Veterans memories from Bellingham, WA

Veterans

Puget Sound has high number of wounded Iraq, Afghanistan war vets

Veteran Jim Dahl cooks candied carrots in his kitchen at his Des Moines condo on Sunday. It’s part of his homework for a class he takes at Le Cordon Bleu Culinary Academy. He is considered 100 percent disabled from post-traumatic stress, and the solitary nature of cooking suits him.

The communities surrounding Tacoma have the highest per capita population of seriously disabled Iraq and Afghanistan veterans on the West Coast, according to Department of Veterans Affairs records obtained by McClatchy Newspapers and analyzed by...

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Archive by category ''Veterans

VETERANS

Helped build Liberty ships during WW II

During World War II, Bellingham-born Jack Moen was a foreman at the California Shipbuilding Corp. shipyard at Terminal Island, in Los Angeles. The photograph shows the Labor Day 1942 launching of the SS Samuel Gompers, a Liberty ship. The vessel was torpedoed and sunk six months later off of New...

197 days ago
VETERANS

Veteran says patrolling Vietnam's rivers was a deadly assignment

Squalicum High School teacher Greg Newman served with the U.S. Navy patrolling rivers in Vietnam for enemy activity in the surrounding jungle. Here is his story.

198 days ago
VETERANS

Bellingham man stood guard when 'unknowns' buried at Arlington tomb

Dick Stark of Bellingham served as a member of the 3rd Infantry, the Army's famous Old Guard that guarded the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and performed at other ceremonies. Here is his story.

198 days ago
VETERANS

WW II veteran from Bellingham was in three beachhead landings in Europe

Dave Butenschoen of Bellingham had three brothers who saw combat during World War II: George, in the Navy; Oscar, a tank commander in the Army; and Robert, in the infantry with the Army. This is George's story:

198 days ago
VETERANS

Not all victims of war die in battle, says Bellingham veteran

In 1918, on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day in the eleventh month, the world rejoiced and celebrated. After four years of bitter war, an armistice was signed. The "war to end all wars" was over.

198 days ago
VETERANS

Nervous times in Japan at start of Korean War

I was in the Army in Japan on detached service to the Air Force at Johnson Air Force Base when the Korean War began on June 25, 1950. There were 25 Army Morse code intercept operators learning the business of intercepting radio transmissions and helping the 1st Radio Squadron Mobile with their mission...

198 days ago
VETERANS

Bellingham man recalls chance encounter of a brotherly kind

Drafted in 1943, I reported to Fort Lewis and trained in Camp Maxey, Texas. I was assigned to the 776th Field Artillery Battalion, a 155 mm howitzer unit with three batteries for a total of 12 guns. I was in service battery, about five or six trucks, to supply ammunition for them.

198 days ago
VETERANS

Bellingham veteran still seeking compensation for Merchant Marines

I joined the U.S. Maritime Service in 1945 and I was trained at Catalina Island, Calif. Upon completion of training, I passed the Coast Guard test and was issued "fireman water tender oiler" and was assigned a Z number. It would still be valid today, except steam power is extinct.

198 days ago
VETERANS

Bellingham woman in WAC band horrified by discrimination against black colleague

Joan "Jo" Myers underwent basic training in 1950 at Fort Lee, Va., with Company B, the first integrated company in the Women's Army Corp.

198 days ago
VETERANS

Knowledge of Japanese language, culture crucial to WW II success in the Pacific

Knowledge of the Japanese language and culture by the U.S. military was crucial in prosecuting the Pacific military effort in the Second World War. Bellingham residents Irwin and Carole Slesnick published a book in 2006 about the use of Japanese interpreters during the war and during the occupation...

198 days ago