“Keeping the Promise”, “Fulfill their Trust” and “No one left behind” are several of many mottos that refer to the efforts of the Department of Defense to recover those who became missing while serving our nation.

More than 83,000 Americans are missing from World War II, the Korean War, the Cold War, the Vietnam War and the 1991 Gulf War. Hundreds of Defense Department men and women — both military and civilian — work in organizations around the world as part of DoD’s personnel recovery and personnel accounting communities. They are all dedicated to the single mission of finding and bringing our missing personnel home. The mission requires expertise in archival research, intelligence collection and analysis, field investigations and recoveries, and scientific analysis.

Personnel Recovery: When working abroad, U.S. personnel may become separated or isolated from friendly forces. Personnel recovery ensures that every effort will be made to bring them home safely. The broader mission of personnel recovery ensures that U.S. military and civilian personnel receive adequate training and the best possible equipment to help them survive, from simple survival and evasion situations to long-term captivity. DPMO shapes personnel recovery policies worldwide and seeks to resolve major policy issues. We also work with the military services and combatant commands to address shortfalls in equipment and technology requirements for personnel recovery forces, and collaborates with foreign governments to improve interoperability among recovery forces.

Personnel Accounting: DPMO establishes and monitors the policies which guide the Defense Department’s worldwide efforts to account for missing personnel from past conflicts. This includes leading international negotiations for access to sites and archives, as well as collaboration with non-governmental organizations, academic institutions, family groups, veterans’ organizations and individual researchers. We also perform archival research, intelligence analysis and operational support to locate, recover and identify missing personnel. Our guiding principles for the accounting community include: transparency, proactive information exchange, and collaborative analysis and operations. We also lead the accounting community’s efforts to update families of the missing at monthly face-to-face meetings.

Recently Accounted-For

The families of these service members recently were briefed by their respective Casualty or Morturary Offices. The highlighted names are linked to a more detailed news release on that serviceman’s identification.

• Cpl. Theodore A. Reynolds, U.S. Army, 8^th Cavalry Regiment, 1^st Cavalry Division, was lost on Nov. 2, 1950, in North Korea. His remains were identified on Aug. 1, 2011.
• Specialist 4 Marvin F. Phillips, U.S. Army, 114^th Assault Helicopter Company, was lost on Sept. 26, 1966, when the UH-1B helicopter he was aboard crashed off the coast of South Vietnam. His remains were identified on July 29, 2011.
• Maj. Thomas E. Clark, U.S. Air Force, 416^th Tactical Fighter Squadron, 37^th Tactical Fighter Wing, was lost on Feb. 8, 1969, when the F-100D aircraft he was aboard was struck by enemy fire and crashed in Savannakhet Province, Laos. His remains were identified on June 3, 2011.
• Sgt. Lee D. Henry, Jr., U.S. Army, I Company, 24^th Infantry Regiment, 25^th Division, was lost on Aug. 7, 1950, near the Naktong River in South Korea. His remains were identified on June 3, 2011.
• Pfc. Henry L. Gustafson, U.S. Army, B Battery, 57^th Field Artillery Battalion, was lost on Dec. 31, 1950, near Hagaru-ri, North Korea. His remains were identified on June 3, 2011.
• Pfc. John G. Lavelle, Jr., U.S. Army, B Company, 2^nd Engineer Combat Battalion, 2^nd Infantry Division, was lost on Dec. 1, 1950, near Kunu-ri, North Korea. His remains were identified on June 2, 2011.
• Lt. Col. Edward D. Silver and Maj. Bruce E. Lawrence, U.S. Air Force, 557^th Tactical Fighter Squadron, were lost on July 5, 1968, when the F-4C aircraft they were aboard failed to return from a night armed-reconnaissance of enemy targets in Quang Binh Province, North Vietnam. Their remains were identified on May 31, 2011.

A complete listing of recently account-for servicemembers can be found on the Recently Accounted-For page.

“Keeping the Promise”, “Fulfill their Trust” and “No one left behind” are several of many mottos that refer to the efforts of the Department of Defense to recover those who became missing while serving our nation.

More than 83,000 Americans are missing from World War II, the Korean War, the Cold War, the Vietnam War and the 1991 Gulf War. Hundreds of Defense Department men and women — both military and civilian — work in organizations around the world as part of DoD’s personnel recovery and personnel accounting communities. They are all dedicated to the single mission of finding and bringing our missing personnel home. The mission requires expertise in archival research, intelligence collection and analysis, field investigations and recoveries, and scientific analysis.

Personnel Recovery: When working abroad, U.S. personnel may become separated or isolated from friendly forces. Personnel recovery ensures that every effort will be made to bring them home safely. The broader mission of personnel recovery ensures that U.S. military and civilian personnel receive adequate training and the best possible equipment to help them survive, from simple survival and evasion situations to long-term captivity. DPMO shapes personnel recovery policies worldwide and seeks to resolve major policy issues. We also work with the military services and combatant commands to address shortfalls in equipment and technology requirements for personnel recovery forces, and collaborates with foreign governments to improve interoperability among recovery forces.

Personnel Accounting: DPMO establishes and monitors the policies which guide the Defense Department’s worldwide efforts to account for missing personnel from past conflicts. This includes leading international negotiations for access to sites and archives, as well as collaboration with non-governmental organizations, academic institutions, family groups, veterans’ organizations and individual researchers. We also perform archival research, intelligence analysis and operational support to locate, recover and identify missing personnel. Our guiding principles for the accounting community include: transparency, proactive information exchange, and collaborative analysis and operations. We also lead the accounting community’s efforts to update families of the missing at monthly face-to-face meetings.

Recently Accounted-For

The families of these service members recently were briefed by their respective Casualty or Morturary Offices. The highlighted names are linked to a more detailed news release on that serviceman’s identification.

• Cpl. Theodore A. Reynolds, U.S. Army, 8^th Cavalry Regiment, 1^st Cavalry Division, was lost on Nov. 2, 1950, in North Korea. His remains were identified on Aug. 1, 2011.
• Specialist 4 Marvin F. Phillips, U.S. Army, 114^th Assault Helicopter Company, was lost on Sept. 26, 1966, when the UH-1B helicopter he was aboard crashed off the coast of South Vietnam. His remains were identified on July 29, 2011.
• Maj. Thomas E. Clark, U.S. Air Force, 416^th Tactical Fighter Squadron, 37^th Tactical Fighter Wing, was lost on Feb. 8, 1969, when the F-100D aircraft he was aboard was struck by enemy fire and crashed in Savannakhet Province, Laos. His remains were identified on June 3, 2011.
• Sgt. Lee D. Henry, Jr., U.S. Army, I Company, 24^th Infantry Regiment, 25^th Division, was lost on Aug. 7, 1950, near the Naktong River in South Korea. His remains were identified on June 3, 2011.
• Pfc. Henry L. Gustafson, U.S. Army, B Battery, 57^th Field Artillery Battalion, was lost on Dec. 31, 1950, near Hagaru-ri, North Korea. His remains were identified on June 3, 2011.
• Pfc. John G. Lavelle, Jr., U.S. Army, B Company, 2^nd Engineer Combat Battalion, 2^nd Infantry Division, was lost on Dec. 1, 1950, near Kunu-ri, North Korea. His remains were identified on June 2, 2011.
• Lt. Col. Edward D. Silver and Maj. Bruce E. Lawrence, U.S. Air Force, 557^th Tactical Fighter Squadron, were lost on July 5, 1968, when the F-4C aircraft they were aboard failed to return from a night armed-reconnaissance of enemy targets in Quang Binh Province, North Vietnam. Their remains were identified on May 31, 2011.

A complete listing of recently account-for servicemembers can be found on the Recently Accounted-For page.

Source: http://www.dtic.mil/dpmo/

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World War II vet’s daughter searches for the things her father carried

By Bill Murphy Jr., Stars and Stripes, Published: October 3, 2011

NEW YORK — Jack Usadi joined the U.S. Army in 1943 and served in the 3104th Signal Service Battalion in Europe. He came home afterward, graduated from law school at Columbia University, and started a family with his wife, Janna.

On the surface, he seemed to have left the war behind. He built a successful legal career that lasted five decades, raised a son and a daughter, had many friends. Still, Usadi never stopped talking about his time in the military. It got to the point that people tuned him out when he’d tell the same stories over and over again. His daugther, Eva, however, could tell how important it was for him to share what he’d experienced. She kept listening.

Jack Usadi passed away in 2008. Not long before he died, he told Eva something that surprised her. “I never really told you the real story,” he said. “I never really told you or anybody what really happened to me.” He died before he could find the words to explain. His words have stayed with his daughter ever since, and left her wondering what he meant.

THE THINGS THEY CARRY

Eva Usadi has a 27-year-old son now. She’s a psychotherapist in New York — after stints as a forest firefighter and a machinist working on airplane engines — and she specializes in the treatment of trauma. She’s counseled soldiers and families at Fort Drum, N.Y., and is starting a weeklong decompression program called Warrior Camp for troops trying to deal with their reactions to trauma.

On a rainy night in Manhattan last month, she joined about 60 people — a mix of civilians and veterans — at a sort of encounter group and informal therapy session run by a nonprofit called Intersections International. The event, one of a series, is designed to foster dialogue between those who have served in war and those who wonder what it’s like.

Sitting first in small groups of six or seven, the veterans and civilians offered reflections on “the things they carried” as a result of war, a reference to author Tim O’Brien’s collection of short stories about Vietnam. Combat veterans talked about what it had been like to fight; some of the civilians talked about their feelings of curiosity or guilt.

Eva Usadi had told herself beforehand that her goal was simply talk with veterans as a regular person, not as a therapist. But as she shared her story with the small group, she got choked up and grew tearful. She realized she was there for her father, hoping to learn what it had felt like for him to carry the wartime memories he’d never been able to discuss.

Elsewhere in the room, a Vietnam-era veteran talked about his lingering resentment over the way he’d been treated in the military decades ago. A Department of Veterans Affairs social worker said she was concerned about what happened to the veterans she worked with after they left her office. A veteran who had served on active duty but had never deployed talked about his feelings of guilt.

A few of the participants were then asked to address the entire group of 60. Don Gomez, 29, served two tours in Iraq as an enlisted soldier, came home to go to college and is heading back to the military. He’ll start at Army officer candidate school this month. He said he was there because he sought a place where people could remove politics from their discussion of war, however briefly. “You can yell at each other later,” he said. “We’re all human, and it’s important to connect as humans.”

But it was Eva Usadi whose story seemed to have the most impact. She talked about her father, how he spoke so much about the war without telling what was most important to him. She recalled that he’d been at a Nazi concentration camp not long after it was liberated. “We’re Jewish,” she said. “I always wanted to hear [more about] that.”

SIMPLY TOO HORRIBLE

Eva’s father had shared some of the letters he’d written home from war with her, but after he died she cleaned out his home office and his closet. She went through his papers and documents. There, she found them all—hundreds of wartime letters, along with a daily diary he kept after he came home—running thousands of pages.

Some of the war letters are hard to read, not because of the content but because they were written by hand in minuscule script, or tapped out single-spaced on a mechanical typewriter. Jack Usadi was not a combat soldier, per se. He served in the Signal Corps, usually a bit behind the front lines. Read some of his letters even now, and it can become easy to forget the context. Some of them go on for page after page, describing a baseball game or how he and his fellow soldiers warded off a swarm of bees.

At least one letter, however, addressed to Jack’s brother Harry, makes the context clear. Jack was in a group of soldiers who reached Buchenwald concentration camp, the largest Nazi camp in Germany, about a month after it had been liberated by the U.S. 6th Armored Division.

A Polish man who had been an inmate guided them through the camp, Jack wrote on May 19, 1945. After giving similar tours day after day for a month, there was no “passion in his tone.” He showed them the gallows, the crematoriums and the hospital where prisoners were subjected to medical experiments.

“Offhand,” Usadi wrote, “he told us that when a prisoner died in their quarters they did not tell the guards to remove the body, but propped him up and took him along to the ration line so that they could get his daily ration of bread.” Even a month after liberation, “there were plenty of Jews [still] in the camp,” Usadi wrote. He spoke to them in Yiddish. They told him horrific stories.

“I have heard that released motion pictures … made at various German concentration camps … have dumbfounded the people at home. But the freed prisoners themselves say that no one can ever disclose the true story. It’s simply too horrible.” All he could offer them was a little bit of chocolate and a few cigarettes, he wrote his brother. He wished them luck but it felt like an empty gesture.

“What else could I say to them? I asked them where they would go and they said they didn’t know. They had no homes nor families and many of them had seen their families wiped out — only because they were Jews.”

THE NOT-SAYING

Eva Usadi and her son are in the process of reading and transcribing her father’s letters. Maybe they’ll publish them someday. No matter how many words he wrote, she said she knows she’ll never have the whole story. But the facts are less important than learning more about who he was, she said. “The not-saying that is so evident with so many combat veterans—that is the ‘thing they carry,’ the story that is never told.”

• Jack Usadi’s letter about Buchenwald concentration camp

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By Martha Groves, Los Angeles Times

They amble in with overgrown manes and beards, looking as if they’ve spent the night on the street. Some of them have. Eyes downcast, they climb three metal stairs, duck through the doorway and sink into the black vinyl chair, where the proprietor begins to snip. By the time he has brushed their necks with talc and patted their cheeks with clove-scented after-shave, they could pass for anyone’s impeccably coiffed father or brother or uncle.

In reality, they are veterans whose haggard faces reflect the psychic scars of service in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq or Afghanistan and of their ongoing battles with addiction, grief and pain. The Freedom Barber Shop, a star-spangled trailer anchored in a parking lot on the West Los Angeles Veterans Affairs campus, is their haven. Barber Tony Bravo, a.k.a. the Dreamer, is their shaman, helping to heal them with clippers, corn-pone humor and Patsy Cline.

Few people understand the plight of homeless veterans the way he does. Like many of them, he served in the military. And, although he owns what he describes as a 200-acre cattle ranch in Benson, Ariz., the Dreamer lives several days each month on the street, voluntarily, in Los Angeles — in solidarity, he says, with the rootless vets he meets and in memory of his unfettered youth. “Don’t let them know you’re hurting,” he advises his fellow gypsies. “The key is to stay invisible.”

Apples and oranges

Starting in the 1970s, Bravo owned a succession of San Vicente Boulevard salons that catered to a different clientele: the Westside elite. Political movers and shakers, venture capitalists and film honchos shelled out $100 or more for a cut and styling. Today, the Dreamer is much more likely to take payment in apples or oranges, or a ball made of rubber bands.

Outside his 1950s-vintage Terry trailer, a barber pole stands before an American flag. The 28-foot vehicle is painted with red, white and blue stripes and blue stars. Camouflage spatters and netting decorate one end. “Command Post” reads a sign over the door. “NO SMOKING. EXPLOSIVE AMMUNITION” says another. A blue awning shades a couple of picture windows, one of which showcases a sign featuring two neon peace symbols and proclaiming “Peace! Victory!”

The trailer’s interior is an ever-evolving exhibition of objects, many of them mystically or patriotically themed and donated in lieu of tips. A poster shows Native Americans cradling weapons: “Homeland Security, Native Americans, Fighting Terrorism Since 1492.” There’s also a life-size cardboard cutout of Elvis Presley in his Army uniform.

Bravo’s typical work ensemble includes a western-style navy shirt with white piping and stars (naturally) and the word “Dreamer” embroidered across the back in hot pink. He wears cuffed and faded jeans over polished two-tone wingtips that resemble spats, like something Fred Astaire might have worn. The shoes are two sizes too big, to allow for multiple pairs of socks for comfort and warmth as he makes his nighttime rounds.

His black, wavy hair is slicked back and combed close to his scalp over his brown, weathered face. To amuse himself and his customers, he sometimes wears yellow-lens goggles and a black Billy Jack hat — after all, he says, he’s half Yaqui and half Apache. On a recent afternoon, Tom Walton stepped into the Freedom Barber Shop wearing a red straw cowboy hat over long, straggly hair. The 62-year-old Navy veteran had spotted a flier for free haircuts at the VA and stopped by without an appointment. It was his lucky day. The Dreamer was in. “I don’t want a Marine haircut,” Walton said as he settled into the barber’s chair.

With the Everly Borthers “All I Have to Do Is Dream” playing over the sound system, the Dreamer went to work. Walton, a self-described alcoholic with missing teeth, told the Dreamer he once worked in the mortgage business, making as much as $12,000 a month, before the savings and loan crisis of the 1980s and ’90s.

In 1975, he said, he watched as a friend on the deck of an aircraft carrier “got squeezed like a grape” when a helicopter toppled onto him. Today, Walton lives on about $3,100 a month from a military pension and payments for PTSD. He has been homeless for much of the last eight years. The Dreamer put the finishing touches on Walton’s haircut and turned the chair so that he could see his reflection. “When you look in the mirror, what do you see?” the Dreamer asked him. “Tom Cruise,” Walton replied.

A life under the stars

Anthony Bravo Esparza was born in 1944 in Corona. As a youngster, he said, he picked tomatoes with his father, napping under oak trees, bathing in canals and sleeping under the stars at night. “To me, it was like heaven,” he recalled. “I was good for $10 a day, 40 boxes of tomatoes by 2 in the afternoon.” One day truancy officers called a halt to his outdoor lifestyle, saying it was cruel and inhumane for a child. “To this day I have contempt for that observation,” he said. “It was a beautiful time and place.”

Unable to read or write, he entered school, wearing scruffy, oversize clothes from an Army surplus store. Children toting Hopalong Cassidy and Flash Gordon lunch boxes made fun of him. According to California National Guard records in Sacramento, he joined the guard in 1965, training at Ft. Leonard Wood, Mo., where as a private he received a citation for “outstanding accomplishments in physical fitness.” He was among the troops called up to help bring order to Watts during the 1965 riots. After six years of service, he was honorably discharged as a specialist in 1971.

After Bravo established himself as a stylist in Brentwood just blocks from the VA campus, he began getting visits from vets. Word spread that he gave free haircuts to those in need. Several years ago, he contacted Marianne W. Davis, chief of voluntary service for the West Los Angeles VA, and said he was a semi-retired veteran who wanted to give back.

It was kismet. He arrived as the VA was struggling to find funds to cover its $35,000-a-year contract for barber services. Each month, the Dreamer provides 100 to 150 free cuts to veterans. In exchange, he gets to park his trailer on campus and take in paying members of the public, including many of those well-heeled fellows who frequented his San Vicente salons. ”He’s an awesome fixture on campus,” Davis said. “The vets all come out of there feeling kind of uplifted … and looking so cool.

He listens to them and lightens their burden a little bit. “The trailer’s down-home atmosphere works its magic on the wealthy guys, too. “He treats everybody exactly the same, whether millionaire or homeless,” said Berge Kipling “Kip” Hagopian, a venture capitalist who migrated from Bravo’s salon to the trailer. “He’s a very good barber,” said director-producer Roger Corman, who was thrilled to rediscover his old stylist from the boulevard at the VA campus.

Not all of the Dreamer’s clients are ambulatory. Some are confined to the VA hospital. When they can’t make it to the trailer, he packs his shears and goes to them. One recent morning, the Dreamer visited Victor A. Goldbaum, 54, of La Puente in his four-bed room at the VA hospital. Cancer in Goldbaum’s spine left his legs paralyzed. The Dreamer leaned over the back of the former Army specialist’s raised hospital bed and began to clip Goldbaum’s locks. “How about the eyebrows and ears?” the Dreamer asked. “That’s one thing guys in captivity don’t see. Nostrils, eyebrows, ears. Engineers have hairy ears. “Goldbaum smiled at his barber’s banter. “President Lincoln said: ‘Never underestimate the power of a haircut,’” the Dreamer said. “Intellectuals say he never said that. Well, he should have.”

‘Staying invisible’

When he locks the trailer each evening at dusk and ventures out to the boulevards of Brentwood, the Dreamer wears layers of denim and fleece topped by his “New York coat,” a long, dark wool garment that falls almost to the ground. “It’s going to be a long night, a cold night,” he said one recent unseasonably chilly evening. “This is the time of the evening where it’s hardest.”

He sleeps no more than an hour at a time on a stoop or behind a tree, striving to stay out of sight of all but the other sidewalk ramblers. If he wants to hang out undisturbed in a 7-Eleven parking lot, he wears a shirt bearing the convenience store’s logo. “People think I’m an employee,” he said. “It’s all part of staying invisible.” To keep onlookers guessing, he alters his gait. “There’s the old-man gait, the wounded-warrior gait, the power gait,” he said. “If people see a guy limping, it can be a defense. They figure he’s already messed up.”

At a coffee shop on San Vicente at Barrington Avenue, he greeted Jon Wyninegar, 63, a homeless veteran who had lost half his tongue to mouth cancer. The Dreamer asked how he was doing and offered some encouraging words. “We look out for each other,” the Dreamer said. “Regiments need to stick together.”

 From the Los Angeles Times
Audio slide show: Helping vets heal
martha.groves@latimes.com

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Nancy Wake in 1945

In the mid-1930s, an Australian journalist visited Germany to report on the rise of fascism and interview Adolf Hitler. The atrocities she saw there, which included the public beating of Jews, forever changed the course of her young life. Nancy Wake, who died in August at age 98, would spend World War II fighting Nazism tooth and nail, saving thousands of Allied lives, winding up at the top of the Gestapo’s most-wanted list and ultimately receiving more decorations than any other servicewoman.

The youngest of six children, Nancy Wake was born in New Zealand in 1912 but soon moved with her family to Sydney, Australia. After fleeing her broken, poverty-stricken home at 16 to work as a nurse, she received a small inheritance from an aunt that paid her way to New York, London and finally Paris, where she landed a job as a newspaper reporter. When she wasn’t filing stories about the alarming situation in Germany, Wake, a striking and fun-loving brunette, lived the breezy life of a glamorous socialite in France. In 1939 she married the wealthy French industrialist Henri Fiocca, a handsome playboy who loved tango dancing, and settled with him in Marseille.

When Germany invaded France in May 1940, the couple threw themselves into the resistance movement, helping thousands of Jewish refugees and Allied servicemen—including many pilots who had been shot down over occupied territory—escape to Spain. Until she developed a reputation as the elusive “White Mouse,” as her enemies dubbed her, and became a key Gestapo target, Wake brazenly flirted with German soldiers to waltz through checkpoints and gather information. In 1943, aware that her hunters were finally closing in, she told her husband she was going shopping and, after several failed attempts and a brief stint in jail, crossed the Pyrenees into Spain. A year later she would learn that Fiocca, whom she frequently described as the love of her life, was arrested, tortured and executed by the Gestapo for refusing to inform on her.

Wake made her way from Spain to Britain, where she convinced special agents to train her as a spy and guerilla operative. In April 1944 she parachuted into France to coordinate attacks on German troops and installations prior to the D-Day invasion, leading a band of 7,000 resistance fighters. In order to earn the esteem of the men under her command, she reportedly challenged them to drinking contests and would inevitably drink them under the table. But her fierceness alone may have won her enough respect: During the violent months preceding the liberation of Paris, Wake killed a German guard with a single karate chop to the neck, executed a women who had been spying for the Germans, shot her way out of roadblocks and biked 70 hours through perilous Nazi checkpoints to deliver radio codes for the Allies.

After the war, Wake received the first of many honors and awards for her service, including the George Medal from Britain, the Medal of Freedom from the United States and the Médaille de la Résistance and Croix de Guerre from France. She returned to Australia and ran unsuccessfully for parliament in 1949 and 1951. Back in England in the 1950s, she worked for the British Air Ministry’s intelligence department and married her second husband, a former English fighter pilot named John Melvin Forward. The pair later moved back to Australia, where in 1985 Wake published her bestselling autobiography, “The White Mouse.”

Forward died in 1997, and in 2001 Wake relocated to London’s pricey Stafford Hotel, racking up considerable debt on board and the six gin-and-tonics she nursed at her regular spot in the downstairs bar. (In 2003, it was reported that Prince Charles and other prestigious benefactors had helped pay her bills.) In her final interviews, the declining heroine regaled journalists with stories of her wartime escapades and fond memories of killing Nazis. After a heart attack in 2003, Nancy Wake was placed in a nursing home, where she spent her last years before dying of a chest infection in a London hospital, three weeks short of her 99th birthday. Her ashes will be scattered in Montlucon, France, where she led a raid on Gestapo headquarters in 1944.

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About Sew Much Comfort

Sew Much Comfort is a nationally recognized non-profit organization providing adaptive clothing free of charge, to wounded service men and women at every military hospital in the United States, Landsthul (Germany) and at Combat Surgical Hospitals overseas. We create and/or adapt clothing to meet the unique needs of the wounded. For many service members the only clothing available is a hospital gown. These gowns are drafty, do not cover properly and are impractical for optimum recovery. By creating custom adaptive clothing, our hope is to make their recovery more comfortable both physically and emotionally.

Our clothing gives medical personnel and service members the ability to have ready access to their injuries by utilizing the adaptive openings in our clothing. Specially designed clothing permits easy access during their exams and physical therapy, as well as facilitating the difficult process of dressing themselves in their everyday life. Our clothing allows injured service members to easily dress themselves and their clothing appears as normal civilian attire which helps facilitate a more natural and comfortable recovery.

We are currently making clothing to fit over a fixator (36” metal halo that goes around an injured limb) devices for either arm or leg injuries. We also make and adapt full length access pants, basketball style athletic shorts, boxer shorts, and adaptive shirts to cover upper body injuries. These items are available for both men and women. Our copyrighted designs and instructions were created by working in conjunction with the medical staffs and the wounded service members.

Our volunteers remain the driving force behind our success. We are proud to say that with the help of our volunteers across the nation, Sew Much Comfort has provided more than 30,000 items of adaptive clothing since 2004. With increasing needs, our goal is to distribute 1000 pieces of clothing per week.

Sew Much Comfort is the only organization that provides specially designed adaptive clothing free of charge to military hospitals. The need for Sew Much Comfort will exist as long as there are injured service members returning from overseas conflicts. We want to thank all service members for their courageous and honorable service to our country. We understand their dedication to duty, honor, and country and want to show them in a tangible way how proud we are of the tremendous work they do for the cause of freedom at home and abroad. We are a 501 (c) 3 public charity, all donations are tax deductible.

For a list of needed materials, or to become a volunteer seamstress, visit www.sewmuchcomfort.org.

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SS Gairsoppa – a brief history

• Steamship first used in 1919 by the British India Steam Navigation Company
• Involved in commercial shipping in the Far East, Australia and East Africa
• Enlisted in the service of the Ministry of War Transport in Jan 1941
• On her final voyage from Calcutta, India she was loaded with nearly 7,000 tonnes of cargo – including pig iron, silver, and tea
• On Feb 17, 1941, U-boat 101 torpedoed the Gairsoppa causing her to sink
• Of the 32 crew members who boarded lifeboats, all perished except for one survivor

A shipwreck containing 200 tonnes of silver worth about £150m has been found in the Atlantic – the largest haul of precious metal ever discovered at sea. The SS Gairsoppa, a UK cargo ship sunk by a German U-boat in 1941, was found by US exploration firm Odyssey Marine. The firm will retain 80% of the cargo’s value under the terms of a contract with the Department for Transport.

Only one person from the 85-strong crew survived the torpedo attack as the ageing steamer tried to reach Ireland. The vessel was on its way back to Britain from India when it ran low on fuel in stormy weather, and tried to divert to Galway harbour, but it was spotted and sunk by the German submarine. Three members of the crew survived in a lifeboat and reached the Cornish coast two weeks later, but two died trying to get ashore.

The wreck of the 412ft ship was found this summer nearly 4,700m below the North Atlantic, 300 miles off the Irish coast, but it was only confirmed as SS Gairsoppa last week.

The seven million ounces of silver on the ship is a mixture of privately owned bullion insured by the UK government and state-owned coins and ingots.

Researchers used records including insurance documents from Lloyd’s War Losses Register to work out how much was on board. Odyssey president Mark Gordon said one set of documents suggested the silver bars may contain 2.5% gold as well, which he described as “an added bonus”.

The marine archaeology and exploration company said it was “highly unlikely” any human remains would be found, given the age and depth of the wreck.

Odyssey’s chief marine archaeologist Neil Dobson said: “Even though records indicate that the lifeboats were launched before the ship sank, sadly most of her crew did not survive the long journey to shore.

“By finding this shipwreck and telling the story of its loss, we pay tribute to the brave merchant sailors who lost their lives.” Odyssey said it had taken on the risk and expense of the complicated search, cargo recovery, documentation, and marketing of the cargo. The merchant ship belonged to the British India Steam Navigation Company, and was ordered into the merchant navy fleet at the outbreak of World War II.

On her final voyage from Calcutta, India she was loaded with nearly 7,000 tonnes of medium and high-value cargo, including pig iron, tea, and the large quantity of silver. Of the 32 crew members who boarded lifeboats after the attack, all perished except for one survivor. Second officer Richard Ayres reached shore at the Lizard lighthouse in Cornwall 13 days after the sinking. He was made an MBE for his efforts in trying to save his fellow sailors, and lived until 1992.

A Department for Transport spokeswoman said: “The contract for the salvage of the SS Gairsoppa was awarded by competitive tender in accordance with government and departmental procedures. “While we do not comment on the specifics of such commercial arrangements, Odyssey Marine Exploration were awarded the contract as they offered the best rate of return to HMG [Her Majesty's Government].”

www.bbc.co.uk

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Marine Corps Base Quantico, V.A. (Sept.20) — After 36 years retired USMC Gunnery Sgt. Jerlette Mickie, a Washington DC native, was finally awarded the Vietnam service medal at the National Museum of the Marine Corps on Friday. Because of misplaced documents with in the administration years ago, there were no records of Mickie being in the Marine Corps before 1976, even though he began service in 1973.

The Vietnam Service Medal is a military award was created in 1965 by order of President Lyndon B. Johnson. It is presented to any service member who served on temporary duty for more than 30 consecutive days, or 60 non-consecutive days.

It was also presented to service members that were attached to or regularly serving days with an organization participating in or directly supporting ground operations, As well as aboard a naval vessel. The organization had to be directly supporting military operations in the Republic of Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos within the defined combat zone.

“I’m excited to be able to wear my uniform again after all these years,” said Mickie. I came to the museum early this morning and when my wife finally got her after not seeing me in uniform in years, she saw me and said ‘woo’ and I said ‘yeah, I know’.”

Army Lt. Col. Corey L. Brumsey, a communications officer for the Pentagon, presented the medal to Mickie. “I’m very honored to have been selected to preside over this ceremony,” Brumsey said. “This ceremony recognizes Gunnery Sgt. Mickie who served back in Vietnam but was not recognized while he was in the service. This ceremony shows that the Armed Forces does not about its service members.”

“Having served 22 years between 1973 to 1995, I’m honored,” said Mickie. “I’m honored to have received this award and not only be part of the United States Military, but to be a United States Marine.”

Being in Vietnam was no walk in the park. For some the sounds of gun shots and thoughts of dying were fears that flowed throughout military. For Mackie though, his one fear some would say was a little unconventional.

“Being in Vietnam was very scary. But being a Marine Corps martial arts instructor, I was not scared of the weapons or the enemy. I was scared of the water because I couldn’t swim. Yet you learn quickly to get over those fears when you look the enemy straight in the face.”

Even after Vietnam, Mickie was still reminded of the past from time to time. “I would go to Walter Reed for medication every once in a while,” said Mickie. “I would be reminded about the war every time I saw service members and those trail blazers who that came before me. Seeing them without limbs still wanting, not only to survive, but to continue to serve their country made me want to continue to strive to do my best in life.

The Marine Corps served an important role in the Vietnam War taking part in such battles as Da Nang, Hue City, Con Thien and Khe Sanh. Vietnam was the longest war for Marines; by its end, 13,091 had been killed in action, 51,392 had been wounded, and 57 Medals of Honor had been awarded.

– Correspondent Lance Cpl. Antwaun Jefferson

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Thanks to Redbook magazine for this very special story!

7 Sweet & Simple Ways to Support Military Families

More than 2 million Americans have served in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2001. You’ll honor our troops (and the people who love them) by doing even one thing on this list.

By Alison Storm

1. Give hope to a new generation of young war widows. In May 2007, just 90 minutes after Taryn Davis spoke to her husband, Michael, an Army corporal in Iraq, he was killed by roadside bombs. She was racked with grief and desperate to talk to anyone who shared her experience, but, living far from a military base, she found no one. Finally, when Taryn couldn’t identify any organizations dedicated to grieving young widows, she started her own: the American Widow Project (AWP). The nonprofit hosts retreats at which widows and widowers can meet and share their stories. “I wanted to create a place where people don’t have to candy-coat what they’ve been through — it can just be raw and honest,” says Taryn, 25, pictured here (far right). Go to American widowproject.org and make a donation (or band together with friends) to help cover the $350 cost of sending a widow to an upcoming AWP retreat.

2. Follow the example of Second Lady Jill Biden. “As a military mom, I know how an act of kindness makes a difference to a soldier,” Dr. Biden told REDBOOK. “We can all play a role with a simple act of service. This spring the First Lady and I will launch a campaign to rally Americans to support and embrace military families.” Enter your zip code at serve.gov/families.asp to find volunteer opportunities, like assisting at homecoming events.

3. Organize a baby-shower donation drive with your friends to gather supplies to create a “shower in a box” for one military mom-to-be. Then send the unwrapped items to Operation Shower, a nonprofit that’s thrown showers for more than 500 military wives. For more info, go to operationshower.org/donation/donate.

4. Transfer some of your frequent-flier miles to Hero Miles, a program that provides free flights for injured soldiers’ families to visit them in the hospital. Get details at fisherhouse.org/programs/heromiles.html.

5. Recycle old cell phones by donating them to Cell Phones for Soldiers, which sells the phones and then uses the funds to buy calling cards for troops. (Deployed soldiers are typically given only 15 minutes of free talk time a week.) The average resold phone buys a soldier 100 minutes of chatting. Print a free shipping label at cellphonesforsoldiers.com.

6. Adopt a soldier’s pet until he or she gets home safely. Finding long-term, inexpensive care for animals can be a challenge for deployed soldiers. Apply to be a pet’s foster family by signing up with the Military Pets Foster Project at netpets.org/netp/fosterhome.php.

7. Provide a little homeland security to a child whose parent is overseas. The nonprofit Operation Hug-A-Hero creates dolls designed with a head-to-toe photograph of the child’s parent, free of charge. “My daughters carry the dolls with their dad’s picture everywhere,” says Jackie Dorr, whose husband is in Afghanistan. “It makes them feel closer to him.” A donation of $25 to operationhugahero.org is enough to put a huggable doll in one child’s arms.

http://www.redbookmag.com/health-wellness/advice/inspiration-wellness/help-military-families

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WEST POINT, N.Y., Sept. 14, 2011 — Sgt. 1st Class Leroy Petry’s first visit to the U.S. Military Academy left many cadets wondering if more trips would follow, as they asked the Medal of Honor recipient whether his 17-year-old son was applying to West Point. “The packet is in the van,” Petry told the Class of 2012 assembled at Robinson Auditorium to roaring applause.

This was but one of many questions cadets had for the Army Ranger during his tour of West Point Sept. 9. During a small classroom discussion with about 25 cadets, one future Army officer asked Petry how a leader can best prepare his troops for combat.

“You’re going to see Soldiers in your unit who may be just coming back from a deployment. Use their knowledge. Make the training as realistic as possible,” Petry said. The strongest leaders, Petry said, are the ones who talk directly and honestly to their Soldiers. That sort of straight talk can prepare troops entering combat and help deflect battlefield stress. “Have those talks with your Soldiers where you prepare them for the worst. Hope that it doesn’t happen, but prepare them mentally,” Petry said.

Petry’s story has become well-known since receiving the Medal of Honor at a White House ceremony in July. Rather than rehash the story of the life-saving actions he took in combat which resulted in the loss of his right hand, Petry spoke of the future — not just his own, but the future that cadets taking on the mantle of officership will face.

“Know your Soldiers — both on a professional and personal level,” Petry said. “And get to know your NCOs. I’m not going to lie to you, some NCOs will try to run things totally, but it’s a team effort and you need to work on that relationship to get things done.” Arguments will happen, Petry said, but don’t let them happen in front of the troops. “That’s the worst thing you can do, and it’ll bring down morale fast,” Petry said.

Petry told the cadets he has no regrets and looks forward to serving the Army as long as he can. He currently works as a liaison with the U.S. Special Operations Command Care Coalition, assisting wounded warriors and their families. “The Army has been just an amazing part of my life, and I wish I could do it the rest of my life,” Petry, who re-enlisted in May 2010, said. “The reason I re-enlisted is because I think the greatest thing you can do is serve your country.”

Petry is often hailed for his own selfless service to the Army and our nation, but those who made the ultimate sacrifice he honors every day. He calls it his “living memorial,” the names of fallen Rangers from the 2nd Battalion, 75th Regiment inscribed on his prosthetic forearm. “It’s hard for me to express. I don’t forget the fallen but I choose to embrace the living,” Petry said. “I still support all of our troops overseas and the veterans. I make it a point to thank every one of them I meet.”

Petry’s visit to West Point was one of several recent stops around New York which took him from the pitcher’s mound at Yankee Stadium, across town to Citi Field and inside the Ed Sullivan Theater as the featured guest on the “Late Show with David Letterman.” It proved to be a rewarding escort detail for the cadets joining him at the Letterman appearance.

“He really answered all the questions we had and then some. I left the ‘Late Show’ filled with all sorts of information about the Army and about his life,” Class of 2013 Cadet Daniel Copeland said. “I will tell you that meeting Sergeant First 1st Class Petry was one of the highlights of my life.”

“To be in the presence of someone who has demonstrated so much love and respect not only to the Army, but to his brothers and sisters in arms is more than humbling,” Copeland said. “He is truly a great American, and I am more than honored to have met him.”

Class of 2015 Cadet Shalanda Williams also was inspired to meet Petry and to see how he’s adapted to the prosthetic hand so well. “It was never uncomfortable or awkward for him and that made me more comfortable,” Williams said. “I believe it takes amazing courage to recover after all the injuries he sustained and to see him as I did today was the most inspiring thing about him.”

Williams said Petry came across as a genuine person; very comfortable to be around but always conducting himself in a professional manner. “I know it took immense patience to see and talk to many different people while he may have been physically uncomfortable,” Williams said. “His ability to maintain his composure is what I will take with me and aspire to attain within myself.”

What struck Copeland as most extraordinary about Petry’s sacrifice is the fact he acted so unselfishly when some people would have responded instinctually toward self-preservation.

“I can only imagine the thoughts that must have gone through his head while he was reaching for that grenade. As we all know, he has a wife and children who he provides and cares for, and for him to know all of that, and still reach for the grenade, knowing he was probably going to die, is absolutely extraordinary,” Copeland said. “The love he has for his Soldiers is awe-inspiring.”

That was entirely the motivation behind his action that day, Petry told the cadets. “We’re like family, it’s one big family and I know everything about them just as they know everything about me,” Petry said. “If it was my wife, my son or daughter in harm’s way I would do everything I can to protect them. It’s the same way with my Ranger family.”

Petry has said he doesn’t consider himself a hero. That’s a term for others to apply to a person and Petry has many heroes of his own. Copeland was impressed to find Petry was every bit a Soldier’s Soldier; speaking to the cadets in a down-to-earth manner, swapping stories and getting to know cadet life as much as they were trying to learn about his life.

“Sergeant First Class Petry is a very humble man, to say the least,” Copeland said. ” Everyone knows that what he has done sets him so far apart from the rest of us, but he strives to portray himself as being an ordinary Soldier. He is unbelievably nice and was more than willing to answer any of our questions, and even had a few questions of his own for us. Just by talking to him, you can tell that there is something special about the way he is. I couldn’t quite pick it out, I just knew.”

Petry is featured on the Army.mil website with stories, citation and resources available at www.army.mil/medalofhonor/petry/index.html.

Photos of Petry’s visit to West Point are available at www.flickr.com/photos/west_point/sets/72157627539131839/.

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The President of the United States in the name of The Congress takes pleasure in presenting the MEDAL OF HONOR to

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