OUR MILITARY.

Yogi Berra - Hall of Fame MLB player and US Navy Seaman - MLB 10 World Championship rings, 3 MVPs, 15 years All Star - US Navy

As 19-year-old Second Class Seaman Lawrence P. Berra, he played a significant part in one of the war's most important campaigns, the Normandy Invasion (better known as D-Day).

"I sit and I thank the good lord I was in the Navy. We ate good, clean clothes, clean bed. You see some of these Army men, what they went through, that's the one I felt for."

Son of Italian immigrants Pietro and Paolina Berra, Lawrence Peter Berra grew up in St. Louis in an Italian neighborhood called "The Hill." His parents didn't know anything about baseball, but the local American Legion league set him on a path that would take him to the Hall of Fame. It was during his years in the American Legion that he earned the nickname Yogi when his friend, Bobby Hofman, said he looked like a Hindu yogi because of the way he sat with his arms and legs crossed when waiting to bat.

When Yogi turned 18, he put his baseball career on pause and joined the Navy in 1943. Trained as a gunner's mate, Yogi worked on a rocket launching boat and served on D-Day. He said about the invasion that "Being a young guy, you didn?t think nothing of it until you got in it. And so we went off 300 yards off beach. We protect the troops." For the next twelve days his boat was ordered to shoot down enemy aircraft...He went on to serve in a second assault on France for which he received a medal from the French government.

Sixty years later, he received the Lone Sailor award from the U.S. Navy... The president and Navy Memorial CEO said, "Our honorees are living examples of how service to country changes lives and helps develop leaders."
 
Hollywood celebrities who served honorably:

Ed McMahon (Tonight Show, Jerry Lewis Telethon, Star Search) was a fighter pilot Marine in WW II, served in the Korean conflict, and retired as a Colonel. He later became a Brigadier General in the California Air National Guard.

Eddie Albert (Green Acres TV) was awarded a Bronze Star for his heroic action as a U. S. Naval officer aiding Marines at the horrific battle on the island of Tarawa in the Pacific Nov. 1943.

Alec Guinness (Star Wars) operated a British Royal Navy landing craft on D-Day.

James Doohan ("Scotty" on Star Trek) was a member of the Canadian Army. At the age of 19, Doohan joined the Canadian Army and saw action during World War II. He fought on the beach at Normandy on D-Day. While leading a group of soldiers, Doohan was shot several times, injuring him in the leg and chest. The chest wound could have proved fatal had it not been for a cigarette case in his shirt pocket. Doohan also lost one of his fingers.

Donald Pleasance (The Great Escape) really was an R. A. F. pilot who was shot down, held prisoner and tortured by the Germans.

David Niven was a Sandhurst graduate and Lt. Colonel of the British Commandos in Normandy.

Clark Gable (Mega-Movie Star when war broke out) Although he was beyond the draft age at the time the U.S. entered WW II, Clark Gable enlisted as a private in the AAF on Aug. 12, 1942 at Los Angeles. He attended the Officers' Candidate School at Miami Beach, Fla. and graduated as a second lieutenant on Oct. 28, 1942. He then attended aerial gunnery school and in Feb. 1943 he was assigned to the 351st Bomb Group at Polebrook where flew operational missions over Europe in B-17s.

Charlton Heston was an Army Air Corps Sergeant

Earnest Borgnine was a U. S. Navy Gunners Mate

Charles Durning was a U. S. Army Ranger at Normandy earning a Silver Star and awarded the Purple Heart.

Charles Bronson was a tail gunner in the Army Air Corps, more specifically on B-29s in the 20th Air Force out of Guam, Tinian, and Saipan.

George C. Scott was a decorated U. S. Marine.

Brian Keith served as a U.S. Marine rear gunner in several actions against the Japanese on Rabal in the Pacific.

Lee Marvin was a U.S. Marine on Saipan during the Marianas campaign when he was wounded earning the Purple Heart.

John Russell: In 1942, he enlisted in the Marine Corps where he received a battlefield commission and was wounded and highly decorated for valor at Guadalcanal.

Robert Ryan served in the Marines, stateside at Camp Pendleton for the duration of the war (this description has been officially authorized by the Robert Ryan family).

Tyrone Power (an established movie star when Pearl Harbor was bombed) joined the U.S. Marines, was a pilot flying supplies into, and wounded Marines out of, Iwo Jima and Okinawa.

Audie Murphy, little 5'5" tall 110 pound guy from Texas who played cowboy parts? Along with Matt Urban, one of the most decorated serviceman of WWII and earned: Medal of Honor, Distinguished Service Cross, 2 Silver Star Medals, Legion of Merit, 2 Bronze Star Medals with "V", 2 Purple Hearts, U.S. Army Outstanding Civilian Service Medal, Good Conduct Medal, 2 Distinguished Unit Emblems, American Campaign Medal, European, African, Middle Eastern Campaign Medal with One Silver Star, Four Bronze Service Stars (representing nine campaigns) and one Bronze Arrowhead (representing assault landing at Sicily and Southern France) World War II Victory Medal Army of Occupation Medal with Germany Clasp, Armed Forces Reserve Medal, Combat Infantry Badge, Marksman Badge with Rifle Bar, Expert Badge with Bayonet Bar, French Fourragere in Colors of the Croix de Guerre, French Legion of Honor, Grade of Chevalier, French Croix de Guerre With Silver Star, French Croix de Guerre with Palm, Medal of Liberated France, Belgian Croix de Guerre 1940 Palm.
 
This was sent to me by my friend, a retired USAF Brigadier.  I don?t know the source, but it deserves to be read.

This is a well-written article about a father who put several of his
kids through expensive colleges but one son wanted to be a Marine.
Interesting observation by this dad.  A very interesting
commentary that says a lot about our failing and fallen society.

"Before my son became a Marine, I never thought much about who was
defending me.  Now when I read of the war on terrorism or the coming
conflict in Iraq, it cuts to my heart. When I see a picture of a
member of our military who has been killed, I read his or her name
very carefully. Sometimes I cry.

In 1999, when the barrel-chested Marine recruiter showed up in dress
blues and bedazzled my son John, I did not stand in the way.  John was
headstrong, and he seemed to understand these stern, clean men with
straight backs and flawless uniforms.  I did not.  I live in the
Volvo-driving, higher education-worshiping North Shore of Boston I
write novels for a living. I have never served in the military.

It had been hard enough sending my two older children off to
Georgetown and New York University. John's enlisting was unexpected,
so deeply unsettling.  I did not relish the prospect of answering the
question, "So where is John going to college?" from the parents who
were itching to tell me all about how their son or daughter was going
to Harvard.  At the private high school John attended, no other
students were going into the military.

"But aren't the Marines terribly Southern?" (Says a lot about
open-mindedness in the Northeast) asked one perplexed mother while
standing next to me at the brunch following graduation.  "What a
waste, he was such a good student," said another parent.? One parent
(a professor at a nearby and rather famous university) spoke up at a
school meeting and suggested that the school should
?
?carefully evaluate what went wrong."

When John graduated from three months of boot camp on Parris Island,
3000 parents and friends were on the parade deck stands.  We parents
and our Marines not only were of many races but also were
representative of many economic classes. Many were poor. Some arrived
crammed in the backs of pickups, others by bus.  John told me that a
lot of parents could not afford the trip.

We in the audience were white and Native American.  We were Hispanic,
Arab, and African American, and Asian. We were former Marines wearing
the scars of battle, or at least baseball caps emblazoned with
battles' names.  We were Southern whites from Nashville and skinheads
from New Jersey, black kids from Cleveland wearing ghetto rags and
white ex-cons with ham-hock forearms defaced by jailhouse tattoos.  We
would not have been mistaken for the educated and well-heeled parents
gathered on the lawns of John?s private school a half-year before.

After graduation one new Marine told John, "Before I was a Marine, if
I had ever seen you on my block I would've probably killed you just
because you were standing there." This was a serious statement from
one of John?s good friends, a black ex-gang member from Detroit who,
as John said, "would die for me now, just like I'd die for him."

My son has connected me to my country in a way that I was too selfish
and insular to experience before.  I feel closer to the waitress at
our local diner than to some of my oldest friends.  She has two sons
in the Corps.  They are facing the same dangers as my boy.  When the
guy who fixes my car asks me how John is doing, I know he means it.
His younger brother is in the Navy.

Why were I and the other parents at my son's private school so
surprised by his choice?  During World War II, the sons and daughters
of the most powerful and educated families did their bit.  If the idea
of the immorality of the Vietnam War was the only reason those lucky
enough to go to college dodged the draft, why did we not encourage our
children to volunteer for military service once that war was done?

Have we wealthy and educated Americans all become pacifists?  Is the
world a safe place?  Or have we just gotten used to having somebody
else defend us?  What is the future of our democracy when the sons and
daughters of the janitors at our elite universities are far more
likely to be put in harm?s way than are any of the students whose
dorms their parents clean?

I feel shame because it took my son's joining the Marine Corps to make
me take notice of who is defending me.  I feel hope because perhaps my
son is part of a future "greatest generation."  As the storm clouds of
war gather, at least I know that I can look the men and women in
uniform in the eye.  My son is one of them.  He is the best I have to
offer.  John is my heart.

?Faith is not about everything turning out OK;

Faith is about being OK no matter how things turn out."
 
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2017/04/veteran_faces_21_years_in_prison_for_possession_of_pistol_magazines.html
 
http://theerant.yuku.com/topic/91476/Fifty-Years-Bloodiest-Battles-Vietnam-Survivors-Gather#.WQY_blLMw1k
 
I don't mean to post too many links, but there's a few stories I want to make people aware of (RIP to the three soldiers). 2 Army Rangers from 3/75 killed in an Afghanistan raid, possibly from friendly fire: http://abcnews.go.com/International/army-rangers-killed-friendly-fire-afghanistan/story?id=47086092

82nd Airborne soldier killer by IED in Mosul: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/us-army-paratrooper-killed-in-iraq-identified-by-pentagon/article/2621728

Great job by the 106th Rescue Wing of the NY ANG. 7 PJs made a night jump to a ship 1,200 miles off of the East Coast to assist sailors that were burned: https://theaviationist.com/2017/04/27/dramatic-rescue-at-sea-u-s-air-force-pararescue-makes-night-jump-at-sea/
 
https://www.wearethemighty.com/history/how-the-soldiers-of-outpost-harry-decimated-an-entire-chinese-division
 
https://thousandpointsofright.blogspot.com/2017/05/a-wall-and-fallen-veteran-who-saved.html
 
FDNY HONORS WW2 VETS....  http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/fdny-honors-firefighters-fought-world-war-ii-article-1.3150922
 
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/may/17/obama-doj-refused-hire-veterans-jobs-investigation/
 
5-20-17 ARMED FORCES DAY 2017....NEVER FORGET !..... www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=armed+forces+day+2017


 
  The USS Intrepid Air/Sea/Space museum located at pier 86, W. 46th  Street & 12th Ave (NYC)  has a new exhibit  dedicated to veterans of the Vietnam War.  This exhibit is located between the 2nd and 3rd elevators.  It  runs  through Oct 2017.
  Presently, admission to the museum is TOTALLY FREE to ALL veterans providing you have proof of service such as your DD-214, VA medical ID card, (NY) drivers license with the word "Veteran" in the upper left hand corner,  old military ID card, etc.
  It would be nice if you pass this on to any veterans you might know so that they visit this exhibit and the rest of the ship.

 
ON LINE PX ACESS FOR ALL HONORABLY DISCHARGED VETS.....  Anybody have any further info or thoughts on this ? ..... www.defense.gov/News/News-Releases/News-Release-View/Article/1049503/department-of-defense-extends-online-military-exchange-shopping-privileges-to-v/

 
68jk09 said:
ON LINE PX ACESS FOR ALL HONORABLY DISCHARGED VETS.....  Anybody have any further info or thoughts on this ? ..... www.defense.gov/News/News-Releases/News-Release-View/Article/1049503/department-of-defense-extends-online-military-exchange-shopping-privileges-to-v/
Click to expand...


http://www.militarytimes.com/articles/defense-officials-approve-expanded-veterans-online-shopping-benefit

http://www.militarytimes.com/articles/its-official-military-exchanges-plan-to-offer-online-access-to-veterans-by-nov-11
 
Chief - All veterans with honorable discharges will have on-line exchange privileges beginning November 11, 2017 - Veterans Day.  They must register.  All that is needed is Name, DOB and SSN.


    Site to register:  https://www.vetverify.org/


These are instructions from AAFES  site: https://www.shopmyexchange.com/veterans


It is easy.  Even Navy veterans should be able to follow instructions and register. 


This will enable on-line AAFES shopping - which is extensive and provides tax-free purchases.  On-base access to exchanges is still not permitted.  Access to military bases is a major security concern and varies from base to base.
 
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