The power of technology

Technology sometimes gets talked about as being bad for us, how much it changes our lives, how it is depersonalizing life. My view is that most anything taken to an extreme is not good. And in this particular case, the use of technology to bring a view to those who are unable to travel to the national capital to see the Memorials that were built for them is priceless.

Marine Corp Hymn by 1st Sgt Jack D Kirkbride

From Facebook feed of the National Museum of the Marine Corps comes this rendition of the Marine Corp hymn. Well done!

5th Annual VJ Day Candlelight Ceremony of Remembrance

The Iwo Jima Memorial Historical Foundation, Inc. will be holding the 5th Annual VJ Day Candlelight Ceremony of Remembrance on Saturday, August 17th.  The public is invited to attend this FREE event and participate in this solemn ceremony by remembering a deceased loved one who served at any time in the U. S. Armed Forces.

 

The ceremony will remember and honor ALL of America's Veterans who served at ANY time in the Armed Forces and who have since passed away or who were KIA/MIA/POW.  Among those being remembered are the 100 Connecticut servicemen who were killed in action during the World War II Battle of Iwo Jima. The public is invited to participate by remembering any special veterans in their lives who has passed away. The ceremony will include singers, bagpipes, invocation, speakers, taps, rifle salute, riderless horse and the lighting of candles. The public is invited to call the name of a loved one and toll the bell for each. Everyone is invited to bring a photo of the veteran they would like to remember and place it on the "Wall of Honor" or email it to us for inclusion on a digital photo frame.  This Foundation event has been designated as the National Hub for the “Spirit of ‘45” events in Connecticut which celebrates the “can do” attitude of the Greatest Generation.

 

The Newington Memorial Funeral Home is once again generously co-sponsoring this event and assisting in the ceremony.  The ceremony will begin at 5:30 p.m. at the Newington Memorial Funeral Home located at 20 Bonair Ave, Newington.  The brief ceremony will be followed by an escorted procession to the National Iwo Jima Memorial where the second part will take place.  Parking at the memorial is extremely limited and will be reserved for elderly, handicap, presenters and motorcycles.  Those wishing to attend are strongly urged to first go to the Funeral Home where a bus to the Memorial will be provided.  In case of rain, the entire ceremony will take place at the Funeral Home.

 

The Iwo Jima Memorial Historical Foundation, Inc. is a non-profit 501 (c)(3) organization whose mission is to maintain the National Iwo Jima Memorial, educate others about the history of the Battle for Iwo Jima and to perpetuate the memory of those who fought and died there.

 

Sponsors and Volunteers are needed to help with this event. For more information, please contact Gary Roy at (860) 291-9666 or email SOSIwoJima@yahoo.com. You may also visit the Iwo Jima Survivors website or Facebook page at www.SOSIwoJima.com where more information will be posted as it develops.

twenty questions

One thing I know to be true
Before cleaning the floor it is
Better to complete dusting the table

How many food courses will be
Served determines the need for
Silverware when setting the table

Her twenty questions were expected
The best poker hand was no match
When Helene was holding the table

It was hard to be patient when
He wanted desert before the
Dinner dishes had cleared the table

Don’t kick, be gentle, get
Help, many hands make
Light work folding the table

Sadness hangs like wet laundry
In the living room where there
Would be conversation leaving the table



For Helene D Geoffroy


This was originally posted to quiet poet where you can find my other poetry
http://www.quietpoet.com/2013/07/twenty-questions.html

Helene D. (Joyal) Geoffroy

Helene D. (Joyal) Geoffroy, 74, died peacefully on Saturday, July 6, 2013 amongst family. A lifelong resident of Pawtucket, she was a daughter of the late Armand Albert and Ernestine Regina (Brouillard) Joyal. A communicant of St. Cecilia Church, she served as a choir member and music librarian for over 50 years.

Helene and Jerry in 2010

Most recently employed at Fiore Asmussen, she had also worked for Thomson Apex, Industrial National Bank, and as secretary for the Young People’s School for the Performing Arts. Helene was the mother of two sons, Eric George Geoffroy and his wife, Heather Archer of Berkeley, CA and Gregg Robert Geoffroy and his girlfriend, Aimee Krasovich of Alameda, CA and her late daughter Lisa Margaret Geoffroy. She leaves a brother, Albert Joyal of Westbrook, CT, and three sisters, Viviane Lejeune in New Jersey, Colette Robichaud and Anne Brunelle both of Pawtucket. She leaves 36 nieces and nephews. Helene was also the sister of the late Rita Sherlock, Pauline Barrette, Mariette Bruneau, Jean Joyal and Armand Joyal. Her funeral will be held Thursday at 9 a.m. from WILLIAM W. TRIPP Funeral Home, 1008 Newport Ave., Pawtucket, followed by a Mass of Christian Burial at 10 a.m. in St. Cecilia Church, 755 Central Ave., Pawtucket. Burial will follow at Notre Dame Cemetery. VISITATION will be Wednesday 4 to 7 p.m. In lieu of flowers, memorial gifts to the Organ Restoration Fund, c/o Blessed John Paul II Parish, 697 Central Ave., Pawtucket, RI 02861 will be appreciated. TRIPPFUNERALHOME.com

Vietnam Veterans Memorial - Virtual Wall

To remember and honor the veterans of the Vietnam War, this website is interactive so you can look by name, by city, state, etc.

Virtual Wall

You can visit the site by going directly to  http://www.virtualwall.org/

Honor Flight from RI

The Providence Police Pipes and Drums saw off the recent group of RI WWII and Korean War veterans who made the honor flight to Washington, DC. Channel 10, WJAR captured the event with this good summary and set of interviews.

Spend some time this Memorial Day to reflect and give thanks to those who served to create the freedoms we enjoy!


News, Weather and Classifieds for Southern New England



Jerry got to Washington without as much fanfare when my brothers and I took  him down in Dec 2007
http://jerrysherlockstory.blogspot.com/2007/12/kilroy-was-here.html

and we selected Honor Flight as the charity of choice when Jerry left us
http://jerrysherlockstory.blogspot.com/2012/02/why-honor-flight.html

The final toast for Doolittle's Raiders

It's the cup of brandy no one wants to drink. 

On Tuesday, in Fort Walton Beach, Florida, the surviving Doolittle Raiders gathered publicly for the last time. 

They once were among the most universally admired and revered men in the United States. There were 80 of the Raiders in April 1942, when they carried out one of the most courageous and heart-stirring military operations in this nation's history. The mere mention of their unit's name, in those years, would bring tears to the eyes of grateful Americans. 

Now only four survive. 

After Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor, with the United States reeling and wounded, something dramatic was needed to turn the war effort around. Even though there were no friendly airfields close enough to Japan for the United States to launch a retaliation, a daring plan was devised. Sixteen B-25s were modified so that they could take off from the deck of an aircraft carrier. 

This had never been tried before -- sending big, heavy bombers from a carrier.
The 16 five-man crews, under the command of Lt. Col. James Doolittle, who himself flew the lead plane off the USS Hornet, knew that they would not be able to return to the carrier. They would have to hit Japan and then hope to make it to China for a safe landing. 

But on the day of the raid, the Japanese navy caught sight of the carrier. The Raiders were told that they would have to take off from much farther out in the Pacific than they had counted on. They were told that because of this they would not have enough fuel to make it to safety.
And those men went anyway. 

They bombed Tokyo, and then flew as far as they could. Four planes crash-landed; 11 more crews bailed out, and three of the Raiders died. Eight more were captured; three were executed. Another died of starvation in a Japanese prison camp. One crew made it to Russia.
The Doolittle Raid sent a message from the United States to its enemies, and to the rest of the world: 

We will fight. And, no matter what it takes, we will win. 

Of the 80 Raiders, 62 survived the war. They were celebrated as national heroes, models of bravery. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer produced a motion picture based on the raid; "Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo," starring Spencer Tracy and Van Johnson, was a patriotic and emotional box-office hit, and the phrase became part of the national lexicon. In the movie-theater previews for the film, MGM proclaimed that it was presenting the story "with supreme pride." 

Beginning in 1946, the surviving Raiders have held a reunion each April, to commemorate the mission. The reunion is in a different city each year. In 1959, the city of Tucson, Arizona, as a gesture of respect and gratitude, presented the Doolittle Raiders with a set of 80 silver goblets. Each goblet was engraved with the name of a Raider. 

Every year, a wooden display case bearing all 80 goblets is transported to the reunion city. Each time a Raider passes away, his goblet is turned upside down in the case at the next reunion, as his old friends bear solemn witness. 

Also in the wooden case is a bottle of 1896 Hennessy very special cognac. The year is not happenstance: 1896 was when Jimmy Doolittle was born. 

There has always been a plan: When there are only two surviving Raiders, they would open the bottle, at last drink from it, and toast their comrades who preceded them in death. 

As 2013 began, there were five living Raiders; then, in February, Tom Griffin passed away at age 96. 

What a man he was. After bailing out of his plane over a mountainous Chinese forest after the Tokyo raid, he became ill with malaria, and almost died. When he recovered, he was sent to Europe to fly more combat missions. He was shot down, captured, and spent 22 months in a German prisoner of war camp. 

The selflessness of these men ... there was a passage in the Cincinnati Enquirer obituary for Mr. Griffin that, on the surface, had nothing to do with the war, but that captures the depth of his sense of duty and devotion: 

"When his wife became ill and needed to go into a nursing home, he visited her every day. He walked from his house to the nursing home, fed his wife and at the end of the day brought home her clothes. At night, he washed and ironed her clothes. Then he walked them up to her room the next morning. He did that for three years until her death in 2005." 

So now, out of the original 80, only four Raiders remain: Dick Cole (Doolittle's co-pilot on the Tokyo raid), Robert Hite, Edward Saylor and David Thatcher. All are in their 90s. They have decided that there are too few of them for the public reunions to continue. 

The events in Fort Walton Beach this week will mark the end. It has come full circle; Florida's nearby Eglin Field was where the Raiders trained in secrecy for the Tokyo mission. 

The town is planning to do all it can to honor the men: a six-day celebration of their valor, including luncheons, a dinner and a parade. 

Do the men ever wonder if those of us for whom they helped save the country have tended to it in a way that is worthy of their sacrifice? They don't talk about that, at least not around other people. But if you find yourself near Fort Walton Beach this week, and if you should encounter any of the Raiders, you might want to offer them a word of thanks. I can tell you from firsthand observation that they appreciate hearing that they are remembered. 

The men have decided that after this final public reunion they will wait until a later date -- some time this year -- to get together once more, informally and in absolute privacy. That is when they will open the bottle of brandy. The years are flowing by too swiftly now; they are not going to wait until there are only two of them. 

They will fill the four remaining upturned goblets. 

And raise them in a toast to those who are gone.

For additional information on the annual reunion, you can visit http://www.doolittlereunion.com/


My thanks to good friend Doug B for sharing this

I ask for your support ! Thank you - Andy Brouillard

An email from Andy Brouillard announces that he will be participating in the Relay for Life in New Tampa, FL this weekend.

Thank you for supporting my sister Lucille last year when she was undergoing Cancer Treatment. She is recovering and will be walking in this year's Relay For Life as a survivor thanks to many of you. 

I am asking for your support again. 

Like most of us, I know too many people whose lives have been touched by cancer. That's why I've joined with the American Cancer Society to help save lives by participating in a Relay For Life event. 

Relay for Life

The American Cancer Society Relay For Life program is about so much more than just walking around a track overnight. At Relay For Life events, we celebrate loved ones who have won their battle against cancer, remember those who are no longer with us, and fight back against this disease that takes so much from so many. 

I will be participating in Relay on Friday and Saturday, May 17 and 18 at Freedom High School in New Tampa and would appreciate your support with an online donation toward my fundraising goal. In addition to funding lifesaving research, every dollar raised helps the American Cancer Society provide services to cancer patients in need, like providing rides to treatment for those who don't have transportation of their own. 

Thank you so much for your support. Together, we are saving lives from cancer and creating a world with more birthdays! 

Andy

Click here to visit my PERSONAL page. 

If the text above does not appear as a clickable link, you can visit the web address:
http://main.acsevents.org/site/TR?px=14104293&pg=personal&fr_id=50002&fl=en_US&et=fNXs9IzyvXAk8_raWyiqlg&s_tafId=1027563 

Click here to view the TEAM page for The Rotary Club of Tampa North 

If the text above does not appear as a clickable link, you can visit the web address:
http://main.acsevents.org/site/TR?team_id=1300739&pg=team&fr_id=50002&fl=en_US&et=zgWNvgAU0DSjYkmDDCXNxQ&s_tafId=1027563 

The end - bitter or otherwise

There was a RadioLab podcast recently that struck me. How we deal with our end of life decisions is not something we talk about often.

I would recommend listening to this. I think it will raise some questions and perhaps generate some different answers than you might have thought you had.

Ken Murray, a doctor who's written several articles about how doctors think about death, explains that there's a huge gap between what patients expect from life-saving interventions (such as CPR, ventilation, and feeding tubes), and what doctors think of these very same procedures.

What do you think?

Did this change your mind on how you would approach the end?



If the embedded link doesn't work properly you can also listen to the episode here
http://www.radiolab.org/blogs/radiolab-blog/2013/jan/15/bitter-end/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=%24%7Bfeed%7D&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+%24%7Bradiolab%7D+%28%24%7BRadiolab%7D%29

Graveside visit

While the Notre Dame cemetery was closed when I tried to visit on the 19th, I managed to get there during open hours on Saturday.





If you look carefully, do you see the angel sitting on their stone?




They have lots of company




The memorial mass for Jerry will be held at 10:30 today
http://jerrysherlockstory.blogspot.com/2013/02/1-yr-memorial-mass.html

1 yr Memorial Mass

The one year Memorial Mass for Jerry will be celebrated this Sunday at 10:30 AM at St Michael's Church, Smithfield, RI.


St Michael's Church
80 Farnum Pike
Smithfield, RI 02917




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