When you drive up to the lovely Lemont home of Dick and Pat O'Connor, you are greeted by blooming flowers in a meticulously landscaped yard, a White Sox flag in the front garden, and the U.S. flag flying high.
Lessons learned in a war zone can last you a lifetime, assuming you make it home alive. Sergeant Dick Hanson learned quickly that taking pictures from the turret of a tank on the front lines of Korea can get you killed.
Jerome Koutny was sent to Vietnam as an infantryman and then volunteered for one of the more dangerous jobs as a tunnel rat, looking for the enemy by going into their tunnels.
Bob Walker’s father was a career Navy man who served on a minesweeper clearing obstacles before D-Day and then spent the days after the invasion recovering bodies and parts of bodies from the water.
Suddenly, the still, black night exploded. Air Force Sgt. Greg Dittemore heard a big boom, as a flash that looked like lightning crackled across the sky.
Robert “Bob” Gatenby’s wife and family thought he was comfortably stationed in a base camp during his time in Vietnam. His reality, however, was the exact opposite.
Bob Carnagey arrived in Vietnam during the Tet Offensive. Even though he was a non-combatant, he said death was all around him
This story begins with a young boy from the southside of Chicago. As he lies in his bed, looking at the church steeples just outside his bedroom window, he dreams of one day becoming a Catholic priest.
When James stepped off the plane from Vietnam and his feet touched the ground in Hawaii, he got on his knees and kissed the ground. He remembers thinking to himself “you are the luckiest SOB alive”.
Dennis' first deployment came in 1968, in Turkey on the Black Sea Coast. He was responsible for monitoring missiles and spacecraft. There was only one adversary when he was first deployed; there were two at the end of his service.
Guantánamo Bay, Cuba/Bermuda/ Pearl Harbor/San Diego/Norfolk/ Vietnam — Fortunately, Bill Holic, Jr., liked to travel and travel he did. Thirty years in the Navy certainly gives him the title of “lifer”.
Like most young men, high school graduation found Tom William Davidson vulnerable for the draft. He passed his induction physical and then enlisted in the Navy. "As a kid I always wanted to get in the Navy,” he said.
Mike was recognized for serving as an Army Sergeant from July 1967 to July 1969, serving a year in Vietnam as part of the Combat Infantry Division. Mike received a Purple Heart for an injury he suffered during his service.
Glenn Hall, affectionately known as Rufus, was born in Idlewild, Tennessee. Rufus was the middle child of a family of seven. Idlewild was a small farm town of about 300 people.
Born 99 years ago this March, Kenneth “Ken” Molnaire grew up in Chicago. Living in Edison Park he attended Ebinger School, graduating in 1939.
Donna Cooley enlisted in the Army at a time when military duties that were traditionally done by men started opening up to women. She said “it was a tough time for women because the Army wasn’t prepared and didn’t know what to do with us.”
Major John Ashford knew he was in a bad situation on that dangerous day in Bosnia in 1996. What he didn’t know was how fast it was going to go from bad to worse.
Thomas Legg grew up in North Hammond, Indiana. His father, a World War II veteran, was in the Civil Defense and was a very strict man. Tom was in the Boys Scouts and also took first aid courses for his medical merit badges.
The Korean War Legacy Foundation website encourages visitors to “imagine being a young soldier thrust into a foreign country thousands of miles away to fight a war.”
Don Talbot spent his first years with parents, Walter and Helen, in their home on the southside of Chicago. Upon completing 7th grade at Madison Grade School, Walter and Helen, with Don and his siblings, Barb, Wally and Bobby, moved to their new home in Harvey, Illinois.
