Walter Reed Closes, Legacy Lives On, Commander Says

By Terri Moon Cronk

American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, Aug. 27, 2011 – An ambulance carrying the last inpatient from Walter Reed Army Medical Center here slowly made its way out of the Georgia Avenue gate this morning, pausing briefly for the crowd of flag-waving troop supporters and shouts of “Thank you for your service! We love you!”

As the ambulance turned north on Georgia Avenue toward the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., the once-bustling Walter Reed hospital fell silent. This early morning move of inpatients — one to an ambulance — marked the end of an era for Walter Reed and its 102 years of Army medicine that has saved hundreds of thousands of military lives.

Walter Reed and the National Naval Medical Center are consolidating as one medical center as mandated by the 2005 Base Realignment and Closure Act. The Army and Navy complex on the grounds of Bethesda will be renamed the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center.

“It’s been 102 years for Walter Reed, but the legacy lives on,” Army Col. Norvell “Van” Coots, Walter Reed commander, told reporters this morning at the hospital. “The name lives on, and it’s a new beginning for our health care system.”

Earlier expectations were to move 150 inpatients this weekend, Coots said, but the number was reduced to 50, and gradually became 18 this morning after eight were moved to Bethesda yesterday. Walter Reed’s staff also was able to discharge and relocate many other patients who wanted to be hospitalized closer to their homes.

With Hurricane Irene bearing down on the East Coast today, the move was made a day earlier than planned. As the Red Cross flag came down from the front of the hospital this afternoon, it signaled the final closing of the iconic medical center. “The Red Cross flag is the symbol of health and healing, and symbolizes the end of physical patient care at Walter Reed,” Coots said.

Walter Reed has been the Army’s flagship of military medicine since 1909, and cared for soldiers during World War I and World War II, the Korean conflict, the Vietnam War, and the decade-long wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

A small post, Walter Reed had no room to expand and accommodate more wounded warriors, Coots said in a press conference earlier this summer. The medical center straddles a couple of neighborhood blocks between Georgia Avenue and 16th Street.

The Walter Reed garrison and installation will remain open until Sept. 15, Coots said. When the U.S. flag comes down that day, he added, the installation and the garrison will close for good. Sometime afterward, Walter Reed will become the property of the District of Columbia government, and the State Department is expected to take over the hospital building.

Looking forward to a new beginning, Coots said today was emotional as he walked the wards early this morning, stopping in to check on each of the remaining 18 patients.

“There’s still an energy you can feel in those halls,” he said. “It’s an energy that’s left behind from the hundreds of thousands of patients we’ve treated in these 102 years, and the tens of thousands of staff members. “We take Walter Reed with us,” Coots added. “And we leave a piece of it here.”

Do you have memories from Walter Reed Hospital? If so please share them on this blog or our Facebook page.

By Airman 1st Class Kenneth W. Norman
97th Air Mobility Wing Public Affairs

ALTUS AIR FORCE BASE, Okla. (AFNS) – An Air Force captain is planning to bike from Arlington National Cemetery, Va., for approximately 150 miles and then run another 100 miles to Ground Zero in New York City, N.Y., Sept. 10-11 without stopping to rest.

Capt. Chris Pace, a 58th Airlift Squadron instructor pilot, is calling his athletic quest the “Journey of Freedom,” and he is doing it in support of The Disposable Heroes Project, which is a non-profit organization that supports wounded and fallen warriors and their families.

His overall goal is to complete this event in 36 hours and raise at least $25,000 for the DHP, which is similar to the Make-a-Wish Foundation in that it tries to improve the lives of wounded veterans and the families of fallen warriors.

“I am going to finish,” Pace said about his upcoming challenge. “Whether I have to walk the last 50 miles or however far it is, I am going to finish … I have told myself that. No one is going to let me stop, I have already told my family not to try and stop me.  ”It is going to be very mentally and physically demanding,” he added.

The idea for the “Journey of Freedom” first came to Pace after he attended a CrossFit event at CrossFit Native in Warr Acres, Okla., April 30. The event was in honor of Army Staff Sgt. Jack Martin III, of the 3rd Battalion, 1st Special Forces Group, Fort Lewis, Wash., who was killed Sept. 29, 2009, by an improvised explosive device in Jolo Island, Philippines, during Operation Enduring Freedom. Martin’s parents and siblings were present during the CrossFit event and spoke about their son, how much he loved CrossFit and how much this event meant to them. It was there that the DHP gave Martin’s parents two-round trip tickets to Washington to visit their son’s ashes. At the time the tickets were given to Martin’s parents they had not yet reached the point in their grieving process to visit his remains.

According to Pace, Martin’s parents recently used the tickets to visit their son. After hearing the Martins’ story and seeing the impact the DHP had on this family, Pace knew he needed to find some way to contribute.

“I probably wouldn’t have thought to do this event if I didn’t go to the event and see face-to-face how the DHP affected this family,” Pace said. “I was thinking there has to be something I can do, especially with the 10th anniversary of 9/11 coming up. I was thinking of Arlington, Va., where our fallen soldiers, warriors and veterans are buried, and then the World Trade Center, where these wars really kind of started. So those are the two spots that I decided to start and end at, and I wanted to leave at least 100 miles to run.”

Pace is a sponsored CrossFit athlete and has been doing CrossFit for two years. He has been serious about fitness his entire life. He trains five to six days a week and sometimes twice a day if his body feels up to it. “I am always looking at different ways to challenge myself,” Pace said. “My house is like a Rocky movie. I have gymnast rings, a 550 pound tire, concrete atlas stones and pretty much anything else you can think of that can challenge me physically.”

Pace is not training specifically for this, but said he will continue his normal workout routine. He said he believes this event will be one of the greatest challenges in his life. “We have all had our hard times that we remember, whether it was basic training, survival school or finals week at college,” Pace said. “For a person who does ultra marathons, regular marathons or triathlons, this probably would not be the most challenging event of their lives. However, for a person who never bikes and the furthest he runs at one time is about three miles, I would say this will be the most challenging event of my life thus far, at least physically. I think it is going to be right up there mentally as well.”

As physically and mentally demanding as he predicts this journey to be, Pace is determined to finish. “I have already told myself that I am going to finish no matter what,” Pace said. “I know there will be times when I want to quit but that’s when I have to realize why I am doing this and who I am doing this for. Those 36-48 hours of what some people may call ‘hell’ is nothing compared to what our wounded vets and families of lost loved ones have gone through. That is my motivation.”

For more information about Pace’s “Journey of Freedom,” visit the Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/#!/JourneyOfFreedom.

Thanks to everyone who attended our 2011 Open House! Visitors got a great chance to preview our new museum, which will be unlike ANY other museum in our Country! 

• We will tell the stories of veterans from all military branches as well as corresponding units of the Reserves and National Guard.
• We will share the wartime experiences of Americans on the home front who supported our men and women in uniform.
• We will cover all major conflicts of the 20^th and 21^st centuries, including World War I, World War II, Korea, Vietnam, the Gulf War and Iraq/Afghanistan.
• We will have a collection of over 100 operational military vehicles that visitors will be able to see in action and explore firsthand.
• We will tell outdoor stories of wartime experience in the outdoors.
• We will honor and serve millions of American veterans through the National Veterans Visitor Center and Veterans Recording Studio.
• We will offer an interactive experience where visitors can learn about their heritage, their nation’s unique wartime experience and the contributions of their fellow citizens.

Located just 23 miles from the nation’s capital and along the dynamic “Corridor of Military History,” the American Wartime Museum will illustrate how the nation’s wars have changed the lives of our citizens and defined the character of our country.

The Museum’s leadership team and our many partners are dedicated to making the American Wartime Museum a reality. We will open our doors on Veterans Day, November 11, 2014.  But we can’t do it without you. As you learn more about the Museum and its mission, we encourage you to get involved. Tell us your story of wartime experience, share your photos, become a member, attend our events – be a part of the American Wartime Museum!

Marine Corps combat correspondents brought the sounds of World War II into living rooms throughout the country.

 By: Julia LeDoux, www.insidenova.com

QUANTICO, Va. – Historians at the United States Marine Corps History Division at Quantico have ringside seats as they continue their efforts to digitize thousands of recordings made by Marine combat correspondents during World War II.

The combat correspondents – newspapermen, radiomen, artists, photographers and videographers who were called Dening’s Demons — made about 1,600 recordings during the war, said Rob Taglianetti, an oral historian with the United States Marine Corps’ History Division. “It’s live combat,” he said of what can be heard on some of the tapes. “It’s while it’s happening, and you hear bullets in the background.”

The recordings also feature short interviews with Marines whose stories wouldn’t be known without the tapes. Combat correspondents would ask them a series of short questions such as, “where are you from,” “anything interesting happen while you’ve been here,” and “want to tell anybody back home hi?”

The live action recordings were immediately transferred onto vinyl records, which were sent out to radio stations across the country for broadcast. Written stories and photographs were sent local newspapers and even high school newspapers.

Oral historian Dr. Fred Allison was doing research for his doctoral dissertation at the Library of Congress in the late 1990s when he learned about a recording of famed Marine “Pappy” Boyington made during World War II. That sparked his interest, and Allison soon learned about the large cache of recordings that was then housed in Washington, D.C. “There’s hundreds of these recordings,” Allison said. “They’re done at these places you read about in history books all the time, Guam, Iwo Jima. They’re not traditional oral histories. They were done more with an approach to public affairs.”

When Allison began work at the History Division in 2001, he drew up a Memorandum of Understanding with the Library of Congress concerning the digitization of the recordings. The effort didn’t gain any traction for several years, since the collection was in the process of being relocated to Culpeper.

When Taglianetti joined the History Division in 2006, Allison charged him with getting the recordings digitized. Taglianetti had the idea of using interns paid for by the Marine Corps Historical Foundation in the effort. Last summer, 500 recordings were digitized, and Taglianetti hopes that at least number will be digitized this summer.

“The Marine Corps is all about tradition, about where we’ve been,” said 2nd Lt. Bryan Bergman, who is working on the digitization effort now. “These are real people. They’re like you and me. Just as you want to hear stories about what Marines are doing nowadays in Afghanistan and Iraq, you want to hear stories about Marines in the past to keep that tradition alive.”

The great-grandson of one of the World War II combat correspondents worked on the project as an intern last summer, Taglianetti said. “He got to hear his great-grandfather’s voice,” he said with a smile and a shake of his head.

The collection also includes recordings made by combat correspondents of South Pacific island natives singing in their language. The Marine Corps was the only branch of the service during World War II to take the Library of Congress’ offer for training and equipment to record indigenous peoples, said Taglianetti.

There were approximately 200 Marine combat correspondents during the war, according to Taglianetti. The college-educated men left their jobs and volunteered not only to become Marines, but to tell the stories of Devil Dogs who were fighting on the front lines. “These were talented guys who left their jobs and could comment on what they were seeing,” he explained. “They could paint a picture.”

Taglianetti said the History Division sent a staff sergeant to the Library of Congress to survey the recordings, then on vinyl records, back in 1953. “We have the original document where he documented his survey,” he explained. “He listened to a lot of the recordings and those notes are on the Library of Congress database.”

As time passed, the recordings were put on the shelf and largely forgotten, until Allison learned about them several years ago. Taglianetti has had the opportunity to interview some of the World War II combat correspondents who are alive today. He learned how they risked their lives hitting a beach while pushing a cart filled with their equipment. “There’s so much that can be learned from these recordings,” he said.

Taglianetti played a recording made on D-Day Plus 2. On the recording you can hear a bomb explode after landing near the combat correspondent’s landing craft. “You can hear the shaking in his voice,” he said.  Taglianetti said the digitized recordings will be available on the History’s Division web site, www.history.usmc.mil, when the project is completed.

By Emily Langer
Published: August 15
www.washingtonpost.com

Retired Army Col. Charles P. Murray Jr., 89, who received the Medal of Honor for single-handedly overcoming a force of 200 German soldiers during a World War II battle in France, died Aug. 12 at his home in Columbia, S.C. He had congestive heart failure.

Col. Murray was a 23-year-old lieutenant with just a few months of battle experience on Dec. 16, 1944, the day he displayed the “supreme courage and heroic initiative” that earned him the nation’s highest award for military valor.

He had joined the 3rd Infantry Division in France in 1944 after the Normandy invasion that June. Over the course of several brutal days in December, casualties thinned the ranks above him. He became the company commander.

On Dec. 16, he was leading a platoon of about 35 down a mountain path near the town of Kaysersberg, in northeastern France, when he eyed about 200 Germans attacking another battalion of U.S. troops. Rather than take his men into a position where they would be devastatingly outnumbered, he moved forward alone and radioed for an artillery attack. It missed, and before he could correct the coordinates, he lost the radio signal.

He then began launching grenades, revealing his own position and opening himself to a counterattack. Under heavy fire, he exhausted all the available grenades, according to a 2009 Army news release. He returned to his patrol, grabbed a rifle and returned to his position. He fired with such intensity — taking down 20 enemy soldiers and wounding numerous others — that the Germans began to withdraw, according to the Medal of Honor citation.

When reinforcements came, he directed the firing of a mortar and then began running down the hill with his men. He captured 10 Germans hiding in foxholes and was about to capture an eleventh when the man, pretending to surrender, launched a grenade that severely injured Col. Murphy’s leg and knocked him to the ground.

He refused to leave the battle until he could see that his men were in place and ready to continue on without him.

“By his single-handed attack on an overwhelming force and by his intrepid and heroic fighting,” reads the citation for his Medal of Honor, “1st Lt. Murray stopped a counterattack, established an advance position against formidable odds, and provided an inspiring example for the men of his command.”

Besides the Medal of Honor, his decorations included three awards of the Silver Star and two awards of the Bronze Star Medal.

Charles Patrick Murray was born in Baltimore on Sept. 26, 1921, the oldest of three boys. He was raised in Wilmington, N.C., where his father found work as a barber.

He was attending the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill when he enlisted in the Army and returned to college after the war to graduate in 1946 with a degree in accounting. In 1963, Col. Murray received a master’s degree in international affairs from George Washington University.

Col. Murray learned that he would receive the Medal of Honor not from the Army, but from his wife, the former Anne King, to whom he was married for 68 years. She mailed him a newspaper clipping from home announcing the news.

Besides his wife, survivors include two children, Brian Murray of Fort Payne, Ala., and Cynthia Anne Murray of Roswell, Ga.; four grandchildren; nine great-grandchildren; and one great-great-granddaughter. His son Charles P. Murray III died in 2004. Both sons served in Vietnam.

After World War II, Col. Murray reenlisted and became a member of the 82nd Airborne Division. He was a veteran of the Korean and Vietnam wars. After his retirement from the military in 1973, he worked for the South Carolina Department of Corrections.

In an interview last year with a South Carolina newspaper, Col. Murray downplayed his bravery at age 23. “I was old, compared to a lot of those 18- and 19-year-old kids in the division,” he said.

Marine’s Bravery Earns Highest Military Honor

Tribute to the Fallen SEALs: Complete List Released

By Sandra Sobieraj Westfall and Susan Keating, for People Magazine

Update Thursday August 11, 2011 11:00 AM EDT Originally posted Wednesday August 10, 2011 04:30 PM EDT

Clockwise from top left: Kevin Houston; Brian Bill; Patrick Hamburger; John W. Brown; Michael Strange; Chris Campbell

Courtesy of families: Kelly; Bill; Peck; Brown; Jones; Campbell

 President Obama paid his respects – and offered a shoulder to cry on – at Dover Air Force Base Tuesday as he consoled families of the 30 U.S. troops whose remains were brought home from Afghanistan.

“I told him, I want you to give me my grandson back. I want him alive,” Madeline Bernice Strange tells PEOPLE. Her grandson, Navy SEAL Michael Strange, 25, was among the servicemen killed Aug. 6 when their Chinook helicopter was shot down in eastern Afghanistan – the single deadliest loss in the decade-long war there.

“I told the President we never should’ve been there” in Afghanistan, said Madeline Strange. “And he told me, ‘I’m trying to get them out as quick as possible.’ “  Michael’s father, Charles, also tried to question the President, says Madeline Strange. “But Charlie started to cry so loud and hard, the President just held him.”

The Stranges and 29 other grieving families now struggle to plan funerals while their husbands’ and sons’ remains are sorted and identified through DNA, dental records and fingerprints.

Personal – and emotional – tributes offered a rare public glimpse inside the secretive world of the Navy SEALs, which lost 22 men in the weekend crash. Near Virginia Beach, where Kraig Vickers, a bomb disposal technician working with the SEALs, liked to surf, more than 200 surfers carrying red flowers ceremoniously paddled out into the ocean on Tuesday, attended by dolphins, to cast the flowers into the water in Vickers’s honor.

Here, PEOPLE puts names and faces to these American heroes. The full list of military casualties was released Thursday.

Clockwise from top left: Lou Langias, John Faas, John Douangdara, Jonas Kelsall, Stephen Mills, Matt Mason

Courtesy of Families: Langias; Faas; Douangdara; Kelsall; Mills; Mason

Alexander Bennett, 23, Army
Kansas City, Mo.
Bennett grew up in Tacoma, Wash., before joining the Army and had served in Iraq.

Darrik Benson, 29, Navy
Angwin, Calif.
Benson, a Navy SEAL who grew up in Napa County, Calif., had deployed several times to Afghanistan.

Brian Bill, 31, Navy
Stamford, Conn.
“He had laser focus. But he loved to let loose among his close friends. He’d do Jim Carey impersonations and get on the piano. He had an eclectic taste in music, from Beethoven to Metallica,” a friend, Jonathan Scofield, tells PEOPLE.

John W. Brown, 33, Air Force
Siloam Springs, Ark.
“He was interested in the medical field and told me joining the Air Force was an opportunity to help people in a different way from a hospital. He flew 300 days a year and earned a Bronze Star,” his dad, Dan Brown, tells PEOPLE.

Chris Campbell, 36, Navy
Jacksonville, N.C.
“If Chris though he could, he would try,” his mom tells Jacksonville’s Daily News. He supported the Wounded Warrior Project and was a fun-loving jock who played baseball, football, basketball and surfed.

David Carter, 47, Army National Guard
Aurora, Colo.
Carter, a Colorado National Guardsman from Aurora, was a pilot.

Jared W. Day, 28, Navy
Taylorsville, Utah
“Jared joined the United States Navy because he loved this country, the people who live here, and the freedoms we all have,” his parents said in a statement, according to ABC. “The loss of our son and brother is indescribable, and our love and pride for him is unmatched and can not be measured. Jared’s memory will live in our hearts forever.”

John Douangdara, 26, Navy
Sioux City, Iowa
Douangdara, a SEAL who had grown up in South Sioux City, Neb., was a lead dog handler for his unit.

Spencer C. Duncan, 21, Army
Olathe, Kan.
Duncan, an Army soldier from Kansas, was a helicopter door gunner who had been in Afghanistan only a few months.

John W. Faas, 31, Navy
Minneapolis, Minn.
Faas graduated from Minnehaha Academy in Minneapolis, where he was valedictorian of his class and a quarterback on the football team, reports Minnesota Public Radio. “He was a man of strong faith, a man of strong conviction and was unique in his vision and calling,” his longtime coach and neighbor recalled.

Patrick Hamburger, 30, Army National Guard
Grand Island, Neb.
Hamburger, an Army soldier who grew up in Nebraska, arrived in Afghanistan only last week for his first tour of duty there.

Andrew W. Harvell, 26, Air Force
Long Beach, Calif.
The combat controller lived in Southern Pines, N.C., with his wife, according to the Southern Pines Pilot. He graduated from Long Beach Millikan High School, reports the Long Beach Beachcomber.

Kevin Houston, 36, Navy
Cape Cod, Mass.
“He’d ask to see my Vietnam photo album, then bring out his laptop and show me films of his missions. They were classified, but he said, ‘Aww, I can show you.’ He hugged me like he was my own kid,” Houston’s mentor, veteran Chris Kelly, tells PEOPLE.

Jonas Kelsall, 33, Navy
Shreveport, La.
Kelsall, who also grew up in Shreveport, joined the SEALs and had been promoted to the rank of lieutenant commander.

Lou Langlais, 44, Navy
Virginia Beach, Va.
Langlais was a Navy SEAL who lived in Virginia Beach and worshiped at the same church as Kevin Houston, another of the SEAL killed in the crash.

Matt Mason, 37, Navy
Kearney, Mo.
Mason, a Navy SEAL who grew up in Missouri, had been injured while serving in Iraq.

Stephen M. Mills , 36, Navy
Bastrop, Texas
Mills, of Arlington, Texas, served as a Navy SEAL for 14 years.

Bryan Nichols, 31, Army
Kansas City, Mo.
Nicols, of Kansas City, Mo., was a U.S. Army pilot who was about to return home to his family on a two-week leave.

Nicholas H. Null, 30, Navy
Washington, W.Va.
Null, a graduate of South Parkersburg High School, is survived by his wife Tanya and three children, reports the Parkersburg News.

Jesse Pittman, 27, Navy
Willits, Calif.
Pittman, a Navy SEAL, was a former firefighter from California.

Thomas Ratzlaff, 34, Navy
Green Forest, Ark.
Ratzlaff, another Navy SEAL, of Green Forest, Ark., leaves behind a wife and two sons. He and his wife were expecting a daughter this fall.

Robert James Reeves, 32, Navy
Shreveport, La.
Reeves, a Navy SEAL, grew up in Shreveport, La., and had been deployed to war zones more than a dozen times.

Heath Robinson, 34, Navy
Petoskey, Mich.
Robinson, a Navy SEAL, grew up in Petoskey, Mich.

Nick Spehar, 24, Navy
Chisago City, Minn.
Spehar, of Chisago City, Minn., joined the SEALs and is remembered as a “quiet leader.”

Michael Strange, 25, Navy
Mayfair, Penn.
Strange was a Navy SEAL who grew up in Philadelphia but had recently moved to Virginia and had become engaged. He wanted to be a nurse and always brought his grandma flowers.

“It was a thing between him and me to say ‘love to love’ before we hung up the phone. Last time, I forgot, and he called me right back,” Strange, 78, tells PEOPLE through tears. “For what he did in the SEALs, he was very tender.”

Jon Tumilson, 35, Navy
Rockford, Iowa
Tumilson, a native of Rockford, Iowa, served in the SEALs and would have had 20 years in the Navy in three years.

Aaron Vaughn, 30, Navy
Union City, Tenn.
Vaughn, a Navy SEAL, got married three years ago and lived with his family in Virginia Beach.

Kraig Vickers, 36, Navy
Maui, Hawaii
Vickers was an explosive-ordnance-disposal specialist in the Navy who grew up in Hawaii.

Jason Workman, 32, Navy
Blanding, Utah
Workman, a SEAL who grew up in Utah, had served a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Brazil and Pennsylvania.

Daniel Zerbe, 28, Navy
Red Lion, Pa.
Zerbe, from Pennsylvania, was a pararescue jumper in the Air Force.

Clockwise from top left: Jason Workman, Nicholas H. Null, Heath Robinson, Thomas Ratzlaff, Jon Tumilson, Kraig Vickers

Courtesy of Families: Workman; Null; Robinson; Ratzlaff; Tumilson; Vickers

American Forces Press Service

Honoring our past: Better late than forgotten

Posted by: Christopher Lagan

U.S. Coast Guard Chaplain Lt. Cmdr. Jeffrey Plummer congratulates William D. Barber, Sr. after promoting him to honorary motor machinist’s mate first class as Barber’s wife Leona Barber looks on at their home in Muncie, Ind., July 7, 2011. U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 2nd Class Lauren Jorgensen.

Written by Petty Officer 2nd Class Lauren Jorgensen and Petty Officer 1st Class Charles Reinhart, Ninth District Public Affairs.

The fog of war has a way of eventually settling to pay its just rewards to both the fallen and the victors. William D. Barber, Sr., who was advanced to honorary motor machinist’s mate first class in Muncie, Ind., July 7, 2011, more than 69 years after he was honorably discharged from the service following an injury on a Coast Guard patrol boat during World War II. U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 2nd Class Lauren Jorgensen.

Nearly 70 years and three generations later, William D. Barber, Sr., 88, of Muncie, Ind., received an honorary promotion to motor machinist’s mate first class after wading through World War II’s fierce Battle of the Atlantic aboard a lightly-armed sentinel.

Barber was in the engine room of the Coast Guard patrol boat, Stephen McKeever, assigned to spot German U-boats off the east coast of the United States, when an explosion occurred, severely injuring him and another crewman who was also in the engine room.

The violent seas made it too dangerous for anyone to walk on the decks outside of the ship’s interior spaces, and it was also too rough for the Stephen McKeever to go into a port.  The two men laid in pain in the engine room for eight days waiting for the weather to subside while the crew’s cook climbed through the vessel’s ventilation pipes bringing the men food and drinks. When the seas finally calmed, Barber was taken to a hospital in Virginia, where he spent roughly two months in recovery.

Upon his release from the hospital, Barber learned he was also being discharged from the Coast Guard, effective Oct. 25, 1943. That was his last communication with the service –until recently.

Flash forward to 2011:  Barber’s son, William D. Barber, Jr., was building model airplanes in the family’s garage one afternoon when his father came in and the two reminisced about his sea duty during World War II.

“He told me that day that he felt like the Coast Guard had forgotten him,” said Barber, Jr. “I made it, that day, my mission to make sure that he was not forgotten.”

William D. Barber Sr. proudly displays a U.S. Coast Guard certificate which officially promotes him to honorary motor machinist’s mate first class following Barber’s promotion ceremony at his home in Muncie, Ind., July 7, 2011. U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 2nd Class Lauren Jorgensen.

Barber’s son recently reached out to Coast Guard officers at the Ninth Coast Guard District in Cleveland and told them his father’s story. He told the officers that when his father told him about the accident, he mentioned the warrant officer aboard the Stephen McKeever was planning to promote Barber to motor machinist’s mate first class, but that never happened after the explosion.

“We can’t go back in time, but Rear Adm. Michael Parks, commander of the Ninth Coast Guard District, has the authority to do this for you now,” Lt. Cmdr. Jeffrey Plummer told Barber and his wife, Leona, before reading Barber’s promotion certificate at a July 7 ceremony at Barber’s home in Muncie. “Thank you for your service to our great nation,” Plummer continued. “We want you to know that you are a shipmate, and we are not going to forget about you.”

This post first appeared on the Coast Guard Great Lakes blog. Click here for the latest from the Ninth Coast Guard District.