Victoria Sanchez honors her cousin Laverne who served during WWII, and other Memorial Day remembrances.
Transcripts
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Today is Memorial day here in the United States, and there's a bit of history on how it came about.
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But I'm not going to discuss that today.
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Memorial day is a day that we honor those fallen men and women who died serving in the United States military.
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But I would like to honor all of the veterans who have served and are serving.
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My mom, Victoria Sanchez is on the phone and she's going to share a Memorial day story today.
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Hello.
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Catherine, I had a cousin
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Laverne who served in world war two.
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He was on my father's side and his father has served in world war one.
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Laverne's father along came World War two and everyone was very patriotic.
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Laverne was underage.
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He wanted to enlist.
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And so his father signed the papers that he could enlist and he enlisted in the air service.
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At that time, he was, uh, not quite out of high school.
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So his father, , got his diploma during graduation week.
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LaVerne did part of his basic training at Harligen Base in Texas.
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And from there, he was sent to England and he was a tail gunner on a B25 and then later he transferred to, I think a, B 17 a bomber.
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It was a very large bomber and a, I think it was known as the flying fortress or something.
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They flew Missions over Germany on Austria, et cetera.
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It was the custom after
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they completed 50 missions that they would get R&R.
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On his 50th mission the plane was shot down on December 11, 1944 over Austria, all on board were killed with the exception of two.
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And the two were the radio operator and the copilot.
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December 24th, 1944, my uncle and aunt got the telegram saying that LaVerne was killed in action.
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That was Christmas Eve.
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In
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1946 his body was returned.
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Um, I believe it was January for Memorial service and the whole town turned out for the Memorial
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service.
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I was young, but I remember they were all there.
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It was in the Methodist church.
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, LaVerne had a fiance who was crying and crying.
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And my aunt told her that LaVerne would have wanted her to get married and to be happy.
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So.
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His father was, , really devastated.
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He and Laverne were going to open after the war, a radio and model.
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Uh, but one of those model kit stores in Waterloo, Wisconsin, he never did.
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They also never had a Christmas after that.
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And Laverne had a younger sister who was in high school at the time.
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His brother, Victor served in the us Navy and came home from the war.
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So that's the story of Laverne, but I'd like to share some other stories.
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Very briefly.
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My mother had two brothers who served in world war two.
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They were Clarence and Elmer, and they were both doctors.
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Elmer was one of the first doctors at Dachau and after several days of treating the survivors at Dachau, he couldn't take it anymore.
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And he had to be transferred to England.
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His brother Clarence was also a doctor and was in the Normandy invasion on DDay.
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He was in the battle of the bulge and he received the bronze star and the silver star.
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My husband's father, Julius served as a pilot on the Jenney Glider in WWI..
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My husband Rozier during the Korean war was in air defense command and he was a navigator our son-in-law Glen served in Vietnam in the U S army.
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Our grandson, Michael served in the us Navy first in submarines in the submarine duty and then in intelligence.
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So to all the veterans, I will forever give thanks to all who served and sacrificed you were all heroes.
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God bless you all,
Catherine:
I look forward to sharing Helen Charlie Nellist's positive imprints and information regarding Hadrian's Wall over in the United Kingdom.
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Thank you again for listening and supporting this podcast.
