil War, one on each side of my family tree. We have the one on my dad’s side’s (my 3x great grandfather’s) wartime diaries, and his fife is on display at Shiloh battlefield museum. (I think he lived until the early 1930s and wrote a more expansive history of his service around the early 1920’s)

My dad’s uncle Bud drove a truck on D-Day… supposedly he was supposed to be a tank driver during the landings, but was moved around after driving into an English town in the tank. He saw his best friend drown driving another truck during D-Day (they were told to gun the engine and hope it didn’t stall and sink as they couldn’t get close enough to land them directly on the shore), and the war messed him up real bad. He died long before I was born, sometime in the 1970s.

My grandmother’s brother Jack (on my mom’s side) served in Korea as a marine. He was at Chosin Reservoir and later guarded the peace talks. We’re still trying to locate his service records but the fire at the Records Center back in the day probably wiped 'em out. He never talked much about his service, but we heard snippets from time to time in passing. I met him lots of times during his life, and he died fairly recently. He was a very good man, a good friend, and I miss him a lot.

2 Likes

Joseph Ambrose, WWI by Edmund, on Flickr

Just one of many…

My dad served and was awarded a Purple Heart for taking some shrapnel in his shoulder. He survived, though!

John 1943 by Edmund, on Flickr

Regards, Ed

2 Likes

My father had a sister that was about 15 years younger than he was. She was of ‘dating age’ during WW II and lived at Round Bay, about 6 air miles from the dome of one of the buildings at the Naval Academy in Annapolis. Middies were restricted to 5 air miles from that dome. My Grandfather interceded with Naval Academy leadership to get the distance changed, I don’t know if he was successful or not..

In any event she ended up marrying a graduate from the University of Maryland who fought and was wounded in the Battle of the Bulge. He carried a metal plate in his head to his grave. Both my Aunt and Uncle passed on a number of years ago.

3 Likes

The youngest WW2 vets who joined after turning 18 will be turning 100 next year.

It’s been a pretty common theme of people who knew vet’s who saw combat to relate how they usually didn’t want talk about what they saw.

2 Likes

According to the VA there are only about 85 thousand WW II veterans still with us, we must never forget!

1 Like

It wasn’t that long ago (2 years??) that the estimate was 160,000 WW2 vets left. It’s weird to remember first getting into WW2 history reading about events that took place 20 years before and that reading took place over 60 years ago.

2 Likes