Police Confirm Body Pulled From River is Missing Veteran Adam Sharp

Remains pulled from river ID’d as missing Marine veteran, police say
New Jersey 101.5
By Toniann Antonelli
April 25, 2016

For months after his disappearance, those who knew Adam Sharp — the 23-year-old reported missing on New Year’s Eve — believed he was trying to avoid being found. Late last week, police confirmed what the family feared – the retired Marine has died.

Authorities have identified the human remains pulled from the Raritan River in Perth Amboy on April 10 as Adam Sharp. His sister, Katie Sharp, posted about the veteran’s death.

“I regret to inform everyone that my brother Adam has passed away. I love you so much Adam and I wish I could tell you again what you mean to me,” Sharp wrote in an emotional post late last week.

Adam’s mother, Trudy Sharp, told NJ Advance Media Monday that her son retired from the military about a year ago, after serving a tour of duty in Afghanistan. She said he suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder. Sharp told NJ Advance Media that Highland Park Police Detective Sean McGraw visited her personally to deliver the news about her son’s remains being found.
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Vietnam Veteran Remembers Nong Son Mountain

Vietnam Veteran Considered Guardian Angel 
Rutgers University 
By Robin Lally 
Monday, April 25, 2016

A War Memory

One incident of the war that will always be seared in Taylor’s memory: A lieutenant ordering the troops to fire on a low hill at the enemy. The round came in short, hit directly behind Taylor, killed his assistant gunner and wounded four others. A few months later, the same officer ordered Taylor to fire artillery through what he considered to be friendly villages. Taylor refused. “It was all about morality,” said Taylor who faced being court-martialed for disregarding the order of an officer and cancelling the mission. “It was something I knew I shouldn’t do and that’s all there was to it.”

Photo: Courtesy of Ray Taylor Ray Taylor in Vietnam in 1967.

“I found out many years later that if we hadn’t fired the artillery when we did nobody would have survived the attack,” said Taylor, who was with Bravo Company 1st Reconnaissance Battalion, 1st Marine Division. Of the 62 troops atop Nong Son, 43 were wounded, 13 were killed and only 12 – including Kuchar – could walk.

It was Ray Taylor’s last patrol in Vietnam, just before midnight on July 3, 1967. The 21-year-old Marine sergeant should have been sleeping, but he was going home in a couple of weeks and felt a little wired.

About a mile and a half away on top of the Nong Son Mountain – the site of the only active coal mine in Vietnam – Marine Corporal John Kuchar was asleep in his bunker when he became involved in the bloodiest battle of his 13-month tour.

Kuchar credits Taylor, a Rutgers University-Newark alumnus, for saving his life. Taylor is among the thousands of Rutgers graduates who have served – and sometimes died – in American military conflicts throughout the university’s nearly 250-year history. He has recorded his experiences as part of the Rutgers Oral History Archives, home to one of the nation’s largest collections of personal accounts.

“If it wasn’t for Ray, I wouldn’t be here,” said Kuchar, a Marine in the 2nd Battalion, 5th Marine Division, and a buddy for almost 50 years, who met Taylor in 1968 after the two had left Vietnam and enrolled in Union County College. “I’ll always consider him to be my guardian angel.”

Taylor, who graduated from Rutgers University-Newark in 1971 with a degree in economics, arrived in Vietnam on June 14, 1966 after serving one tour in Guantanamo Bay. His jobs ranged from a machine-gunner, scout and sniper, to commander of the recon platoon and liaison at the division headquarters.

On the night of the attack at the mine, Taylor and another Marine in his reconnaissance platoon were sitting on top of an observation hill located on the other side of the Song Thu Bon River. Recon’s job is to be the eyes and ears of larger units, to find the bad guys before sending in the infantry, and going on to their next patrol.
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Marine Vietnam Veterans Step Into 50 Year Old Looking Glass

Vietnam vet Marines recreate beach photo after 50 years
WFAA
Jacob Carpenter, Naples (Fla.) Daily News
April 25, 2016

Re-creating a moment from 1966:

Dennis Puleo, from left, Tom Hanks, Bob DeVenezia (kneeling), and Bob Falk met on Cinnamon Beach April 23, 2016, in Palm Coast, Fla.

(Photo: Luke Franke, Naples (Fla.) Daily News)

PALM COAST, Fla. — They wanted the picture to be just right, to look as close as possible to the one they'd taken together 50 years ago, back when their memories hadn't yet been clouded by the images of war.

So Saturday morning, on the sun-drenched Atlantic shore of Cinnamon Beach on Florida's northeast coast, four U.S. Marine veterans gathered around a yellow longboard turned upright, trying to re-create a moment from five decades earlier.

Bob Falk, 71, wearing a mirror-image blue-and-white striped shirt, leaned against the longboard's left side, resting his spare hand on his hip.

Dennis Puleo, 69, removed his shoes, revealing the feet scarred by shrapnel, and pulled off his shirt, flanking the longboard on the right, mugging a wide smile for the camera with his arms extended.

Tom Hanks (not that one), 69, stepped in front of the board and took in a long, deep breath, flexing his still-thick upper chest and sucking in his now-paunchy belly.

Finally, Bob DeVenezia, 70, crouched down in front of Hanks, resting his elbows on his knobby knees, feeling Hanks' hands placed on his back.
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DOD Thinking of Cutting Funding to Stars and Stripes?

If you read Wounded Times or follow on Google+ you are well aware of how many reports come from Stars and Stripes. Had the national press been interested in what is happening the way Stars and Strips does, then there would be no reason to be upset with the prospect of the DOD cutting funding of it. 

When I am in work on breaks or lunch, I check Stars and Stripes to see what is going on and then link to their reports so no one misses the news.  It is the first place I look when my time is limited because I know I'll find something worth sharing.  With the national news the way it is, all too often, they just don't seem to be able to even make time for our troops or our veterans.

Don’t rush to judgment on Stars and Stripes funding
Stars and Stripes
By Tobias Naegele
Stars and Stripes Ombudsman
Published: April 21, 2016

The Defense Department is considering a proposal to stop funding Stars and Stripes.

Such a cut would likely kill the newspaper. It must not be made in haste or in secret.

Stars and Stripes receives about $12 million a year in appropriated funding. That’s about 40 percent of its overall budget, according to Stars and Stripes Publisher Max Lederer, with the balance coming from advertising and circulation sales. Of the appropriated funds, $7 million comes from the regular defense budget and $5 million from overseas contingency operations funds — the war budget — mostly to pay for printing and distributing the paper downrange.

Some might argue the Pentagon would save money by shuttering Stripes and instead delivering a commercial newspaper to our troops overseas. But those papers won’t come without a price and they won’t be tailored, as Stripes is, to the interests of military readers. The beauty of Stars and Stripes is not just that it’s a daily paper available overseas, but that it’s a daily paper written and edited for military members. Its blend of staff-written articles and news culled from the nation’s leading providers — The Washington Post, The Associated Press, The Los Angeles Times — is unique, and provides depth and balance to military readers.

Another difference: Most newspapers endorse political policies and candidates, creating political baggage in the process. Stars and Stripes doesn’t take political positions.
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Vietnam War Hero Clark Welch Passed Away in Leesburg

Vietnam War hero dies in Leesburg
Orlando Sentinel
Lauren Ritchie
April 22, 2016

Welch served as an Airborne Ranger in the 1st Infantry Division and Special Forces. He spent 31 years in the service and was inducted into the Ranger Hall of Fame. In addition to the Distinguished Service Cross, Welch was awarded three Silver Stars with "V" device signaling valor in combat, two Purple Hearts and the Legion of Merit, among others.

Ret. Army Lt. Col. Clark Welch, a Vietnam War hero, died recently in Leesburg and will be buried later in Arlington National Cemetery.

(Courtesy of the Clark Welch family)

Maybe Clark Welch would still be alive today if the U.S. Army had been a little more gentle with that body of his.


The retired lieutenant colonel — probably Lake County's most highly decorated veteran — had shrapnel permanently jammed against his chest wall, which didn't help when it came to fighting a debilitating lung disease. He had no triceps muscle in one arm — it was blown off in combat. And over his 31-year career in the Army, he had broken more bones than his family could count, which took a lingering toll on his 76-year-old body.

Welch, an Airborne Ranger who loved his soldiers like a father, died April 12 in Leesburg.

The lieutenant colonel owned a piece of history in the Vietnam War that unfortunately was shrouded in lies by the U.S. government until a 2004 book by a Pulitzer Prize winner exposed the truth. For 25 years, the United States had portrayed the 1967 battle at Ong Thanh as a marvelous victory, when in truth it was a heartbreaking rout that left 60 men unnecessarily dead.
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