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Roland Hardt stormed Utah Beach twice
Roland Hardt is one American soldier who made the D-Day invasion twice. He also received a bear hug from Gen. George Patton for being “one hell-of-a-good soldier.” The 88-year-old El Jobean, Fla. man...
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Medic at war – He treated No Gun Ri massacre wounded
Robin Matthews was an Army medic aboard a hospital train dispatched to treat the wounded from the massacre at No Gun Ri during the early stages of the Korean War more than half a century ago. The...
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RAF Sgt. Bill Cross flight engineer on B-24 in WWII
“We were flying over Rangoon, Burma when we got shot up real bad by Japanese ground fire and the whole crew had to bail out,” Bill Cross of Holiday RV Park in Englewood, Fla. said. “I was a flight...
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Sgt. Jim Foster of Punta Gorda with 1st Marines at Chosin in Korean War
Former Marine Sgt. Jim Foster of Blue Heron Pines mobile home park south of Punta Gorda, Fla. was a member of George Battery, 3rd Battalion, 11 Regiment, 1st Marine Division. He marched to the Chosin...
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Ed Robins painted his way through Navy during Korean War
Ed Robins was in the Navy during the Korean War. He was an airman who never set foot in an airplane and never went to sea. He spent most of his four-year hitch painting murals om the wall of the mess...
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Lt. Edwin Morgan joined the Navy and saw the world during the 1970s
The high point of Lt. Edwin Morgan’s 5 1/2 year Naval career was the six months he sailed throughout much of Europe and the Middle East aboard the destroyer escort USS Trippe in 1975 as the ship’s...
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Don Platt was engineman aboard cruiser USS Astoria in Pacific during WWII
Don Platt remembers May 15, 1941, like it was yesterday. That’s the day he signed up to join the U.S. Navy, shortly after receiving his charter boat captain’s license at 21. The Englewood, Fla. native,...
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Navy Corpsman Steve Bizeur served with 4th Marine Division on Saipan & Iwo Jima
It wasn’t long after Navy Medical Corpsman Steven Bizeur of North Port, Fla. came ashore on Kwajalein with the 4th Marine Division he became a casualty himself during the war in the Pacific. “I was in...
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Pvt. Jeff Ortlieb serves in the 25th Infantry Division in Iraq in 2007
The graffiti on the wall of the 25th Infantry Division’s camp in Kharma, near Fallujah in Iraq, says it all: “Welcome to Out Post Delta — JESUS HATES YOU.” Pvt. Jeff Ortlieb, Ruth Starr’s 20-year-old...
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Lt. Floyd Coffield bombed German oil refineries at Ploesti during World War II
Floyd Coffield underwent his baptism of fire on a bombing raid over Ploesti, Romania, flying a B-24 “Liberator” four-engine bomber on May 18, 1944. Some 600 B-24s and B-17 “Flying Fortresses” bombed...
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Lt. Col. Russell Howard of Port Charlotte was airborne sleuth during ‘Cold War’
Retired Air Force Lt. Col. Russell Howard of Port Charlotte, Fla. began his 22 year career in the military as a young ROTC 2nd lieutenant who became an electronics warfare officer. In the beginning he...
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Old showman had time of his life playing nightclubs in New York, Miami and Keys
Hap Saams is still a showman at 98. The former big-band musician and star of a one-man nightclub act is still going strong these days at lunchtime at the Royal Palm Retirement Centre in Port Charlotte,...
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Bill Fields of North Port served in many units during his 29 years in the...
Bill Fields, an 85-year-old North Port, Fla. resident, signed up in 1947 for the New Jersey National Guard with a couple of high school buddies. By the time he finished his 29 years of service in the...
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Englewood sailor back from war In Afghanistan
Jarrod Wetherington came home from the Arabian Sea and the fighting in Afghanistan Friday evening. [June 28, 2002] For the past seven months the 21-year-old Englewood, Fla. sailor has been part of this...
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Former Sgt. Mike Vucic served with 1st, 3rd, 7th and 15th Armies during WW II...
When he landed on the beach at Normandy, France a few days after the initial invasion of Europe by Allied forces during World War II, Pfc. Mike Vucic of Port Charlotte, Fla. was a 18-year-old rifleman...
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Staff Sgt. Michael Tristano flew 35 missions as gunner on B-17 bomber in WW II
On most of his 35 combat missions over Nazi-occupied Europe during World War II, Staff Sgt. Michael Tristano of Heron Creek subdivision in North Port, Fla. flew as a ball-turret gunner on a “Flying...
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Pfc. Jim Picard arrived on Ie Shima island after Ernie Pyle was shot by Japanese
A couple of weeks after Ernie Pyle, the most famous war correspondent in World War II, was killed by a Japanese bullet on Ie Shima Island off Okinawa, Pfc. Jim Picard and his 90 mm antiaircraft gun...
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Former Lt. Col. Tom Block 199th Inf. battalion commander Vietnam 67-68
By the time Tom Block arrived in Vietnam in 1967 he was a first lieutenant in the U.S. Army with time spent learning to be an Army Ranger, Senior Parachutist and a Pathfinder. He graduated from college...
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Mary O’Neill of La Casa became 18-year-old clerk typist in Washington before...
When Mary O’Neal of La Casa Mobile Home Park in North Port, Fla. went to Washington, D.C. in 1941, she was an 18-year-old civilian clerk typist who had just graduated from high school in Houston, Mo....
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Pvt. Bill Denton showed up for World War II a bit too late
Pvt. Bill Denton was on a troop train headed from the Marine training base at Parris Island, S.C., to San Diego, Calif., for shipment to the Pacific Theater of Operations when the young leathernecks...
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