Author Archives: Jeff Jardine
70 YEARS AGO TODAY, THE SO-CALLED “FORGOTTEN WAR” BEGAN IN KOREA
Seventy years ago today, 75,000 North Korean soldiers, supplied by the Soviets and aided by the Chinese, bull-rushed across the 38th Parallel into South Korea. They took Seoul within a few days, and the Korean War – soon to be called the “Forgotten War” – commenced on June 25, 1950. Split into two countries when […]
CALVET BOARD MEMBER DUNNING AT THE FOREFRONT OF ENDING “DON’T ASK, DON’T TELL”
Zoe Dunning would love to be able to say that with one stroke of President Barack Obama’s pen he ended her 18-year fight for equality in the United States Military by signing the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” three days before Christmas in 2010. That, however, would be far too simplistic in the world […]
JUNETEENTH CELEBRATIONS GO VIRTUAL FOR 2020
On June 19, 1865 – more than two months after Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox – Union General Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston, Texas. Why? To tell 250,000 enslaved people that they were now free. Thus, Juneteenth (combining June and the Nineteenth) became the day each year African Americans across the nation celebrate that […]
JUNE 14, 1775 FIRST IN A STRING OF VERY IMPORTANT DAYS IN AMERICAN HISTORY, BY GEORGE!
As unheralded days that defined America go, none might have been as important as June 14 through June 18, 1775. Why? Because on June 14 of that year, the Continental Congress created the Continental Army. A day later, on June 15, the Congress voted unanimously to appoint George Washington to lead the Army. On June […]
FEWER THAN 1,000 AMERICAN D-DAY SURVIVORS REMAIN; A 95-YEAR-OLD MODESTAN IS AMONG THEM
Seventy-six years ago, on the morning of June 6, 1944, Charles Fenley and the crew of Landing Craft Tank (LCT) 528 landed at Normandy’s Utah Beach. By then, more than 21,000 Americans had stormed that beach, and 197 perished. Fenley and his LCT crew were fortunate, he told the Modesto Bee in 2017. “By the […]
BROTHERS IN ARMS, BROTHERS IN PARADISE: REBUILDING FROM THE CAMP FIRE DEVASTATION
On the morning of November 8, 2018, as Shane Murray drove from his new home in Paradise to work in Oroville, he looked into his rear-view mirror and saw a plume of smoke billowing against an otherwise azure sky. By the time he told his boss he needed to return home to evacuate – that […]
ASIAN AMERICAN/PACIFIC ISLANDER HERITAGE MONTH: CAMPAIGN TO HONOR CHINESE AMERICAN WORLD WAR II VETS WITH CONGRESSIONAL GOLD MEDAL CONTINUES
During an 18-month stretch of World War II, three brothers of a Chinese American family from Los Angeles all joined the United States Military. Herbert Tom went into the U.S. Army in January 1943, serving in the Army Air Corps’ 9th Air Force in Europe until after the war’s end. The eldest brother, George W. […]
MEMORIAL DAY TOOK SOME INNOVATION, TECHNOLOGY TO COMMEMORATE HOLIDAY IN VETERANS HOMES DURING COVID-19 RESTRICTIONS
If necessity is, indeed, the mother of all invention, and desperate times require desperate measures, then add this new adage to the mix: COVID-19 demands innovation and imagination to maintain our traditions. Indeed, Zoom feeds replace crowded graduation ceremonies. Well-wishers now drive by to offer socially distanced birthday greetings to the recipient out on his […]
COVID-19 WILL MAKE ITS MARK ON MEMORIAL DAY CEREMONIES AT CALVET’S VETERANS CEMETERIES THIS YEAR
For many years – up to and including 2019 – Napa County Boy Scouts placed a flag at each of the gravestones in the cemetery at the Veterans Homes of California-Yountville for Memorial Day in honor of those buried there. That will not happen this year, though. Nor will Memorial Day traditions at the other […]
SHIELDING VETERANS AND STAFF AT VETERANS HOMES OF CALIFORNIA GETS A BOOST FROM PPE-MAKING MODESTO JUNIOR COLLEGE GROUP
Staff members at the eight Veterans Homes of California have spent the past three months trying to keep the coronavirus COVID-19 out of the Homes. Most personal protective equipment (PPE) has been available when it comes to gloves, gowns, and masks, including masks made by big-hearted co-workers and volunteers at the various Homes. But, two […]
