“Hometown Heroes: Chali 2na Shows You Around Southside of Chicago - Baller Status” plus 3 more |
- Hometown Heroes: Chali 2na Shows You Around Southside of Chicago - Baller Status
- Soldier joined Navy at 15 - Journal & Sunday Journal
- D-Day veteran shares story - Journal & Sunday Journal
- Young 'heroes' warned families of flash floods - msnbc.com
| Hometown Heroes: Chali 2na Shows You Around Southside of Chicago - Baller Status Posted: 14 Jun 2010 12:20 AM PDT
| Legendary MC Chali 2na, of the hip-hop group Jurassic 5, is promoting yet another album -- Fish Market Part 2, the second of his album series. In support of the recently released project, Chali takes you through the southside of Chicago where it all began in his rap career ... for the first webisode of the Decon series "Hometown Heroes". Five Filters featured article: Headshot - Propaganda, State Religion and the Attack On the Gaza Peace Flotilla. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction. |
| Soldier joined Navy at 15 - Journal & Sunday Journal Posted: 13 Jun 2010 06:43 PM PDT Editor's note: This article is part of The Journal's Unsung Heroes series, which shares stories of area veterans who served in wars and conflicts from World War II through the present day. --- BUNKER HILL - In the fall of 1943, it looked to 15-year-old Dudley Brown that everything was passing him by. The country was in the midst of a war, and Brown, a teenager with a tendency to run around with an older crowd, had to watch as his friends joined up and shipped out to far-off lands. The high school sophomore wasn't very interested in his classes, nor was he excelling in them - factors that led up to his decision to approach his parents and ask them to sign his enlistment papers two years before he could legally do so. "I felt like I could do more for them in the service than I could at home," said Brown recently from his home in Bunker Hill. "I felt the need to be in there and serve my country. It just seemed the right thing to do." Despite his belief that his decision was best, Brown recalls his mother fussing every time he broached the subject of entering the service. One day, however, he overheard a turn in the familiar conversation. "My dad said, 'Go ahead and sign it, he's not going to get in anyway,'" Brown recalled about the evening that his father finally yielded toward his decision. As his next step, Brown solicited the help of his cousin, Rosemary O'Leary, who was adept with a typewriter. She began by erasing the date on his birth certificate with ink eradicator - doing a very nice job, he recalled. Her own typewriter had a typeface that matched the rest of the certificate, making it easy to fill in the date Brown needed to enter the service. He took the doctored piece of paper to the local enlistment office, in the upstairs of the old Martinsburg Post Office on King Street. Rendering his father's prediction false, Brown was accepted into the U.S. Navy and promptly shipped to Grafton, W.Va., for the first of three physical evaluations. Brown had been at boot camp in Great Lakes, Ill., about three weeks when his superiors found him out. He likely gave himself away, he said, while granting his mother's request for him to join a church in Illinois - a process during which he wrote his correct birthdate on church documents. A few days later, a note was sent asking Brown to report to the disciplinary office and appear before Lt. Begley. He walked and ran the five-mile distance between the barracks and headquarters, and was promptly asked upon his arrival how old he was. "Seventeen," replied Brown. The lieutenant asked twice more, with Brown sticking to his guns. By the fourth request, however, it was apparent that his superior was aware of his true age, and Brown confessed to what the lieutenant said he already knew. After a series of questions regarding his plans for finishing high school, Brown was released back to the barracks. Five trips on foot to the office later, the lieutenant finally saw it fit to tell Brown two things: that his parents had consented and he could stay in the Navy, with the stipulation that he couldn't go overseas until he turned 17, and that a bus ran on the five miles between the barracks and the office every 15 minutes, he laughed. Once again, however, fate worked in Brown's favor, and the paperwork stating his inability to be shipped out was delayed. "I got orders to go overseas, and away I went," he said. Brown celebrated his 16th birthday in England, just three months before his ship, the U.S. LST 335, initiated maneuvers that the crew would later learn began their foray into the Invasion of Normandy. Once word got out to his shipmates that he was underage, they saw to it that he was taken care of - especially in light of the homesickness he was experiencing. One sailor inquired as to why Brown hadn't written home, to which he replied that each time he started a letter, big teardrops soaked the paper and he had to stop. The sailor told Brown to visit his quarters the next time he wanted to write, offering to transcribe his sentiments for him. Brown's ship anchored near the Dog Beaches of the Omaha sector on June 7. As a seaman, he went 37 times on a landing craft, or LCVP, between where the ship was anchored and the beach to take out supplies and bring in the wounded- of which there were few, sometimes none - back on stretchers lined on the ship's deck. Many of the wounded they found were prisoners, he recalled. "You never knew what to expect," he said. "Those first two to five days were the worst." Brown, now 78, is proud of what the LSTs - landing ship tanks, more humorously known as 'large, slow targets' - accomplished during the war. About 4,500 of the ships participated in the invasion, he said, creating a picture that looked simply "like chaos." "We wouldn't have won the war without LSTs," he said. The "workhorse" ships were the troops' connection to vital supplies at the time. Referencing a publication written solely about the ships, Brown points out a black-and-white picture of LSTs lined up near a beach side-by-side like books on a shelf. The LST 335 on which Brown served was in a flotilla, or fleet, with the LST 325 - a recently-restored ship brought back to the United States from Greece in 2001. "We would go out together for protection," he said. The ships, which are no longer in commission with the Navy, would be beached during the low tide as they were loaded, after which they'd wait for a high tide to carry them into the sea. The LST 335 was stuck "high and dry" only once, Brown said. After four years in the Navy, Brown was discharged from his position as a 2nd class gunners mate while in Jacksonville, Fl. He returned home to West Virginia and went back to high school. Being surrounded by young students, however, prompted him to take the GED test instead. He graduated from Shepherd College in 1956 and worked a series of jobs with the Baltimore & Ohio railroad, the Veterans Affairs Medical Center and General Motors Corporation. Today, Brown belongs to the Veterans of Underage Military Service, an organization that celebrates the history and friendship of the "kids" who joined up before their time. "When I was 15 and in the Navy, I thought I was hot stuff," Brown said. But other VUMS, of which there are about 3,200 registered, entered the service at the even younger ages of 12 and 13, he said. The shipmates of the LST 335 have had about 13 reunions, one of which was held in Martinsburg. Brown says he remains in touch with the dozen men that are left from the ship. He also stays active, assured his wife, Norma Jean. Brown is an avid golfer, billiards player and trap shooter. "I don't stay home," he laughed. - Staff writer Lauren Hough can be reached at 263-8931, ext. 163, or at lhough@journal-news.net Five Filters featured article: Headshot - Propaganda, State Religion and the Attack On the Gaza Peace Flotilla. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction. | |
| D-Day veteran shares story - Journal & Sunday Journal Posted: 13 Jun 2010 06:43 PM PDT Editor's note: This article is part of The Journal's Unsung Heroes series, which shares stories of area veterans who served in wars and conflicts from World War II through the present day. --- MARTINSBURG - For years, World War II veteran and D-Day survivor Van R. Raines never spoke openly of the time he spent on the front lines in war-torn Europe. "It was a terrible experience," the 85-year-old Martinsburg resident said. Not even during the three decades he worked for the moving company North American Van Lines did he once mention his military service. "I worked for the company for 30 years. They didn't even know I was in the service. Never told them that. Never discussed it," Raines said. He didn't even speak of it when he was assigned a packing job for President Richard Nixon's wife, for which she gave him a set of presidential cuff links. "That was a pretty good experience. They had a lot of good stuff," Raines said. In later years while the Virginia native was living in Florida, he turned down numerous requests for interviews. He didn't start to tell his story until his wife of 58 years, Mary Jane Raines, and his family gave him a little nudging to talk about his experiences for the sake of his grandchildren. Raines has three daughters, nine grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. "I generally don't like to talk about these things. My grandkids, they want to here it now," Raines said. Uncle Sam selected Raines for the service in the Army on Dec. 4, 1942. "They drafted me. They said, 'I want you,' and they got me," Raines said. "I wanted to join the Air Force. I wanted to be a paratrooper. They took me over and said, 'You're all right but your bones aren't big enough.'" He became a private first class and was assigned to the 4th Infantry Division. He later arrived in England nine months before Operation Overlord, or D-Day as it's commonly called today. During that time Raines was trained for what would be the largest invasion ever executed in modern warfare. One of his first tastes of the awful price of war came during a training exercise off the coast of England for the impending invasion of Normandy. "We went on maneuvers in England, a dry run of the invasion," Raines said. "So when we got in the ocean, the English Channel, the Germans had caught us in the English Channel and sunk all these little landing crafts. Eight hundred men we lost. Eight hundred men." Despite the setback, plans for the invasion were still on. It would be postponed once due to bad weather, but finally on June 6, 1944, Raines joined more than 175,000 other men ready to storm the 50 miles of French coastline in the initial wave. As Raines approached Utah Beach, he and other members of his company descended into their landing crafts by climbing down ropes. "I saw one of my buddies, his foot got caught on the rope. He was just hanging up there (and) got hung up on that rope," Raines said. "I was just trying to make sure I was doing everything right. I didn't want to get hung up." The boat was crammed without about 60 men, Raines said. "They took us right up onto the beach and dropped us off. Of course the artillery was busting all around us," he said. "When I first hit the beachhead I heard all them damn shells flying and popping." In those first few chaotic moments, he said it didn't take too long to be able discern how close a falling shell was by the unique sound it made as it barreled toward the earth. Sitting in a chair in his den during an interview last week, Raines demonstrated the whistle-like sound himself. "Bam! That's an artillery shell for you. If you don't hear that, you're in pretty good shape." Once he and his fellow soldiers made landfall, their mission was to head to the French city of Cherbourg and take it. They gained a lot of ground after landing, advancing across the beach until they reached a swamp. "We had to get through a swamp. I don't know, (400) or 500 yards I guess, through that swamp and guys were drowning and everything, and finally we got through there and we took Cherbourg," Raines said. "There were 225 people in the company I think. I don't know how many were left." Shortly after reaching the other side, a general and his staff met with Raines' company and saluted all of them. "The general came along and said, 'Job well done,'" Raines said. Afterward, the company was reorganized and young soldiers were brought in to replace those who'd died. "We got new ... young men for the men who got killed -all young. I was young too, but I was a veteran then," Raines said. He later fought in the Battle of Normandy, in hedgerows country named after the dense line of hedges that formed the defensive battle positions of the German army. "These hedges would grow up in between the rocks and they'd go so high. The Germans were already dug in there. ... The only defense we had, all we could do was dig holes. If we couldn't do that, we'd get behind a horse or a cow or something that was dead and use that for protection." He still remembers the sound of German bullets from machine gun fire hitting the dead livestock. After surviving the battle, Raines and other soldiers headed for St. Lo, in the middle part of France, to try and take it. "There was a terrible battle," Raines said. He was wounded by a piece of shrapnel in the fighting on July 12 and was sent back to England, where he spent more than a month recovering in a hospital. It was there that he was awarded one of his two Purple Heart medals. "The piece of shrapnel in my shoulder wasn't too bad, but if it just went a little further they said it would have gone right through my heart." Raines later rejoined his outfit in northern France on the border with Germany, while they were heading towards the German town Aachen. "The German border was maybe about a hundred yards, (to) a hundred feet away," Raines said. He and his men would enter the infamous Black Forest on their mission to take Aachen, the first German town captured in World War II, in early 1945. "The Germans had planted all these pine trees. Ever seen these corn fields that have been planted and anywhere you look it's all in line? Well that was the forest. The Germans did that for national defense. So we had to go in there and try to take that," Raines said. The Germans had cleared on area of the forest where they set up a machine gun lane, Raines said. "The Germans were way over in the corner shooting down this lane. So they were picking us off real bad and we learned real quickly to run real fast through the crossfire," Raines said. "My outfit did take it (the forest). Then I got wounded right then and there." A tree burst hit Raines in his shoulder and entered his arm pit. When medics finally reached him he passed out. The next thing he remembered was waking up in a hospital in Belgium. He stayed there until he could be operated on and evacuated back to England to another hospital. All the while, he said he could hear the sound of German "buzz bombs" flying over the hospital. "There were soldiers lined up on stretchers waiting to be operated on and they finally got a hold of me and operated on me and the last thing I heard was a buzz bomb coming over," Raines said. He said the bombs would be filled with about two to three gallons of gas and once all the fuel was burned they would simply fall to the ground below. Just two days after leaving Belgium one of those bombs fell on the hospital, completely destroying a first floor wing. The second wound he received in Germany earned him a second Purple Heart and his ticket home to the states. He actually was entitled to a third Purple Heart for a slight wound on his hand, but Raines refused it. He made the journey home aboard a ship that had been captured by the Allies during World War I and converted into a hospital ship.When the ship landed on American shores, Raines said the first thing he heard was "Rum and Coca-Cola" by the Andrews Sisters. The famous song sold 4 million copies when it was released by the Andrews Sisters in 1945. "It was one of the most popular songs in the world. I said, 'Hell, get me out of here and get me some of that rum and Coca-Cola.'" Shortly after the war Raines met his wife, who had been in high school when Raines was storming the beach of Utah. They dated for five months before they got married and have been together ever since. They moved to Martinsburg in November. Before that they lived in Florida, as well as Virginia. One wall of their home is decorated with numerous medals and achievements that Raines earned for his service. Like many veterans, Raines wasn't awarded many of the medals until well after the war. He received them after former Florida Sen. Bob Graham formed a committee to investigate and award medals to all of those veterans who were entitled to them but never received them. Mary Jane Raines said her husband had always been glad that they had no sons because he didn't want them to have to go off and fight in a war like he did. But one of their daughters, Robin Hoffer, actually went into the Air Force and made the family proud in the process. "She was the only female to make chief on the east coast at Andrews Air Force Base," Raines said. Hoffer retired when she became pregnant, but she was the one who made Sen. Graham aware of her father's military service. At her retirement ceremony at Andrews Air Force Base, Hoffer spoke of her father. "She was making her speech and said, 'That's my father. He was in the invasion of Normandy,'" Raines said. "A couple of generals got me in a corner there and started asking me all these questions about war and all that you know. Her bosses. They gave me a standing ovation. ... I felt like a general." - Staff writer Edward Marshall can be reached at 263-8931, ext. 215, or emarshall@journal-news.net Five Filters featured article: Headshot - Propaganda, State Religion and the Attack On the Gaza Peace Flotilla. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction. | |
| Young 'heroes' warned families of flash floods - msnbc.com Posted: 13 Jun 2010 03:44 PM PDT "It's like, 'Who's the biggest star now, dad?'" said Paul Dergarabedian, box-office analyst for Hollywood.com. "It proves the box-office apple doesn't fall far from the money tree in that household." "The A-Team" features Liam Neeson, Bradley Cooper and Jessica Biel in a tale of former Army Rangers trying to clear their names after they are framed for a crime they did not commit. Chris Aronson, head of distribution for 20th Century Fox, said the momentum of a strong weekend should benefit "The A-Team," which received high marks in exit polls from the under-25 crowd. "It's good that the industry finally has an up weekend, so it's nice to be a part of that," Aronson said. "We're very optimistic that we're now in an upswing in the business and that we're going to play and play as our word of mouth spreads." Hollywood looks to build on its momentum next weekend as Pixar Animation goes back to its roots with "Toy Story 3," the latest sequel to the 1995 hit that was the first feature-length computer-animated film. In limited release, IFC Films' documentary "Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work" opened strongly with $171,500 in seven theaters, for an average of $24,500 per cinema. That compared to a $15,288 average in 3,663 theaters for "The Karate Kid." Also debuting well in limited release was Roadside Attractions' drama "Winter's Bone," which took in $87,000 in four theaters for a $21,750 average. The top dramatic prize winner at January's Sundance Film Festival, "Winter's Bone" stars Jennifer Lawrence as a teenager desperately searching for her missing father in the backwoods crime culture of the Ozark Mountains. Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Hollywood.com. Final figures will be released Monday. 1. "The Karate Kid," $56 million.
Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Five Filters featured article: Headshot - Propaganda, State Religion and the Attack On the Gaza Peace Flotilla. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction. |
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