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In Memory of our Veterans & Military 7 years 4 months ago #349865

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Remembering our Hero’s

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Michael Patrick Murphy

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Murphy was a lieutenant in the US Navy SEALs and was the first person to be awarded the highest military decoration, The Medal of Honor, for his service in the Afghan War. Additionally, he was the first member of the Navy to receive the award since Vietnam. His other awards include the Purple Heart and Silver Star. “Murph” as his friends called him was always known as a protector. In 8th grade he stood up for a special needs child who was being bullied by his teenage peers. Murph also protected a homeless man who was collecting cans from attackers. He chased away the attackers and helped the man pick up his cans. Sadly, Murph was killed on June 28, 2005, after his team was compromised and surrounded by Taliban forces near Asadabad, Afghanistan.

Murphy was the Commander of a four-man reconnaissance team, they were on a mission to kill or capture a top Taliban leader, Ahmad Shah (code name Ben Sharmak), who commanded a group of insurgents known as the "Mountain Tigers," west of Asadabad. The team was dropped off by helicopter in a remote, mountainous area east of Asadabad in Kunar Province, near the Pakistan border. After an initially successful infiltration, local goat herders stumbled upon the SEALs' hiding place. Unable to verify any hostile intent from the herders, the team cut them loose. Hostile locals, possibly the goat herders they let pass, alerted nearby Taliban forces, who surrounded and attacked the small group. After Murphy called for help, an MH-47 Chinook helicopter loaded with reinforcements was dispatched to rescue the team, but was shot down with an RPG, killing all 16 personnel aboard; eight SEALs and eight service members from the 160th SOAR.

Murphy, Dietz, and Axelson were killed in the action. Luttrell was the only American survivor and was eventually rescued, after several days of wandering in the mountains and being protected by the people of an Afghan village. All three of Murphy's men were awarded the Navy's second-highest honor, the Navy Cross, for their part in the battle making theirs the most decorated Navy SEAL team in history.

Murphy was killed on June 28, 2005 after knowingly leaving his position of cover, in order to get a clear signal to communicate with his headquarters which exposed him to direct enemy fire. He provided his unit’s location and requested immediate support for his team and then returned to his position to continue fighting until he died from his wounds.

On July 4, 2005, Murphy's remains were found by a group of American soldiers during a combat search and rescue operation and returned to the United States. Nine days later, on July 13, Murphy was buried with full military honors at Calverton National Cemetery, Calverton, New York, Section 67, Grave No. 3710, less than 20 miles from his childhood home.


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In Memory of our Veterans & Military 7 years 4 months ago #349986

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A Salute to all the Men and Women that courageously gave their lives.
And all those who bravely fight today.

Thank you for your Service and Sacrifice.


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In Memory of our Veterans & Military 6 years 10 months ago #362376

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In Memory of our Veterans & Military 6 years 10 months ago #362381

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In Memory of our Veterans & Military 6 years 10 months ago #362382

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In Memory of our Veterans & Military 6 years 10 months ago #362395

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In Memory of our Veterans & Military 6 years 9 months ago #362409

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In Memory of our Veterans & Military 6 years 9 months ago #362410

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Remembering our Hero’s
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Senior Airman Kcey Elena Ruiz

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Airman 1st Class Kcey E. Ruiz, 21, was one of the six crew members of the Air Force C-130J plane that went down October 2 2015 Serving During Operation Freedom's Sentinel at Jalalabad air field, about 80 miles from the capital of Kabul. Ruiz was assigned to the 66th Security Forces Squadron at Hanscom Air Force Base in Massachusetts. Four other service members were assigned to Dyess Air Force Base in Texas.
From Kyhia (Kceys mother):
Kcey Elena Ruiz was my baby girl and only sister to Maya Angelique Ruiz and words cannot express the deep loss that we are feeling right now. She was so uniquely special in so many ways. She was an intelligent, beautiful, kind, witty, generous, thoughtful and loving spirit that was a blessing to everyone she brought into her life.
While in high school, she had an opportunity to take healthcare science and had an opportunity to visit the county hospital with her class. She was amazed by what she saw and made the decision to become a nurse.
When she decided to join the military, she had her heart on the United States Air Force. Unfortunately, she was told that the medical field was highly desirable and not available. But, she did not care. It was Air Force or nothing. She made her alternate career selections with the hope of cross-training in the medical field in the future. She was assigned security forces, and even though it was not what she wanted she always applied her best effort and excelled at it. She was so proud of her achievements and so were we. We seized every opportunity to brag on her and all the accolades she received from her peers, co-workers, and superiors. My baby was a “Bad-Ass”, pardon my language, but she always had a leadership and competitive quality that was evident even as a child.
Then, when she was to be deployed to Afghanistan, she was so excited to be going over to serve our country. We would communicate often about how she felt so proud and privileged to be entrusted with such an important task. Even though she could not elaborate on her missions, she felt so honored to be in the position that she was given.
Even though I worried about her, she always assured me that she was fine. She was always trying to shield me. Even though I was her mother, Kcey was always trying to shield me from worry. My heart aches for my baby girl. She was not only my protector; she was my hero and I love and miss her so much.
From Michael Ruiz (father):
My child CARED! About everyone and for everyone. She always had a smile and genuine laugh. My memories of Kcey were of her always laughing and joking around. We used to throw the football around in the driveway and she threw it well! There are no words to express how special she was. She is very loved and missed. My heart will never be complete again.

Senior Airman Kcey Ruiz is also remembered as a law enforcement hero. This tribute is to recognizes her service and sacrifice. Kcey is in heaven now looking after her love ones; may the Lord give strength and comfort to her family and friends. Her memory lives on now through them.
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In Memory of our Veterans & Military 6 years 9 months ago #362423

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In Memory of our Veterans & Military 6 years 9 months ago #362445

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Both my great uncles were killed in ww2. Both were career military when ww2 started. Both were master sargents. One was killed in the Battle of the Bulge. The other died on the Death March to Bataan Phillipines. I'll take a moment to remember their sacrifice for freedom.
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In Memory of our Veterans & Military 6 years 9 months ago #362513

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www.losapos.com/pics/20/oradour01.jpg

least they not forgotten.....scene of real brutal act ..done in name of war

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi-occupied_FranceThe SS justification for the Oradour-sur-Glane massacre centers on their claim that the destruction of the village was a reprisal, which was legal under international law up until the Geneva Convention of 1949. Reprisal does not mean revenge. It is a legal term defined in international humanitarian law. It means that an Army has the right, during war time, to respond in kind when guerrilla fighters violate international law, and there is no other way to stop them from continuing their illegal activity except by a reprisal action. The SS did not follow every attack by the French resistance with a reprisal. Most of the time, the guerrillas were captured and sent to concentration camps such as Natzweiler-Struthof, Buchenwald, Sachsenhausen and Dachau.
This reprisal action was taken because the SS believed that the Oradour-sur-Glane villagers were heavily involved with the Maquis, a French Resistance group; they claimed to have discovered that almost every house in Oradour was filled with weapons and ammunition.
Even the women of Oradour-sur-Glane were involved in resistance fighting, according to a report by Obersturmführer Karl Gerlach, ordnance officer of the 2nd SS Assault Gun detachment of "Das Reich" Division, who had escaped from the village after being captured by the Maquisards. He told of seeing women in Oradour-sur-Glane wearing yellow leather jackets and steel helmets which he identified as the clothing of the Resistance fighters. His report was recorded in the Division Tagebuch for 9 June 1944.
According to Sarah Farmer, who wrote a book entitled "Martyred Village," Robert Hebras joined the Maquis a mere three weeks after the massacre, along with his boyhood friend, Andre Desourteaux, a resident of the village who was a postal worker in Limoges. In the early days of the French resistance movement, the postal workers, telephone operators and railroad workers were among the first to organize in the guerrilla warfare against the German occupation of France. The postmaster in Oradour was also among the survivors, allegedly because he was out delivering mail when the village was attacked.
In November 1945, the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg indicted Alfred Jodl and Wilhelm Keitel, the two top German generals of the Wehrmacht, on charges of participating in a common plan to commit war crimes by violating the Laws and Usages of War under the Hague Convention of 1907 and the Geneva Convention of 1929. Among the war crimes listed was the massacre at Oradour-sur-Glane, which was declared to be a violation of Articles 46 and 50 of the Hague Convention. There was no mention that the Oradour-sur-Glane massacre was a violation of the 1929 Geneva Convention because it wasn't; it was a reprisal, which was legal under international law at that time.
Article 46 of the Hague Convention states that the lives of persons and private property must be respected by the Military Authority over the Territory of the Hostile State, which in this case would have been the authority of the Germans over occupied France.
Article 50 of the Hague Convention states that no general penalty shall be inflicted upon the population of an occupied country on account of the acts of individuals for which they cannot be regarded as jointly or severally responsible.
However, the perpetrators of the Oradour-sur-Glane massacre were not Wehrmacht soldiers under the command of Jodl or Keitel, but rather soldiers in the Waffen-SS, an elite volunteer army which had divisions of men from many other countries, including France.
The Waffen-SS was an army of around one million men, which was separate from the regular German Army, called the Wehrmacht. The letters SS stand for Schutzstaffel, which means protection squad in English. Americans sometimes confuse the SS with the SA, which was the Sturm Arbeitung, or Storm Troopers. The SS originally started as Hitler's body guards, while the SA was the private army of the Nazi political party which fought street battles with the Red Army of the Communists in the early days.
By the end of World War II, 60% of the Waffen-SS soldiers were volunteers fighting in SS divisions from other countries besides Germany; they had joined the SS to fight against Communism. The French division of SS soldiers, called the 33rd Waffen-Grenadier der SS Charlemagne, fought bravely on the eastern front and then defended Berlin to the last man in 1945.
Around one-third of the SS soldiers who participated in the Oradour-sur-Glane massacre were from Alsace, a former French province that had been annexed into the Greater German Reich after the fall of France in 1940. Alsace was originally a German state, but was taken by the French after the Thirty Years War which ended in 1648. Germany reclaimed it in 1871 after winning the Franco-Prussian war. France took Alsace again after World War I. Because of this centuries old tug-of-war, Alsatians had mixed loyalties.
One of the Alsatians admitted to having voluntarily joined the SS; the rest were malgré-nous, or men who claimed in their trial testimony that they had been drafted into the German army against their will. According to the Official Publication of the survivors, some of these Alsatian soldiers were from the town of Schiltigheim in Alsace. Ironically, there were also Alsatian refugees in Oradour, including some who were from Schiltigheim. They had fled Alsace to avoid being drafted into the German Army.
The French province of Lorraine had also been incorporated into the Greater German Reich, but there were no men conscripted into the SS from Lorraine, according to Robert Hebras, one of the last remaining survivors of the Oradour-sur-Glane massacre. Hebras wrote in his account of the tragedy that he does not believe that the Alsatians were forced to join the SS. According to Hebras, the Alsatians were unable to furnish any proof at their trial that they had been conscripted into the SS.
The Waffen-SS was despised by the Allies. The SS had a bad reputation because it was SS soldiers who guarded the Nazi concentration camps, although the guards were part of a separate SS group. The SS also had a reputation for being extremely dedicated to their cause and for being the bravest fighters, but to the Allies, who were fighting "the Good War" on the same side as the Communist Soviet Union, the SS men were murderers who were the personification of Evil.
After the war, the Allies designated the SS as a criminal organization which meant that all soldiers in the SS, including Waffen-SS soldiers who had fought heroically on the battlefield, were automatically war criminals, regardless of whether or not they had personally committed any atrocities. However, this rule did not apply to the Alsatians in the SS because the provisional French government had passed a law after the Liberation which did not allow for Frenchmen to be prosecuted for war crimes. For example, one of the accused SS soldiers in the Malmedy Massacre case was a French citizen and because of this, the charges against him were dropped before the trial began.
Following the Normandy invasion, the German Army, and especially the SS, had come under heavy attack by the Maquis, a resistance group that in today's War on Terror would be called insurgents or illegal combatants. The Waffen-SS Das Reich Division, which had been ordered from Bordeaux to the Normandy front, took 17 days to complete what would normally have been a three-day journey, suffering numerous casualties en route, as they were attacked by the Maquisards.
The Maquis was working closely with the British, who gave them supplies and coordinated their efforts. In the days immediately following the Allied invasion at Normandy, the leader of the Free French, Charles de Gaulle, was making plans to become the President of France after it was liberated from the German occupation. From his headquarters in London, he directed the British to drop money and ammunition to the resistance fighters in rural areas, rather than supplying the 25,000 Communists who were in Paris. He did not want the capital city of Paris to be liberated by the Communists because this would have resulted in a Communist government in France after the war. The Maquis fought in the outlying areas, hiding in the hamlets and villages of rural France; de Gaulle wanted all the Allied ammunition to be given to them.
The Maquisards set land mines, wrecked trains, blew up bridges and railroad tracks, ambushed German soldiers, kidnapped high-ranking German officers, killed wounded SS soldiers, and directed British and American planes in the bombing of German troop trains. There were also French collaborators who were helping the Nazis in the fight against Communism, particularly the Milice, the secret police, which helped the German Gestapo in arresting the resistance fighters.
The destruction of Oradour-sur-Glane had the desired effect because, immediately after the massacre, the Communist partisans, who had been wreaking havoc in the Limosin area, gave the order to stop fighting. The order was intercepted by the Germans and this immediately lifted their morale. The reprisal had worked; this was basically the reason why reprisals were allowed at that time, although such bestial cruelty as the massacre at Oradour-sur-Glane is, understandably, no longer legal under international law.
In a rambling autobiography entitled "SS Panzergrenadier," former Waffen-SS soldier Hans Schmidt, who is now an American citizen, writes about the Oradour-sur-Glane massacre from the SS point of view. In a footnote on page 377 of his book, Schmidt debunks the official story that the villagers were innocent. The following quote is from his book "SS Panzergrenadier":
"Almost every French village in the Limoges area claimed after the war to have been a hotbed of resistance against the German occupiers. It was so nice to play the heroes after four years of submission. Alas, according to postwar French reports, of all the villages in the vicinity, Oradour-sur-Glane was allegedly totally innocent of anti-German terrorist activities. It just shows how dumb the Germans are, always picking on the innocent."
According to Schmidt's book, the Waffen-SS soldiers of Das Reich Division, the perpetrators of the massacre, had been stationed from April to June 1944 in the Toulouse area for rest, recuperation and replenishment, after fighting the Russians on the Eastern front.
Schmidt claims that during the occupation of France "German soldiers usually got along very well with the locals." But, according to Schmidt, this changed soon after the start of 1944 when the French underground became more active. He blames the British government for encouraging the French Resistance activity.
Schmidt wrote that
... about one hundred soldiers of Das Reich had been murdered or kidnapped by the 'heroes' of the Maquis (terrorists!) before the division embarked, by road and train, on the difficult trip to Normandy. In doing so, Das Reich had to traverse the mountainous area in the surroundings of the city of Limoges where partisans were especially active.
Oradour-sur-Glane was right in the heart of this area, only 14 miles from Limoges.
In his book, Schmidt tells about the kidnapping of Sturmbannführer Helmut Kämpfe, the battalion commander of the 3rd Battalion of Das Reich Division, on the night of 9 June 1944. Representatives of the French resistance had sent a ransom note to "Der Führer" battalion command post on the morning of the 10th of June. Acting on this information, Sturmbannführer Otto Diekmann, a close personal friend of Kämpfe, took two platoons from 3rd Company/1st Battalion/Regiment "Der Führer" to Oradour-sur-Glane to search for him.
On the search for this "beloved officer," Diekmann's men had discovered a burned-out German ambulance that had been set on fire, apparently by the partisans, near the southern entrance to the village of Oradour-sur-Glane. The driver of the ambulance had been tied to the steering wheel with wire. He had been burned alive, along with the man sitting next to him in the passenger seat, and four wounded soldiers inside the ambulance, according to Schmidt's book.
Before entering Oradour-sur-Glane, the SS rounded up the residents of the hamlets on the south side of the village, because this was the vicinity where the burned out ambulance was found. By coincidence, the one woman who survived the massacre, Madame Marguerite Rouffanche, lived in a hamlet on the south side of the village.
According to Schmidt, "For the Germans, all indications pointed to Oradour as a hotbed of the Maquis. Reprisals were in order. In spite of later French claims to the contrary, weapons were found hidden in houses of the village. Following Hitler's orders, the men of the town were to be executed and all the houses leveled."
The Official Publication of the Oradour-sur-Glane Remembrance Committee and the National Association of the Families of the Martyrs of Oradour-sur-Glane includes the following information:
"A special envoy of the French Interior Force (the Resistance) who visited Oradour in the first few days specified that the charred remains of a father, mother and three children were gathered from inside a baker's oven. We ourselves found, not far from this baker's oven, a fire damper, still half full of coal, in which was discovered human bones (lumbar vertebrae) in an advanced state of charring. Faced with such a finding, it is clear that one is allowed to surmise a great deal."
Apparently the SS surmised something quite different, based on the discovery of charred bodies at the bakery. According to a book by H. W. Koch, entitled "Aspects of the Third Reich," the still smoldering body of Major Helmut Kämpfe was seen at an Oradour bakery by Diekmann's men and the body was identified by the Knight's Cross. Members of the Milice, the French secret police, had told the SS the day before that the Maquisards in Oradour were planning to burn Kämpfe alive. Other sources claim that Kämpfe was killed in the village of Breuilaufa, where his first grave was found in 1945.
Only 52 of the 642 victims of the Oradour-sur-Glane massacre were ever identified; the others were missing and presumed to have been killed there on 10 June 1944, although no death certificate was ever issued for them. It was known that members of the Maquis were back in the ruins of the village for two days immediately following the massacre; it is possible that some of the bodies were moved to the bakery.
The official list of the victims indicates that the majority of the men in Oradour-sur-Glane were unemployed. How did they manage to survive, with no source of income, in the middle of a war? What did they do to while away their time? One explanation could be that they were members of the French Resistance who were receiving money, as well as weapons, in parachute drops by the British.
As for the myriad of sewing machines that were found in the ruins, it could be that the women in Oradour-sur-Glane were sewing arm bands for the FFI, the French resistance army, that General Dwight D. Eisenhower had just declared to be legal combatants after the successful invasion at Normandy. The arm bands were decorated with the Cross of Lorraine, the symbol of de Gaulle's Army. Monsieur Dupic, whom Vincent Reynouard accused of being a member of the French Secret Army, was a fabric merchant. His house was well stocked with food and wine, and this is where the SS soldiers stayed the night after the destruction, according to the Official Story. The body of Monsieur Dupic, one of the 52 that could be identified, was found in his garden. He had apparently hidden when he saw the SS men enter the town.
Another curious thing about the ruins of Oradour-sur-Glane is the great number of cars that were stored in the garages there. In her book "Martyred Village," Sarah Farmer explained that the Nazis had confiscated the cars in occupied France, but people in the town of Limoges had hidden their cars in Oradour-sur-Glane. A car would have been a handy thing for a resistance fighter to have, especially for the Maquisards who were fighting in rural areas. However, it was an hour-long trip by tram from Limoges to Oradour-sur-Glane to pick up a hidden car, and then another hour-long trip back to the city after using the car, which would have been very inconvenient for a resident of Limoges. Gasoline was rationed and not easily obtained, so few people used cars during the German occupation of France.
In his book, Schmidt claimed that
While the reprisals were being carried out, the women and children of the village had been ordered into the village church for their own safekeeping. Then the unthinkable happened: The church caught fire, and "somehow" an inferno developed that would cost most of the women and children their lives. Young SS-soldiers tried desperately to help people trapped in the church but not many could be saved.
A retired German Army officer, Eberhard Matthes, supports Schmidt's claim. In 1980, Matthes gave a sworn affidavit in which he stated that during a visit to the ruins in 1963, two older women in the village of Oradour-sur-Glane told him that they had been saved by SS soldiers who risked their lives to go inside the burning church to rescue them. These women also told Matthes that the SS had not started the fire in the church.
According to Hans Schmidt,
The Maquis had hidden armaments and explosives underneath the roof and elsewhere in the church, and that it was this material that had caused the catastrophe.
Today visitors to the church can see the bronze bells which melted and crashed down from the burning tower, although a short distance from the main door of the church, a wooden confessional box located in the transept of the left side altar, did not suffer any burn damage at all. So how could flames from a fire, that was allegedly started by the SS in the church, have spread to the stone tower, which was not connected to the nave of the church?
Matthes also stated in his sworn affidavit that during another visit to Oradour-sur-Glane in 1964, a man there told him that the explosion in the church was a bomb that was set off by a civilian, who had escaped through the vestry, after setting a fuse. His purpose was to blame the Germans for this monstrous act so that more people would join the French Resistance.
According to Matthes, this informant had speculated that the civilian who set off the bomb may not have been a Frenchman. Members of the Maquis included Polish partisans in the Polish Home Army and Russian soldiers who had defected and fought on the German side, but then deserted the German Army. There were also 26 Red Spaniards, who were Communist refugees from the Spanish Civil War, living in Oradour-sur-Glane, as well as Jews who were hiding from the Nazis.
The door to the vestry, or sacistry, through which the person who allegedly set off the bomb escaped, is located on the left side of the main altar in the front of the church. Madame Rouffanche claimed that this door was broken down by the women after a "smoke bomb," that had been carried into the church by two soldiers, exploded in the back of the church. Other versions of the story claim that the bomb exploded near the communion rail in the front of the church where there is now a hole in the stone floor.
Madame Rouffanche said that she entered the sacristy and sat down on the steps, but then went back inside the church and escaped by climbing up a ladder and jumping out a window behind the main altar. Another woman also climbed up the ladder with her baby in her arms and jumped out the window. After the massacre, the bodies of 15 children were found behind the main altar. Why didn't the children follow Madame Rouffanche up the ladder and escape through the broken window?
A similar case, in which SS soldiers were wrongly blamed, was a massacre that took place in the Polish town of Jedwabne on July 10, 1941 during the German invasion of the Soviet Union. 1600 Jews in the town were viciously murdered by the Polish residents, two weeks after the German soldiers had left. Innocent men, women and children were forced into a barn and then burned alive. The perpetrators claimed that they had been ordered by the Germans to commit this crime, but a trial in 1949 proved that this was a lie.
In another section of his book, Schmidt makes the assertion that SS soldiers were instructed not to desecrate churches or cemeteries. This flies in the face of well-known stories that the SS used Jewish grave stones for target practice and then paved the streets of the concentration camps with the broken stones, as depicted in the movie "Schindler's List." But according to Schmidt, the French Resistance knew that "German soldiers were careful not to infringe on religion and thereby on the churches in occupied territories" so that was why they chose a church to hide their weapons. Schmidt wrote that the Maquis had boasted, after the war, about "hiding weapons and explosives (and escaped allied airmen) in cloisters, churches and other religious institutions" to outwit the Germans.
One of the problems with the SS version of the story, as told by Schmidt and other former SS soldiers, is the testimony of Heinz Barth, a Sargent and platoon leader in the 3rd Company, Panzergrenadier Regiment 4, Das Reich Division. It was Barth's company that perpetrated the massacre in Oradour-sur-Glane, but for some unknown reason, he was not among the SS men put on trial in Bordeaux in January 1953 to answer for the crime. Barth had been wounded in the war and one of his legs had been amputated.
In 1981, Barth was arrested at his home in East Germany, then a Communist republic, where he had been living in plain sight for 35 years in the town where he was born. He was interrogated for two years before he was finally brought to trial in 1983; Schmidt claims that Barth was tortured in order to force him to confess to events that could not have happened. In the Communist court system, the procedure is to obtain a confession before the trial and then the accused repeats his confession on the witness stand during the proceedings. Barth was sentenced to life in prison, since Communist East Germany did not have the death penalty. After two years of alleged torture, he had admitted everything in court and confirmed the official story that no weapons had been found in the town of Oradour-sur-Glane. Because of Barth's confession, the survivors' story has been proved in a court of law, while the SS has no official proof of their claims.
Barth was released in 1997 after serving 16 years of his life sentence. By that time, he was almost 80 years old, and he had lost the government pension to which he was entitled as a war veteran. Schmidt wrote that former SS soldiers had helped to get Barth released and "there are also indications that the Paris government acted in his behalf: all French legal actions concerning Oradour had ended twenty years before Barth's arrest by the Communists."
Comparisons are often made between the destruction of Oradour-sur-Glane and a similar German reprisal against the town of Lidice in 1942. Both of these reprisals took place on the same day, the 10th of June, although two years apart. The Czech village of Lidice was destroyed in reprisal for the assassination of Reinhard von Heydrich, the governor of the German protectorate of Bohemia and Movaria, now the Czech Republic. Czech partisans, who were trained by British agents in England, had parachuted into Bohemia and had then shot von Heydrich after ambushing his car. Von Heydrich had to be eliminated because he was a good administrator, whose fair policies did not inspire the Czech people to resist.
During the destruction of Lidice, the men of the village were executed, but only seven women were shot, according to William Shirer who wrote "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich." The rest of the women were sent to the women's concentration camp at Ravensbrück and the children were taken to Germany to be raised by German families.
In sharp contrast, the women and children of Oradour-sur-Glane were singled out for worse treatment than the men, according to the official story. They were held inside a solidly-built stone church where they were first blinded and choked by billowing clouds of black smoke from a gas bomb which the soldiers had allegedly brought with them, according to the official version of the story. Then the women and children were allegedly blown up with hand grenades tossed through the broken windows, while at the same time, hundreds of cartridges were fired by soldiers, who had entered the crowded, smoke-filled church, aiming low so as to better hit the children.
The SS version of the story suggests that the hand grenades and cartridges had been stored by the local resistance fighters in the church and that they went off after a fire started when a bomb was set off by one of the partisans who had sneaked into the church. The men of Oradour-sur-Glane were not executed until after the first explosion in the church, according to the two women who spoke to Matthes in 1963. The explosion provided the proof that there were weapons stored in the village.
Otto Diekmann, the commanding officer who ordered the reprisal at Oradour-sur-Glane, returned to his headquarters in the late afternoon, and gave his report to his commanding officer. Diekmann had gone to Oradour-sur-Glane to search for his friend and fellow officer, Helmut Kämpfe, the commander of Der Führer Battalion 3, who has been kidnapped by members of the FTP, the French Communist resistance, on 9 June 1944.
The following quote from Diekmann's Report was included in Otto Weidinger's book, "Comrades to the End":
The Company had encountered resistance in Oradour, the bodies of executed German soldiers were found. It then occupied the village and immediately conducted an intensive search of the houses. Unfortunately this failed to turn up Kämpfe, however large quantities of weapons and ammunition were found. Therefore all the men of the village were shot, who were surely Maquisards.
The women and children were locked up in the church while all this was going on. Then the village was set on fire, as a result of which the ammunition that was stored in almost every house went up. The burning of the village resulted in fire spreading to the church, where ammunition had also been hidden in the roof. The church burned down very rapidly and the women and children lost their lives.
Some former SS men believe that Diekmann committed suicide by deliberately getting himself killed at Normandy. He had been court-martialled because, in ordering the reprisal, he had exceeded his orders and he knew that he would soon be put on trial by the SS.
German Army General Erwin Rommel demanded the court martial of Diekmann, and even said that he would conduct it himself. Compare this with General George S. Patton tearing up the court-martial papers of the American soldiers who committed the Dachau massacre. Ironically, the killing of over 500 Waffen-SS Prisoners of War, who had surrendered at Dachau, was motivated by the anger that American soldiers felt after seeing dead bodies of prisoners on a train outside the camp, while the Oradour-sur-Glane massacre may have been touched off by the anguish of the SS soldiers at seeing the charred bodies of wounded Waffen-SS men who had been burned alive in an ambulance just outside the village.
The Official Publication, which is the story of Oradour-sur-Glane according to the survivors, ends with the following condemnation of the Nazis:
"The race of lords tried to impose upon us the benefits of German Kultur; the resplendent, superior, fertile and eternal Kultur with, as its finest flower, Nazism and its sweetest fruits, the S.S.
In our country, its consecration was sought by complete application of its scientific method to all acts of existence, by the progressive subjugation of the will, the desires, the preferences and the instincts! It was the codification of all virtues, all feelings, the stark mathematics of beauty, good and truth, yes, those illusory and sterile regulations, that empty and excessive discipline and it was consequently work, then feast, then pleasures, in that very particular order, mass produced obligations, standardised consciences and finally happiness obligatory for everyone with enthusiasm to order and joy on command. "strength through joy", as they proclaim in a well-known slogan. Well-known, yes, and celebrated! Strength through joy! and joy .... through strength! "
The "race of lords" is probably a reference to the term Herrenrasse which in America is translated as "the Master race." Former Waffen-SS soldier Hans Schmidt points out in his book that, in all of his training in the SS, the word Herrenrasse was never used.
Strength through Joy (Kraft durch Freude) was the name of a program for workers in Nazi Germany. Compulsory deductions were made from the wages of the workers to pay for the Strength through Joy benefits, which included such things as a free vacation at a time when ordinary people didn't take vacations and only the idle rich went on holiday. The Volkswagen, which was conceived and designed by Ferdinand Porsche, was developed on the orders of Hitler as an inexpensive car that would be affordable for everyone. It was originally called the "KdF-Wagen," named after the Nazi program; the development of the KdF-Wagen was subsidized by the workers' deductions and the factory town which built these cars was originally named KdF-Stadt. The KdF-Wagen was offered to the workers through a savings program, with deductions from their pay checks, but World War II interrupted the delivery of the cars. The Strength through Joy program also built sports facilities, provided free visits to the theatre, and financially supported traveling cabaret groups.
The severe criticism of the German work ethic and the Strength through Joy program in the Official Publication might explain the prevalence of guerrilla fighters who fought against the German occupation of France, after the country was defeated in World War II, although the inhabitants of Oradour-sur-Glane apparently accepted the yoke of the Nazis because none of them had even the slightest involvement with the French Resistance, according to the official story.
Schmidt points out, in his book, that the records of the proceedings of the military court in Bordeaux are sealed until well into the 21st century. Charles de Gaulle ordered the records sealed for 100 years, which means that the complete story will not be known until the year 2053. From the point of view of the SS, this secrecy is proof that the official version of the story is not the whole truth.
The SS vs. the Partisans
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In Memory of our Veterans & Military 6 years 9 months ago #362534

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In Memory of our Veterans & Military 5 years 10 months ago #371964

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Remembering our Heroes
This Memorial Day we remember all those who gave it all; most recently the island of Puerto Rico went thru two devastating hurricanes that cause death, destruction and lots of suffering. Our Nacional Guard were amongst the first responders and hero’s that came to our aid. A few month later the island was suffering the tragic loss of nine of those heroes, when the aircraft they use to evacuate people from the Virgin Islands and distribute food and aid across Puerto Rico crash in Savannah, GA. The hole island was deeply saddened by the loss of our heroes. They were part of the Puerto Rico Air National Guard's 156th Airlift Wing. All sons of our tiny island and all friends of our very own EZ. May the lord have them all by his side and give comfort to their families. salute to our Bucaneros 'Rican68’. Presente y Viven.

• Maj. José R. Román Rosado, the plane’s pilot. He was from Manati, Puerto Rico, had 18 years of service, and is survived by his wife and two sons. In January 2016, he and five other airmen received a Flight Safety Award for “exceptional execution during a local night training sortie in which an engine flamed out while returning to base.”
• Maj. Carlos Pérez Serra, the plane’s navigator. He was from Canóvanas, Puerto Rico, had 23 years of service, and is survived by his wife, two sons and a daughter.
• 1st Lt. David Albandoz, the plane’s co-pilot. He was from Puerto Rico and recently resided in Madison, Alabama, had 16 years of service, and is survived by his wife and daughter.
• Senior Master Sgt. Jan Paravisini, a mechanic. He was from Canóvanas, Puerto Rico, had 21 years of service, and is survived by his two daughters and a son. A photograph posted last November showed Paravisini loading supplies onto a truck at the Isla Grande Airport in Puerto Rico, to help with relief efforts after Hurricane Maria.
• Master Sgt. Jean Audriffred. He was from Carolina, Puerto Rico, had 16 years of service, and is survived by his wife and two sons.
• Master Sgt. Mario Braña, a flight engineer. He was from Bayamón, Puerto Rico, had 17 years of service, and is survived by his mother and daughter.
• Master Sgt. Víctor Colón. He was from Santa Isabel, Puerto Rico, had 22 years of service, and is survived by his wife and two daughters.
• Master Sgt. Eric Circuns, a loadmaster. He was from Rio Grande, Puerto Rico, had 31 years of service, and is survived by his wife, two stepdaughters, and a son.
• Senior Airman Roberto Espada. He was from Salinas, Puerto Rico, with three years of service, and is survived by his grandmother.
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In Memory of our Veterans & Military 5 years 10 months ago #372003

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In Memory of our Veterans & Military 5 years 9 months ago #372028

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In Memory of our Veterans & Military 5 years 9 months ago #372050

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~ Honoring US Army SSG Emil Rivera-Lopez ~

Staff Sergeant Emil Rivera-Lopez, 31, originally of San Juan, Puerto Rico, died 25 August 2017, as the result of a training incident off the coast of Yemen, where the soldier was supporting U.S. Central Command operations. He was previously listed as Duty Status Whereabouts Unknown, or DUSTWUN since the helicopter he was on crashed during a training mission. Five other service members on board were rescued by U.S. forces.The incident remains under investigation.

Rivera-Lopez joined the Army in July 2006 as a UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter repairer, according to information from U.S. Army Special Operations Command. After training, he served in the 82nd Combat Aviation Brigade before completing the requirements to become a member of the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment. Upon arriving at the regiment, Rivera-Lopez served as a MH-60M Black Hawk maintainer and squad leader in D Company, 3rd Battalion, elite 160th Special Operation Aviation Regiment. The unit, known as Night Stalkers, specializes in flying difficult nighttime missions, often ferrying ground special operations troops into battle. He later was assigned to the battalion’s C Company, where he was a section sergeant and Black Hawk crew chief, according to information from USASOC. (ArmyTimes)

His awards and decorations include:
the Air Medal (Numeral 2)
Army Commendation Medal with Valor
Army Commendation Medal
Army Achievement Medal (2 Oak Leaf Clusters)
Joint Meritorious Unit Award
Afghanistan Campaign Medal (3 Bronze Service Stars)
Combat Action Badge
Aviation Badge and Parachutist Badge.
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Dios le tenga en la gloria y de fortaleza a su familia.
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In Memory of our Veterans & Military 5 years 4 months ago #374751

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In Memory of our Veterans & Military 5 years 4 months ago #374752

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In Memory of our Veterans & Military 5 years 4 months ago #374755

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Here is one of the thing things the my grand father did during WW2
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In Memory of our Veterans & Military 5 years 4 months ago #374764

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In Memory of our Veterans & Military 5 years 3 months ago #375044

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In Memory of our Veterans & Military 4 years 4 months ago #378866

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Salute to Col. Martha E. McSally
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Col. Martha E. McSally (born March 22, 1966) is a retired United States Air Force colonel. She was the first American woman to fly in combat since the 1991 lifting of the prohibition of women in combat, flying the A-10 over Iraq and Kuwait in support of Operation Southern Watch. McSally is also the first woman to command a USAF fighter squadron, the 354th Fighter Squadron (354 FS) based at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base.
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McSally graduated from St. Mary Academy - Bay View and then the United States Air Force Academy in 1988. She earned a master’s degree from Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government following graduation from USAFA and then proceeded to pilot training. She earned her wings following graduation from Undergraduate Pilot Training at Laughlin AFB, Texas and was initially assigned to Laughlin as a First Assignment Instructor Pilot (FAIP) in the T-37 jet trainer. Following the repeal of the combat aircraft restriction for female pilots, she was selected for Lead-in Fighter Training (LIFT) in 1993, completed the Replacement Training Unit for the A-10 Thunderbolt II at Davis-Monthan AFB, Arizona, was assigned to an operational A-10 squadron and was deployed to Kuwait in January 1995. During that deployment, she flew combat patrols over Iraq in support of Operation Southern Watch, enforcing the no-fly zone over southern Iraq. In 1999, she also deployed to Europe in support of Operation Allied Force
Promoted to Major, she reported to Joint Task Force Southwest Asia (JTF-SWA) in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, in 2000 for a temporary assignment in support of Operation Southern Watch. Promoted below the zone to Lieutenant Colonel, she took command of the A-10 equipped 354th Fighter Squadron at Davis-Monthan AFB in July 2004 and was subsequently deployed to Afghanistan under Operation Enduring Freedom, where she employed weapons loaded on her A-10 in combat for the first time. In 2005, McSally and her squadron were awarded the David C. Shilling Award, given by the Air Force Association for the best aerospace contribution to national defense. Selected below the zone for Colonel, she attended the Air War College at Maxwell AFB, Alabama from 2006 to 2007, promoting to Colonel in December 2006 and being named as a candidate for command of an operations group with an either a fighter or jet flight training mission.
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McSally was represented by the Rutherford Institute in a successful 2001 lawsuit against the Department of Defense, challenging the military policy that required U.S. and U.K. servicewomen stationed in Saudi Arabia to wear the body-covering abaya when traveling off base in the country. At the time of the lawsuit McSally, as a Major (O-4), was the highest ranking female fighter pilot in the U.S. Air Force. McSally's suit alleged that "the regulations required her to send the message that she believes women are subservient to men." In addition to the issue of religious garb, McSally noted that policies also included other requirements:
In a "60 Minutes" interview broadcast on CBS on Jan. 20, she described the discrimination she experienced under the policy: "I have to sit in the back and at all times I must be escorted by a male . . . [who], when questioned, is supposed to claim me as his wife," she said. "I can fly a single-seat aircraft in enemy territory, but [in Saudi Arabia] I can't drive a vehicle.
General Tommy Franks, then commander of the United States Central Command (USCENTCOM), announced in 2002 that U.S. military servicewomen would no longer be required to wear the abaya, although they would be "encouraged" to do so as a show of respect for local customs. Commenting on the change, Central Command spokesman, Colonel Rick Thomas, said it was not made because of McSally's lawsuit, but had already been "under review" before the lawsuit was filed. News reports noted that McSally had been fighting for a change in the policy for seven years and had filed the lawsuit after she had been threatened with a court martial if she did not comply and wear the abaya.
Eventually the U.S. Congress "approved legislation that prohibited anyone in the military from requiring or encouraging servicewomen to put on abayas in Saudi Arabia or to use taxpayers’ money to buy them.

McSally has continued to speak out against apartheid in Saudi Arabia. McSally retired from active duty with 22 years of commissioned service in the U.S. Air Force on May 6, 2010.
Col. McSally is a true hero like all the service men and woman that put their life in the line everyday for our country.

I spent my afternoon reading different stories of bravery, service and sacrifice from many of our military women; and I have to say they are all full of bravery. The few that you can find online are worth reading to understand the hardships and valor all our service men and woman go thru. I know that the millions of stories of our patriots that are untold must be equally impressive. Always remember our heroes with pride and honor their service every chance you get.

In Honor of Col. McSally will be flying her name on the DF Elite virtual skies today.

THANK YOU FOR YOUR SERVICE AND SACRIFICE.
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In Memory of our Veterans & Military 4 years 3 months ago #379148

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Remember all our men & woman serving around the world.
May God bless them all and bring them back home safe.
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In Memory of our Veterans & Military 4 years 3 months ago #379153

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In Memory of our Veterans & Military 4 years 3 months ago #379155

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« Aujourd’hui 25 décembre, des Allemands sont sortis de leurs tranchées en grand nombre, sans arme, les mains levées, invitant nos soldats à en faire autant et à venir fraterniser avec eux à l’occasion de la Noël. Il s’est trouvé des hommes dans nos rangs pour méconnaître leur devoir au point de répondre à cet appel, quitter leurs tranchées pour causer avec l’ennemi et accepter des cigares et des journaux. Un pareil fait est un manquement des plus graves à la discipline et à la dignité. »
Général Tassin (armée française)
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In Memory of our Veterans & Military 3 years 10 months ago #380582

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In Memory of our Veterans & Military 3 years 10 months ago #380586

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In Memory of our Veterans & Military 2 years 9 months ago #382835

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 LATINA SERVICEWOMEN KILLED IN ACTION DURING OPERATION IRAQI FREEDOM 
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In Memory of our Veterans & Military 2 years 9 months ago #382878

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Warrior women RIP
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In Memory of our Veterans & Military 1 year 9 months ago #386062

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.SGT Nicole Leeann Herrera Gee
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BIRTH    1 May 1998Vail, Eagle County, Colorado, USADEATH   26 Aug 2021 (aged 23)Kabul, Afghanistan
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Nicole Gee sadly killed after a suicide bomber detonated explosives outside Kabul's Hamid Karzai International Airport on Aug. 26 2021.  the United States lost 13 service members during that bombing attack.
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 Nicole was raised in Roseville, California, where she attended Sargent Elementary School, Warren T Eich Middle School, and Oakmont High School. During her time in school, Nicole was on the softball team, participated in dance classes, and was a teacher's assistant for Tiny Vikes Preschool. Her school accomplishments include perfect attendance, certifying as bilingual in Spanish, and maintaining honor roll, before graduating in 2016 with a 4.1 GPA.
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In her free time, Nicole enjoyed working out, going to the beach, traveling, working out more, baking, spending time with family, and spending time at the gym.. Working out. She met her husband, Jarod Gee while in high school, and they were married in a private ceremony in August 2016. They were stationed together at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, where they lived with their two dogs and close friends.
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Nicole entered active duty in the Marine Corps in August 2017. She went through recruit training at Parris Island, South Carolina, School of Infantry East in Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, Aviation Accession and Primary Military Occupational Specialty School in Pensacola, Florida, and Marine Corps Communications and Electronics School in 29 Palms, California. She worked as a ground electronics transmission systems maintainer, and was assigned to Combat Logistics Battalion 24..
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Nicole's military awards and accomplishments include the Purple Heart Medal, Combat Action Ribbon, Good Conduct Medal, National Defense Medal, Afghan Campaign Medal, Global War on Terrorism Service Medal, Sea Service Deployment Ribbon, NATO Medal, Expert Rifle Qualification Third Award, becoming a Black Belt Martial Arts Instructor, setting weightlifting records at Al-Jaber Air Base, and of course, perfect scores in Combat Fitness Tests..
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 She deployed with the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit in February 2021. During her deployment, Nicole's stops included Spain, Greece, Saudi Arabia, Oman, and Kuwait. Nicole was meritoriously promoted to Sergeant while in Kuwait on August 2, 2021. Her last stop was a humanitarian mission in Afghanistan, where she assisted in evacuating more than 100,000 refugees.
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Nicole was a beloved wife, sister, daughter, aunt, niece, cousin, granddaughter, friend, and a hero to the countless people that she helped. She will always be remembered for her bravery, kindness, love, dedication, and selfless sacrifice in service to her country.

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Marine Corps Sgt. Nicole L. Gee, 23, of Sacramento, Calif.
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.The Marine captured in a photo cooing over a rescued Afghan infant last week was identified Saturday as one of the 13 US service members slaughtered in Thursday’s terror attack in Kabul.
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.“I love my job,” Sgt. Nicole Gee, 23, captioned the Aug. 20 snap on Instagram, showing her peering down at the baby in her arms.
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