Among Friends

[just bee]

[just bee]

[just bee]

Speaking of Veterans Day...

I saw Irving Locker on the news recently, celebrating his 101st birthday.  Apparently he's in the news again.  He's written a song, If Freedom Was Free, that was released one day before the big birthday.  The chorus?

If freedom was free, there wouldn’t be a mountain of metal and men under Normandy.

I'd found an article about him that was written around the time of his 98th birthday in 2023.

On June 6, 1944, Locker was one of the 156,000 soldiers to storm the beaches of Normandy, landing at Utah Beach. Six months later, Locker was a 19-year-old Staff Sergeant with the 116th AAA Gun Battalion of the 1st Army’s 7th Corps.

He found himself in the Ardennes Forest during the brutally cold winter of 1944-1945.

Locker said, “When we went into the Battle of the Bulge, they had us surrounded on three sides. We didn’t have ammunition, food, or anything. I had to send my own sergeant into our own mortuaries where our own dead people were and take the boots and clothing off of them to bring back.”

Locker played a part in the liberation of the Gardelegen Concentration Camp, about 100 miles west of Berlin, an experience he will never forget.

Once Locker reached Berlin, he took a swastika flag from a wall and had some of his men sign it. It is one of many mementos he still has from the war.

After the war, Locker made a life with his sweetheart Bernice. Unfortunately, they have outlived both of their sons. His wife Bernice said, “We’ve had our ups and downs, but we’ve always been there for each other. When we lost our sons, I don’t think either of us would have survived if we didn’t have each other to lean on.” She said her husband does not let tragedy define him.

Locker has made a life of retelling his story. He has made YouTube videos and continues to give Power Point presentations to anyone who will listen. For 77 years he has given lectures on the war and the Holocaust everywhere from elementary school classrooms to the White House. He returned to Normandy for the 70th and 75th D-Day anniversaries.

Locker said “Too many people have no idea what we experienced. It’s important to me that this story is told after I’m gone, so people don’t forget.”

Locker is 5’2” and, during one of his talks, someone asked how he survived the war. Locker answered, “I stood behind a tall guy.”

Locker is a long-time member of JWV Post 352 in The Villages, Florida.

-- Jewish War Veterans of the United States of America

[cowboy sam]

I also saw him on a tv show yesterday that was  honoring him also at his age  now being a songwriter and  showed a male a singer recording his song

🙏  and thanking him for his service

[geezerette]

@just bee 

Locker said “Too many people have no idea what we experienced. It’s important to me that this story is told after I’m gone, so people don’t forget.”

So true.  These were the men (and women) in my younger life that were just ordinary everyday people.  Many had few wants or needs and didn't seem to accomplish much in the grand scheme of things.  Little did I know at that time what they had been through.  Depression, war, even hardship and hunger at home during the war.

It's a shame that life is such we can't appreciate much of what was accomplished before us.  And a testament to those that gave so much that we had that freedom of ignorance.

[just bee]

Just a small part of a long article from The Associated Press...

WWII Nurses Who Dodged Bullets, Saved Lives Deserve Congressional Honor, Lawmakers Say

At age 106, Alice Darrow can clearly recall her days as a nurse during World War II, part of a pioneering group that dodged bullets as they hauled packs full of medical supplies and treated the burns and gunshot wounds of troops.

Some nurses were killed by enemy fire. Others spent years as prisoners of war. Most returned home to quiet lives, receiving little recognition.

Darrow sat with patients, even after-hours. One of them had arrived at her hospital on California's Mare Island with a bullet lodged in his heart. He was not expected to survive surgery, yet he would change her life.

"To them, you're everything because you're taking care of them," she said, sitting at her home in the San Francisco Bay Area town of Danville.

Eighty years after the war ended, a coalition of retired military nurses and others is campaigning to award one of the nation's highest civilian honors, the Congressional Gold Medal, to all nurses who served in WWII. Other groups, such as the Women Airforce Service Pilots of WWII and the real-life Rosie the Riveters, have already received the honor.

Among the patients Darrow cared for was a young soldier wounded in Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor. Before surgery to remove the bullet in his heart, he asked if she would go on a date with him, if he made it through.

"I said, ‘Well sure, you can count on me,'" she says, and laughs. "I couldn't say, ‘No, I don't think you're going to make it.'"

Dean Darrow did survive and they did go out. The couple kept the 7.7 mm bullet. They married and raised four children. He died in 1991.

In September, Alice Darrow took a cruise to Hawaii with her daughter and son-in-law, where she donated the bullet to the Pearl Harbor National Memorial so visitors from around the world could learn of its significance and the love story behind it.

Darrow said she's looking forward to seeing the bullet on display. The Congressional Gold Medal would be another treasure to look forward to.

"It would be an honor," she said.

[just bee]

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@geezerette wrote:

@just bee 

Locker said “Too many people have no idea what we experienced. It’s important to me that this story is told after I’m gone, so people don’t forget.”

So true.  These were the men (and women) in my younger life that were just ordinary everyday people.  Many had few wants or needs and didn't seem to accomplish much in the grand scheme of things.  Little did I know at that time what they had been through.  Depression, war, even hardship and hunger at home during the war.

It's a shame that life is such we can't appreciate much of what was accomplished before us.  And a testament to those that gave so much that we had that freedom of ignorance.

---

@geezerette 

Well said.  And it's a shame that so many did forget.  Worse, many of them never even knew.

[just bee]

Gotta get ready to go get some blood drawn for a doctor's appointment next week.  My doc said it sometimes takes two weeks to get results.

To that, I say...

WHAT???

That doesn't even make sense to me.

[cowboy sam]

@just bee 

 uh  i can go for a blood draw  for full panel testing  or for just my thyroid at doctors office  at 8am...and get results around 1pm   the same day 

and I live in a very small town  and  the hospital is 12 miles away from us!

[Bella2022]

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@just bee wrote:

Gotta get ready to go get some blood drawn for a doctor's appointment next week.  My doc said it sometimes takes two weeks to get results.

To that, I say...

WHAT???

That doesn't even make sense to me.

---

I get mine the same day 🤔