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05.14.2008 10:54 am

Where do we get such men

St. Louis Post-Dispatch

 

Where do we get such men and women?  Where do they come from?  Will we always be so blessed?  As a young septuagenarian, I feel a variegation of positive emotions about these heroes we are blessed to have known or read about.  They make me so very proud to be an American citizen in the early 21st century.

 

The St. Louis Post Dispatch on 5-7-08 carried the sad news that a black American war hero born in 1913 had died.  During WWII, William J. Hamilton won five (5) Bronze Service Stars in Europe.  In his personal life, he was a community role model and devoted family man of the Catholic Faith.  I never met “Bill” when I was a St. Louis police officer in the 60’s, but I patrolled his streets Page and Whittier.  Like this man, I used the GI Bill to put me through college.

 

Meanwhile, we just lost our neighbor, one John Wiesniewski, aged 87, who was a carrier pilot in the Pacific during WWII.  His Catholic wife, Lucia, survived a Nazi concentration camp in Poland when she was 10yrs. old (1945).  The so-called “showers” (poison gas) failed to work.

 

All of these heroes danced between the raindrops and I for one am humbled by their character and faith. 

 

J. Skip Bennett

Lebanon, Ill.


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10 comments

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J.

You are 110% correct.

— JD
11:11 am May 14th, 2008

Hopefully, we will always be blessed with such as these. I will continue to honor them all, whether they are Catholics or not.

— slamfist
11:40 am May 14th, 2008

Fear not Mr Bennett. Good men like that are still out there. Hard to see them sometimes amidst the flotsam, but they’re there.

— Go_Fish
11:59 am May 14th, 2008

Mr. Bennett, if you can bear one more story like the ones you recounted, I would urge you to look up a song by John Gorka titled Semper Fi. The true story of his father captured in deceptively simple words so beautifully told it should be required listening on Memorial Day. You may be able to hear it on the net or find it on one of his cd’s on his website. God’s blessings to you.

— Rich Brown
2:37 pm May 14th, 2008

J

It’s not men either sir. Women should also be included and honored for their service.

— JD
3:39 pm May 14th, 2008

Hit the wrong key and didn’t get finished with my previous post.

Women should also be included and honored for their service, on the national level as well as men.

— JD
3:50 pm May 14th, 2008

What a sad state we are in as a country putting woman on the front lines of our military.

And I am certainly NOT a Phyllis Schlafly type.

— D. Walker
6:23 pm May 15th, 2008

D. Walker

I agree, your a jerk.

— Art
7:59 pm May 15th, 2008

Mr Bennett,

I agree with everything you say, and add to your list ALL those men and women who have sacrificed at LEAST a portion of their life to serve their country and its citzens. Everyday, we walk in the shadows of giants.

— MercMan
9:11 am May 17th, 2008

Mr. Bennett-The song I recommended in an earlier post is available on the Jack’s Crows cd. The lyrics can be found by googling John Gorka Semper Fi lyrics. I couldn’t find it sampled anywhere to listen to, but I didn’t check You Tube or the like. You might also want to download this week’s pod cast of NPR’s Story Corps for another beautiful story of unsung heroes.

— Rich Brown
6:38 am May 25th, 2008