There were many units assigned to each of the 101st Airborne Division’s Parachute Infantry Regiments, one of which was the 502nd PIR. My father was one of them and assigned to the Regimental Headquarters unit, serving as a radio communicator during D-Day, Carentan, Holland and the Battle of the Bulge. Dad served under Colonel Cole, Colonel Michaelis and Colonel Chappuis. My 101st Airborne father was one of thousands of men who earned multiple Purple Hearts and awards for the battles…..
To All Of Our Warriors Around the world Comes A Soldier’s Whisper Wishes A blessed Easter To You, Your Friends & Families Who Love & Support You Until Your Return Home Again WATCH & SHARE OUR VIDEO youtu.be/EJ1H9N-gIU0 www.facebook.com/ComesASoldiersWhisper www.comesasoldierswhisper.com twitter.com/Jennylas
“There has never been a military operation remotely approaching the scale and the complexity of D-Day. It involved 176,000 troops, more than 12,000 airplanes, almost 10,000 ships, boats, landing craft, frigates, sloops, and other special combat vessels–all involved in a surprise attack on the heavily fortified north coast of France, to secure a beachhead in the heart of enemy-held territory so that the march to Germany and victory could begin. It was daring, risky, confusing, bloody, and ultimately glorious.” ―…..
“When soldiers have been baptized in the fire of a battle-field, they have all one rank in my eyes.” ~ Napoleon Bonaparte On each of the occasions that my 101st Airborne father was injured and hospitalized, he would write how happy he was to return to his group of comrades. He was unable to fully portray into words how important it was to finish the fight with his brothers. But one can read between the lines for a glimpse of…..
My mother, Betty Lou is featured today with a photo of her diving on her high school team in 1943 at the Horace Mann High School in Gary, Indiana. She was 17 years old. She along with hundreds of thousands supported special war bond drives both at school, movie theaters and wherever they could to raise money during WWII. The following is an excerpt from one of my father’s wartime letters published in Comes A Soldier’s Whisper, applauding his then…..
“I knew I was making history” ~ Doris “Joy” Thurston Our featured veteran of today is Doris “Joy” Thurston who was born in Chicago, Illinois in October 1923 and became a member of the Women’s Army Corps (WAC) from 1944 to 1946. Doris recorded her wartime experiences in words and pictures in A WAC Looks Back: Recollections and Poems of WWII. She was part of a special project for the Women in Military Service for America Foundation (WIMSA). Her father…..
“A family that serves together stays together” ~ military-family-quotes I would like to share something that happened recently. The mail person brought a package to our door, as it would not fit in the mail box. She was a young woman in her thirties who commented on the package being shipped from a military museum. I explained that we were exchanging information regarding WWII. I also told her that I recently published my father’s wartime letters written as a 101st…..
“Wars damage the civilian society as much as they damage the enemy. Soldiers never get over it.” ~ Paul Fussell We all have two people inside of us, one that is who we are and one that is who we can be. But what if who we can be gets interrupted, by the call to arms of war or any kind of trauma leaving a long lasting and undetected silent imprint on our souls? Soldiers of yesterday, today and the…..
My father, David Clinton Tharp was a 101st Airborne paratrooper with the Five-O-Deuce. Although he miraculously survived the battles of Normandy, Carentan, Holland and the Battle of the Bulge during WWII, he returned with the invisible and scars of war, post traumatic stress syndrome. Very little was known back then about this silent weapon that accompanies our soldier’s return home. War changes a soldier. It changes his family too. Dad used to reflect with great sadness regarding all of the…..
In 1814, Francis Scott Key wrote the poem, Defense of Fort McHenry. The poem was later put to the tune of (John Stafford Smith’s song), The Anacreontic Song later modified somewhat, and retitled The Star Spangled Banner. Congress proclaimed The Star Spangled Banner the U.S. National Anthem in 1931. Oh, say, can you see, by the dawn’s early light, What so proudly we hail’d at the twilight’s last gleaming? Whose broad stripes and bright stars, thro’ the perilous fight, O’er…..
