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 IMPORTANT INFORMATION THAT'S HARD TO FIND

PLEASE CHECK IT OUT FOR OUR

VETERANS, HOW CAN YOU HELP

 

 

 

 

"Pre-Approval Form for Burial at a National Cemetery"
You can submit a form to the VA for pre-approval to be burial at a National Cemetery.
Note: Understand they are 11 months behind in processing.
The Form 40-1007 is here.

 

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"EVENTS COMING UP"
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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The iconic photograph was taken in New York City on Aug. 14, 1945
                                                                                                                                                             by Life Magazine photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt.

 

Glenn McDuffie had told the AP he was changing trains in New York when he was told that Japan had surrendered.

'I was so happy. I ran out in the street,' said McDuffie, then 18 and on his way to visit his girlfriend in Brooklyn.

'And then I saw that nurse,' he said. 'She saw me hollering and with a big smile on my face. ... I just went right to her and kissed her.'

'We never spoke a word,' he added. 'Afterward, I just went on the subway across the street and went to Brooklyn.'

 

                           

                            Glenn McDuffie U.S. Navy 1945                  Greta Zimmer Friedman, seen in a 1939 passport photo.

 

  

 

A man who became known for claiming he was the sailor kissing a woman in Times Square
in a famous World War II-era photo taken by a Life magazine.

Glenn was a mail carrier and semi-professional baseball player after he returned from World War II,
Glenn McDuffie's life became more exciting  in 2008 when Houston Police Department
forensic artist Lois Gibson was able to identify him as the young man leaning over the woman in his arms to kiss her.

 

Glenn McDuffie passed away on March 9, 2017 in a nursing home in Dallas at the  aged 86.

 

 

        

Greta Zimmer Friedman told the Veterans History Project of the Library of Congress in 2005
that she headed for Times Square, which wasn't far from her office, to find out for herself.
"Suddenly, I was grabbed by a sailor. It wasn't that much of a kiss. It was more of a jubilant act that he didn't have to go back," she said.
"I found out later he was so happy that he didn't have to go back to the Pacific where they had already been through the war.
"The sailor didn't give Friedman his name, and Friedman, 21 at the time, returned to her office, where her bosses canceled appointments for the rest of the day to celebrate.
Unbeknownst to either the sailor or her, Life photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt snapped a photo of them locking lips,
and published it in the magazine a few weeks later with the simple caption "V-J Day" and no identification of the people in it.

Greta Zimmer Friedman, died on September 8, 2016, at the age of 92. 

 

 

Think of the Joy these two total strangers had coming together in a moment of time in 1945.
Just hearing some Great News that everyone could celebrate no mater what your believe,
 Just putting the Country first.
 

"Just notice the "JOY" that after all these years were still in their Smiles"

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Marine Corps Announces It Was

Wrong -- Again

  on Iwo Jima Flag-Raising Photo

17 Oct 2019 Military.com: In this Feb. 23, 1945, file photo, Marines with the 28th Regiment
5th Division, raise the American flag atop Mt. Suribachi, Iwo Jima, Japan.

Historians have uncovered evidence that another Marine long-believed to be in a famous photo from atop Mount Suribachi during World War II was misidentified
Pfc. Rene A. Gagnon posed for the Marine Corps War Memorial, a bronze statue that sits just outside Washington, D.C., and features 32-foot figures and a 60-foot flagpole.
He was thought to be one of the six Marines captured in the famous photo snapped by Associated Press photographer Joe Rosenthal in February 1945 during the Battle of Iwo Jima.

But now Marine Corps officials say Gagnon, visible only by his helmet, wasn't in that famous photo. It was actually Cpl. Harold P. Keller.

The discovery was made by historians who approached Marine officials after a 2016 change to the historic record of Rosenthal's photo.
Following an investigation into evidence from another set of historians, the Marine Corps then determined that a Navy corpsman,
John Bradley, believed to be in the photo was not. Another man, Pfc. Harold Schultz -- who'd never been publicly linked to the image -- was there instead.

The historians who approached the Marine Corps about Keller "provided a significant amount of new evidence for consideration,
mostly in the form of dozens of previously private photographs," Marine officials said in a Thursday news release about the change.

The switch was first reported Wednesday by NBC News.

The Marine Corps formed a board to consider the new evidence, and even sought help from the FBI as it assessed the new photographs.
Keller is in the backside of the photo, behind other Marines whose backs are turned as they raise the flag.

"As a result of the board's evaluation of the information provided, the Marine Corps accepted the change in the identification of the Marines pictured in the photograph
as necessary in the historical documentation of Rosenthal's photograph," the statement reads.
"The names associated with pictured individuals is the only change resulting from this board."

Among the evidence that proved it was Keller in the photo, according to NBC News, were distinct creases on his helmet,
the positioning of his shirt collar, and the way he carried ammunition.

Dustin Spence, one of the historians who spent years studying the photos and accompanying evidence, told NBC it's important to get history right.

"It's important for the legacy of not only them but their families," Spence told the outlet .

The new identification doesn't mean Gagnon didn't play an important role in Marine Corps history though, the service stressed.
He was directly responsible for getting a larger second flag to the top of Mount Suribachi and returning the first flag for safe keeping.

"Without those efforts," the Marine Corps statement reads, "this historical event might not have been captured, let alone even occurred."

"Regardless of who was in the photograph, each and every Marine who set foot on Iwo Jima, or supported the effort from the sea and air around the island is,
 and always will be, a part of our Corps' cherished history," the statement adds.
"In the words of General David H. Berger, Commandant of the Marine Corps, 'They are all heroes.''

Marine officials said they are grateful for the historians' effort, which allows them to preserve their legacy.

Kay Maurer, Keller's daughter, told NBC she was surprised to learn her dad was in the photograph,
adding that she gets emotional just thinking about it
"It gives you an amazing feeling that I just can't even describe, " she said, "to look up and just think, 'Whoa. That's my dad.''

 

 

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REMEMBER THIS GREAT PHOTO........IT'S WRONG

 

 

Man in Iwo Jima Flag Photo Was Misidentified, Marine Corps Says:
 

 

A Marine Corps inquiry found that Harold Schultz (Michigan), 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.

 

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, Harold Schultz, was one of the six men in the photograph, which received a Pulitzer Prize. 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 in the image.

 Mr. Schultz, a mail sorter who died in 1995 at age 70, never publicly acknowledged that he was in the photograph. According to his stepdaughter, he discussed it only once with his family, mentioning it briefly one night during dinner in the early 1990s as they talked about the Iwo Jima battle.

“My mom was distracted and not listening and Harold said, ‘I was one of the flag raisers,’ ” his stepdaughter, Dezreen MacDowell, said in a telephone interview on Wednesday.

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

“After he said that, it was clear he didn’t want to talk about it,” she said. “He was a very self-effacing Midwestern person. He was already sick, and died two or three years later.”

The investigation was opened in response to questions raised last year by producers working on a documentary, “The Unknown Flag Raiser of Iwo Jima,” to be shown July 3 on the Smithsonian Channel, in what was the latest controversy about the photograph. It was taken on Feb. 23, 1945, by Joseph Rosenthal of The Associated Press as the Marines battled the Japanese on the strategically important island in the Pacific.

Just days later, the image appeared on the front pages of major national newspapers, quickly becoming a symbol of the sacrifices American service members at war were willing to make. Ultimately, 6,800 American service members were killed on the island, and the image became the inspiration for the Marine Corps War Memorial in Arlington, Va., which depicts six 32-foot-tall figures in the same positions as the men in the photograph.

 

 

U.S. Marines of the 28th Regiment, 5th Division,
raised the American flag atop Mt. Suribachi, Iwo Jima, Japan, in 1945.

 

But in 1946, the Marines conducted a similar investigation in response to claims that the service had misidentified one of the flag raisers, concluding that the man in the far right of the photograph was actually Harlon Block, not Henry Hansen. (Both men had died on Iwo Jima.) In the decades since, the Marines and Mr. Rosenthal have fended off accusations that the photograph was staged.

Matthew Morgan, a retired Marine who worked as a producer for the show’s production company, Lucky 8 TV, said it first approached the Marines last year citing evidence that the men in the photograph were misidentified.

Mr. Morgan said the Marines were initially not interested in looking into the claim. But in January, the production company provided the chief historian of the Marines, Charles Neimeyer, with detailed evidence that laid out the case for mistaken identity.

Other photographs of the men on Iwo Jima that day, along with forensic analysis of them, showed that the gear Mr. Bradley was wearing was different from that worn by the man who was identified as Mr. Bradley in the photograph. Facial recognition technology used on the photographs also showed that the man was not Mr. Bradley.

“Over the years, people have claimed they were in the photo, but there was nothing besides their word to back that up,” Dr. Neimeyer said. “I thought that maybe they are on to something, maybe they are right.”

In March, the commandant of the Marine Corps, Gen. Robert B. Neller, appointed a retired three-star general to lead a panel of eight active and retired Marine commissioned and noncommissioned officers, including Dr. Neimeyer, to investigate the photograph.

The panel began meeting secretly the next month at Marine offices in Quantico, Va., where it painstakingly examined Mr. Rosenthal’s photograph. After six days, the panel voted unanimously to endorse findings that it was Mr. Schultz, not Mr. Bradley, who had participated in the raising of the flag.

Mr. Bradley’s role that day was at the center of the book “Flags of Our Fathers,” written by his son, James, and Ron Powers, which was published in 2000 and was on the New York Times best-seller list for 46 weeks.

But in May, shortly after it was publicly disclosed that the Marines were investigating the photograph, James Bradley said that he no longer believed that his father, who is deceased, was in the image. He said that his father had participated in an earlier flag-raising and mistakenly believed that it had been the one captured by Mr. Rosenthal. Mr. Bradley declined to participate in the documentary, according to Mr. Morgan.

Mr. Bradley, who did not return an email seeking comment, said in May that he had become convinced of this in 2014, after reading an article in The Omaha World-Herald that told how amateur historians had discovered the incorrect identifications. But he said that it took him a year to examine the evidence in the article because he had been working on a book in Vietnam, and then had become ill.

Days after the photograph was taken in 1945, Mr. Schultz sustained wounds to his arm and stomach, and he was sent home. Several months later, Mr. Schultz, who was originally from Michigan, was discharged from the Marines.

The federal government helped him get a job in Los Angeles as a mail sorter for the Postal Service. He was single until age 60, when he married Ms. MacDowell’s mother, who lived next door in his apartment building and shared a porch. But he never moved in with her and rarely discussed his time in the military, according to Ms. MacDowell.

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.

One of the other men pictured in the flag-raising, Ira Hayes, had asked men in his unit not to identify him as being in the photograph, but they could not keep it secret.

“I think Hayes and Schultz believed that if they were identified as flag raisers, not a day would go by without them being reminded of combat and being on Iwo Jima,” Dr. Neimeyer said.

On Wednesday, General Neller called Ms. MacDowell to tell her of the findings about her stepfather.

“I’m delighted he has gotten the recognition, but I wish it happened when he was alive,” she said afterward. “He was a kind and gentle man.”

General Neller said in a written statement that “although the Rosenthal image is iconic and significant, to Marines it’s not about the individuals and never has been.”

He added: “Simply stated, our fighting spirit is captured in that frame, and it remains a symbol of the tremendous accomplishments of our corps — what they did together and what they represent remains most important. That doesn’t change.”

The Marines will now alter any places where they refer to the flag raisers, substituting Mr. Schultz’s name for Mr. Bradley.

 

 

 

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THINGS TO CHECK OUT

 

 

What Veterans Should Know About Sleep