Despite the airwaves being dominated by news of the pandemic, I hope that people everywhere remember that 2020 is the 75th anniversary of another global event—the end of World War Two. I like to think that with so many efforts underway to memorialize the events, battles, and the people who served that it would be impossible to escape knowing the significance of 2020. I am … Continue reading One of 400,000
Am I the only one to notice? It seems I cannot scroll through another Facebook news, or Twitter feed, or Youtube channel without seeing a post or video of a 100-year-old WWII veteran celebrating life. I thought, in these dire times engendered by the coronavirus, it might be worth highlighting a few of these remarkable people. Each and every one has an inspirational and uplifting … Continue reading At the Century Mark
Part 2 As promised, this is a follow up to my February 20 blog post, “Recognized in a SOTU, Then What?” in which I wrote about individuals with military affiliations who have been recognized during a state of the union address. Today, I’ll note the handful of women recognized for their lives as wives of military figures and as citizens who made a difference in … Continue reading Recognized in a SOTU: Military Wives
Videos of soldiers arriving home unexpectedly to surprise their families are popular on the internet. I confess, I never tire of watching them. A recent example was during the most recent State of the Union address when the President recognized the sacrifice members of our military make by surprising Amy Williams and her two children with a visit from their father, Sergeant Townsend Williams. It’s … Continue reading The Singular Life of a Military Family
PART 1 Last week in his State of the Union (SOTU) address, President Trump recognized a number of “ordinary citizens” in the gallery, continuing the practice begun by President Reagan in 1982. This year the group included four members and veterans of the military or their families: Tony Rankins who served in the US Army in Afghanistan, suffered from PTSD and drug addiction but who … Continue reading Recognized in a SOTU, Then What?
Just over one thousand men. That’s how many veterans the Veterans Administration estimates still remain of the 72,000 who served in World War II, Korea, and Vietnam, according to an article by the Panama Herald in May 2019. One of the three-war-veterans was one-hundred-year-old US Air Force Col. Charles McGee (pictured above) who helped toss the coin for the 54th Super Bowl (and 100th NFL season) in … Continue reading The Three-War Survivor’s League
Despite a desire to serve their country in any capacity they could, at the start of the Second World War the military was reluctant to allow blacks to enlist. If they did enlist local draft boards often passed blacks over in favor of white recruits, resulting in fewer than 4,000 black troops and a mere dozen black officers in the ranks in late 1941. Eventually, … Continue reading The King and the War
75 years after the war ended my hometown unveiled a memorial to World War II veterans, and veterans of all wars. On the anniversary of D-Day a crowd (yes, a crowd) in relatively tiny Cumming, Georgia braved the near-winter breezes and just a sprinkling of sun to view the ceremony outside city hall on 100 Main Street. Perhaps fittingly, for today’s generation, the sculpture recognized … Continue reading WWII on Main Street
Sometimes an author’s research takes her to a place she’d rather not go. Still to ensure a book, a story, an article, or a blog post rings true, authors must delve deep behind the scenes, no matter how squeamish the subject matter. As what I call a natural born researcher, I love to dig for the little details that bring a scene to life. For … Continue reading Research for Authors
Historians have traced the origin of dog tags to ancient times. Roman Legionnaires wore a lead emblem bearing their name on a rope they tied around their necks. The Chinese used them in the mid 1800s and the Prussians in the Franco Prussian War in the 1870s. But in America, Civil War soldiers resorted to writing their names on scraps of paper they carried in … Continue reading On Veterans Day: Keepsakes
