WWII Veteran Lost His Greatest Love Again

WWII Veteran Mourns Death of Girlfriend He Reunited With 70 Years After War
BY TRIBUNE MEDIA WIRE
DECEMBER 16, 2016

Over the last year, each step of the amazing love story between a Virginia Beach veteran, Norwood Thomas, and his girlfriend from World War II, Joyce Durrant, has been chronicled by KTLA sister station WTVR in Richmond.

The latest update is not a happy one, however. Exactly one week ago Friday, Durrant died.

"Joyce was my first great love," Thomas said through tears. "When we reunited, the old feelings rejuvenated. I had a wonderful trip to Australia and was looking forward to another one, but it didn't happen."

Durrant's death comes a little more than a year after Thomas and Durrant reconnected on Skype. According to Durrant's son, she suffered a heart attack in November. Although across the world in Australia, Thomas did whatever he could to make sure he was still by Durrant's side.
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WWII Veteran Played National Anthem on Pearl Harbor Anniversary

WW2 veteran wows crowd as he delivers national anthem on harmonica
97-Year-Old Veteran Plays Amazing Version Of The National Anthem [VIDEO]
CBS News
December 8, 2016

Wednesday was the 75th anniversary of the attacks on Pearl Harbor, which marked the beginning of World War II. A heavy military presence was on hand for both days of the event, which was held at Bloch Arena on Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam.

“It’s great because being here is a pleasure,” Delgado said. “Not everybody can be here, playing in front of people that will die for you. That’s really something. It’s really special to have this opportunity.”

Peter Dupre, a 97-year old World War II veteran who served a medic treating the wounded at the Battle of the Bulge, performed the national anthem on harmonica.

"God Speed John Glenn"

John Glenn, American hero, aviation icon and former U.S. senator, dies at 95
Columbus Dispatch
Joe Hallett
December 8, 2016

Glenn recalled "many teary departures and reunions" at the airport's original terminal on Fifth Avenue during his time as a military aviator during World War II. He and his wife Annie, who had been married 73 years, later kept a small Beechcraft plane at Lane Aviation on the airport grounds for many years, and he only gave up flying his own plane at age 90.

His legend is other-worldly and now, in his 95th year, that’s where John Glenn has gone.

An authentic hero and genuine American icon, Glenn died this afternoon surrounded by family at the Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center in Columbus after a remarkably healthy life spent almost from the cradle with Annie, his beloved wife of 73 years, who survives.

He, along with fellow aviators Orville and Wilbur Wright and moon-walker Neil Armstrong, truly made Ohio first in flight.
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WWII Female Marine "Determined not to stay behind"

Boston honors female WWII marine
Veteran cited as inspiration
Boston Herald
Dan Atkinson
November 25, 2016

Family portrait of World War II veteran Elizabeth Mackay Howden Denekamp

In 1943, Betty Denekamp watched the men of West Roxbury going off to war, and was determined not to stay behind.

Denekamp joined the United States Marine Corps Women’s Reserve, and more than 70 years later, friends and family are going to see her service permanently commemorated outside the house she lived in nearly all of her life.

“That was the thing I always admired about her, she couldn’t hang around doing nothing,” said Edwin “Bud” Waite, a fellow World War II veteran and longtime friend of Denekamp who led the charge to memorialize her. “She had to do something.”

Her daughter Linda Denekamp said, “I thought it was so outstanding that a woman in those times would leave home at her age and go off and join the Marines. Everyone said the Marines were the best and that’s what she wanted to be.”
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92-year-old World War II Navy Veteran Transportation Company

Blind veteran says he was left stranded by MARTA
FOX 26 
By: Portia Bruner 
POSTED:NOV 18 2016

“Patients were coming in after my appointment was over. Then they would be on their way out and ask why I was still there. I told them I was still waiting. They were supposed to pick me up at 2:30. They didn’t get there until 6:30. That was a long time," Litttle said.

ATLANTA - John Little is happy to boast that driving is the only thing he can’t do. Despite being legally blind, the 92-year-old World War II Navy Veteran takes a lot of pride in living own in Hapeville.

He doesn’t like to bother his loved ones for a ride, so he relies on MARTA Mobility to get back and forth to his doctor's office in Tucker. But Little told FOX's 5 Portia Bruner, MARTA left him stranded for four hours at the doctor's officer on Thursday.
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Generations of Veterans Gather to say "No regrets, despite their traumas"

On Veterans Day, from World War II to Iraq, vets say: No regrets, despite their traumas
Seattle Times
Erik Lacitis
Originally published November 11, 2016

Military veterans, from left: Angel Gonzalez, Scot Pondelick, Tommy Darnell, Alicia Johnson, Notrip Ticey III and, seated, Merle “Bob” Clapper at the Veterans Resource Center at Clover Park Technical College in Lakewood.
(Steve Ringman/The Seattle Times)

They are six veterans of our various wars. Some saw combat, some not.

They sat together recently at the Veterans Resource Center at Clover Park Technical College in Lakewood. And even though some had met for the first time, there was an easy camaraderie.

They told of their most vivid experiences in the military — the kind that come back in the middle of the night — and some told how the Fourth of July is always a rough day for them.

Some told of the smell of war. You never forget it. They gave advice to those thinking about joining the military.
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Veteran of WWII and Korean War Proves PTSD is Not New

A veteran's life of triumph and tragedy
WUSE 9 News
Bruce Leshan
November 4, 2016

Next Thursday, the French Embassy will give Col. Gabriel one of its highest honors: a French knighthood, the Chevalier of the Legion of Honor.

ALEXANDRIA, VA (WUSA9) - On Veterans Day next week, Colonel Arnald Gabriel will be just where he's been for decades: conducting a symphony and remembering lost comrades.

In his 91 years, the Army and Air Force vet has seen several lifetimes worth of triumph and tragedy.

He is one of the few vets left to remember what it was like to land on the beaches of Normandy in that first wave on D-Day.

He didn’t think he would survive.

“Gosh no,” he said. “Scared to death.”

Gabriel was a 19-year-old machine gunner. He said there are no words or movie that can give any of us a sense of chaos.

“If you watch Private Ryan and multiply it by 100, maybe that will come close to what the carnage was really like,” he said.

He marched across Europe to Germany with his two buddies, Harry Ashoff and Johnny Arrowsmith. On Jan. 9, 1945, a German shell hit the trench where they were sheltering.

“Those two buddies will remain with me forever,” he said, his voice breaking.

In a book just out, The Force of Destiny, Gabriel's son describes how he returned home and buried himself in work to deal with the mental anguish now called post-traumatic stress disorder.

When the Korean War broke out, Gabriel volunteered again. This time as a conductor for the Air Force Band. And for 34 years, Gabriel was a military band director. He played with some of the biggest stars of the day.

“Shirley Temple, Edward G Robinson, Peter Graves,” Gabriel said.
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WWII Veteran Gets Birthday Bash on USS Iowa

Pearl Harbor veteran gets a 99th birthday party thrown for him on-board the Battleship Iowa
DAILY MAIL
By DAILYMAIL.COM REPORTER
25 October 2016

Ernest Thompson lives in Gardena, California, just a few miles from the Battleship Iowa Museum
The WWII veteran can no longer visit though due to health reasons
On October 26 he will turn 99, so on Sunday there was a birthday party
USS Iowa honored him by throwing a large gathering and barbecue

Special moment: World War II veteran Ernest Thompson celebrated his 99th birthday on Sunday with a party thrown for him the Battleship Iowa Museum

A Second World War veteran who was aboard the USS Missouri during Pearl Harbor has received a very special birthday party on-board a battleship.

Ernest Thompson lives just a few miles from the Battleship Iowa Museum in Gardena, California.

The veteran can no longer visit however due to health reasons and some problems with walking.

But he made a special journey to the ship on Sunday so that staff could a throw him a large party with his closest family, friends and chief selects for his 99th birthday.
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Iowa Veterans Get New Veterans Affairs Office

World War II vet overwhelmed by new VA facility
KMTV News
Joe Cadotte
Sep 23, 2016

The new Pottawattamie County Veteran Affairs Office has nearly four times more space than the old office, which operated out of an old church for more than 50 years.

After more than 10 years of hard work and half a million dollars in donations, Pottawattamie County has a new veteran affairs office.

It’s an emotional day for Iowa combat veterans.

"It's a special day,” said World War II Army Combat Veteran David Appel. “It's good to know we aren't forgotten."

Seventy-one years and three months since Appel came back from fighting three years in the Pacific Theater of World War II, he stood in a building built for veterans like him, made possible by donations from his community.

"I appreciate you doing all this for us regardless of which war you were in,” Appel said. “One war is not any more important than another. It's something that had to be done."
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First All Female Veteran Honor Flight Brings Women Together

First all-women Veterans’ Honor Flight from Columbus visits D.C. war memorials
Department Veterans Affairs
Jennifer Sardam
September 21, 2016

“Most times, women were not wanted overseas unless you had a nurse’s degree, and you could take care [of] or nurture the men that were injured,” said Dorothy “Dottie” Wolfe, who served in the Marine Corps, Marine Corps Reserve and Air National Guard. “But I served, and I was proud to have served. I would have gone had they sent me, under any situation. That’s what you signed the contract for, and I knew it.”

Honor Flights from across the country bring Veterans to Washington, D.C., several times a week.

But Sept. 10, the Honor Flight Columbus organization out of Ohio sent the group’s first all-women Veterans’ Honor Flight to the nation’s capital. While there, 81 women—Veterans of World War II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War—visited their respective monuments.

The trip to Washington kicked off with a hosted event at the Women in Military Service for America (WIMSA) Memorial at Arlington National Cemetery, and included stops at a number of sites: the Iwo Jima Memorial, the U.S. Air Force Memorial and the memorials for World War II, and the Korean and Vietnam Wars.

Retired Air Force Brig. Gen. Wilma L. Vaught—one of the most decorated women in U.S. military history—was among those who greeted the group at the WIMSA Memorial; in 1966, she was also the first woman to deploy with an Air Force bomber wing.

“It means so much to see this group of women come in and see what the memorial means to them, because it does mean something to them,” said Vaught. “It is seeing their service to our country paid tribute to by the nation. And yet with it all, there comes laughter and joy, and that’s the way it ought to be about serving our country.”

As the pioneers of their times, these women blazed a path that until then was only traveled for men. And yet despite their contributions, they weren’t so readily accepted as equals.

“My career field was supposed to be aerospace jet mechanic,” said retired Air Force Veteran Phyllis Collins, who goes by the nickname “Sunshine.”

“And the guys didn’t like me there … I was supposed to be working on a dead battery. They hooked it up, and I got zapped,” she said. “So I changed my career field real fast. I became a military cop.”
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WWII Veteran Swindled Out of Money Finds Hope From Real Friends

WWII veteran has new hope after losing almost everything
KOB 4 News
Brittany Costello
September 16, 2016

Hundreds of thousands of dollars gone, two savings accounts drained. Now a World War Two Veteran is just trying to get by after he said he was scammed out of all that money by his two so-called caretakers.

It's a story we first brought you in July: Caregivers accused of scamming 95-year-old Santa Fe man. But, Friday, Sept. 16, KOB sat down with 95-year-old Dennis Ferk, who has had to make some huge changes, including selling his home.

He is a former army sergeant who was awarded three Purple Hearts, two Bronze Stars and two presidential citations for his service.

But now, he’s fighting a much different battle. He spends most days trying get his finances back in order. He said at first, the two helped with yard and house work, and then took over his finances.

“I thought they were my friends but what they were after was taking care of themselves,” said Ferk.

He said over two years they took around $340,000 of his money. Money that was set aside, not for vacations or shopping sprees, but to care for his disabled daughter whose brain never fully developed.
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Veteran Drafted For WWII, Almost Lost Home to Foreclosure at 91

Heslam: Vets step in to save house of fellow soldier
Boston Herald
Jessica Heslam
September 14, 2016

“We were outraged,” said Dennis Moschella, a Vietnam veteran and president of VAV. “Guys like Mr. Bazin should be living free. He shouldn’t have a bill in the world. And all these young military people coming up should have health care forever.”

Credit: Patrick Whittemore ‘THERE’S NO PLACE LIKE HOME’: Army veteran Herman Bazin, who served in World War II, had his house in foreclosure before a veterans’ organization stepped in to help.

Herman Bazin served his country above and beyond the call of duty. The Army drafted the Lawrence teen during World War II right after he graduated from high school. He rode a tank in the Battle of the Bulge and saw the atrocities of the Dachau concentration camp after it was liberated.

A few months ago, Bazin, now 91, nearly lost his beloved house after he got behind on mortgage payments and went into foreclosure. Numerous veterans’ organizations couldn’t help because he didn’t meet their “criteria” and the VA offered to move him into a housing complex, but Bazin wanted to stay put.

“It’s my little nest. It’s home. It’s my security,” Bazin told me during a recent visit to his Lawrence house. “Everybody likes their independence. I go to bed when I feel like it.”

Veterans Assisting Veterans stepped in and gave Bazin the $5,000 he needed to get his house temporarily out of 
foreclosure.
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317 Florida Veterans Get Medals in Bradenton

Governor presents awards to 317 veterans in Bradenton
Bradenton Herald
James A Jones Jr.
August 25, 2016

William Thompson, 91, and Ned Teves, 82, came through the award line together. Thompson served in the South Pacific during World War II, while Teves served as an Army doctor in a military hospital in Japan during the Vietnam War.

Teves said he had been a recent immigrant from the Philippines and not yet a citizen when he was drafted into the Army.

He called his draft notice a “love letter” from the U.S. government.

Teves, like other vets from the Vietnam War era, welcomed the appreciation expressed for their service in recent years.

BRADENTON
Rick Scott had already presented Governor’s Veterans Service Awards to more than 300 veterans on Thursday when he spotted Jackson Carson, 86, sitting at the back of the room.

The Bradenton National Guard Armory had just about emptied out, and Carson seemed unable to come forward to be recognized.

The governor walked back to Carson with Major Gen. Michael Calhoun, Florida’s adjutant general, at his side. Scott placed the award around Carson’s neck, thanked him for his service and asked him when he served.
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WWII Navy Veteran Gets Anchors Aweigh Tribute Sitting on Porch

Tribute to WWII Veteran Goes Viral When Group Sings 'Anchors Aweigh' at His Doorstep
ABC News
By ELIZA MURPHY
Aug 24, 2016,

When one WWII veteran could no longer visit his local battleship to relish in stories of his days at sea, a special group brought the memories of his Navy days right to his doorstep.

Ernest Thompson, of Gardena, California, got the surprise of a lifetime when the Chief Selects of the Fleet Anti-Submarine Warfare Training Center showed up on his neighborhood street to serenade him with “Anchors Aweigh.”

The unsuspecting Thompson, 98, stood on his front porch in salute.

“Neighbors came out of their houses to witness a once in a lifetime experience. My grandfather told me that it was one of the best days of his life!” Thompson’s grandson, Jonathan Williams, wrote in a Facebook post explaining the story behind the video, which has now gone viral with nearly five million views.
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Veteran of 3 Wars, Abandoned By Family, Buried By Bonds of Love

Military "Family" Buries Veteran Local Family Won't Claim
KCEN
Rissa Shaw
July 27, 2016

Bundy served in the Army from 1942-1963, seeing combat in both World War II and the Korean War, and was active duty during Vietnam before retiring from Fort Hood as a Sergeant. Officials said he served honorably and would receive full military honors.

KILLEEN - His family wouldn't claim him, but the military did.

On Monday, a local veteran who fought for our freedom through three wars, was laid to rest in Killeen.

While Walter Scott Bundy Junior's living family members didn't show up to his burial service at the Central Texas State Veterans Cemetery, many did to show support for the man they said was their 'brother' in every sense of the word.

"They have a home, they have a family," said Eric Brown, Deputy Director of the Texas State Veterans Cemeteries.

Many who attended the ceremony saluted Bundy, laid their hands on his urn, even gave money to the man they'd never met.

"No one is ever forgotten, they're lost but never forgotten," said Army Staff Sgt. Christopher DeRouen.

Dozens of soldiers, past and present, came to Killeen to honor one of their own who died without a family of his own.
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WWII Veteran Banged Up During Ride to VA

90-year-old Veteran injured in Medicaid funded wheelchair van ride
I-Team: Transport company has troubling past
ABC Action News
Adam Walser
July 21, 2016

“His arm was bloodied and he had a lump on his head from a blow to the head,” said Schaer. “My father's on blood thinners, so I know a blow to the head like that could kill him.”

NEW PORT RICHEY, Fla. - Blood, a bump on the head and dehydration were the result of a wheel chair van ride Vernon Johnson recently took home from his doctor's appointment.

Your tax dollars paid for that ride, but the company that gave it has had other trouble in the past.

In 90 years Jacobson has had plenty of close calls , starting with D-Day.

As a young Coast Guardsman, he drove troops to shore on a barge.

But it’s his latest close call that had the potential to do the most damage.

“The wheels must have left the ground,” he said, describing the wild ride.
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The Not So Famous Yet Iwo Jima Marine Harold Schultz

Man in Iwo Jima Flag Photo Was Misidentified, Marine Corps Says
New York Times
By MICHAEL S. SCHMIDT
JUNE 23, 2016

“I said, ‘My gosh, Harold, you’re a hero.’ He said, ‘No, I was a Marine.’”
Dezreen MacDowell

A Marine Corps inquiry found that Harold Schultz, above, was one of the six men in the photograph of the flag raising on Iwo Jima. And it determined that a Navy hospital corpsman, John Bradley, was not in the image. Credit The Smithsonian Channel

WASHINGTON — An internal investigation by the Marine Corps has concluded that for more than 70 years it wrongly identified one of the men in the iconic photograph of the flag being raised over Iwo Jima during one of the bloodiest battles of World War II.

The inquiry found that a private first class named Harold Schultz was one of the six men in the Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph. And it determined that a Navy hospital corpsman, John Bradley, whose son wrote a best-selling book about his father’s role in the flag-raising that was made into a movie directed by Clint Eastwood, was not actually in the image.

Why Mr. Schultz apparently never disclosed that he was in the famous picture remains a mystery.

Many Marines who had fought on Iwo Jima suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder, but little was known about the condition at the time. To cope, many Marines simply never talked about their military experience.
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Mustard gas test subjects denied veteran benefits

McCaskill: Mustard gas test subjects denied veteran benefits
Stars and Stripes
Travis J Tritten
May 31, 2016

WASHINGTON — The military has acknowledged for decades it performed secret mustard gas tests on troops at the end of World War II but a Senate investigation released Tuesday found 90 percent of related benefit claims have been rejected by the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., said she discovered shortfalls in the benefits process that took her breath away during a yearlong investigation into treatment of the test victims. The release of her findings is accompanied by a new bill – named after an 89-year-old former soldier from Missouri – that fast-tracks VA benefits for possibly hundreds of survivors.

About 60,000 servicemembers were exposed to mustard gas and another chemical agent called Lewisite as part of a clandestine defense research program in the 1940s. Of those servicemembers, about 4,000 had their entire bodies exposed to the chemical weapons. Mustard gas and Lewisite burn the skin and lungs, are linked to a variety of serious health problems and have been banned by the international community.

McCaskill said she believes about 400 of the veterans could still be alive and eligible for benefits.
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WWII Veteran's Family Wins Settlement After Being Shot By Police Beanbag

Family Agrees to $1.1M Settlement in WWII Veteran's Death
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
MARKHAM, Ill.
May 24, 2016

Court documents show relatives of a 95-year-old World War II veteran who died after being shot with a beanbag gun by a police officer, who was trying to disarm him, have agreed to a $1.1 million wrongful death settlement.

Park Forest Police Officer Craig Taylor responded in July 2013 after an assisted-living facility staff member reported John Wrana Jr. had become combative. Wrana was shot five times with the beanbag gun before he dropped the knife he was wielding. He died hours later of internal bleeding.

Sharon Mangerson, Wrana's stepdaughter and executor of his estate, had filed a $5 million wrongful death lawsuit in 2014 alleging, among other things, that Wrana's civil rights were violated.

Park Forest recently agreed to a $1.1 million settlement, with $800,000 covering legal fees and costs and the rest going to family members.
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WWII Veteran's Headstone Found in Trash Pile Under Overpass

World War II veteran headstone found in trash and moved to cemetery
ABC 10 News KXTV
Frances Wang
May 24, 2016

SACRAMENTO, Calif. - A Facebook post sparked outrage when it showed a World War II veteran's tombstone laying underneath a Stockton overpass, among trash left behind by transients. 

Khris Cook, a war veteran himself, heard about the tombstone from his wife who saw the post. Like many of the others who commented, he was upset seeing it left behind like trash. "I couldn't see something like that, laying here, getting disgraced, broken up, graffitied," said Cook. 

"It's very disrespectful." Cook came down to pick it up himself. He dropped it off at the American Legion Ed Stewart Post 803, a place he felt it would be safe. read more here