Missing World War II Soldiers Indentified

From:  U.S. Department of Defense
Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense (Public Affairs) 

 The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced Monday that the remains 12 U.S. servicemen, missing in action from World War II, have been identified and are being returned to their families for burial with full military honors.                    They are Army Air Forces 1^st Lt. Jack E. Volz, 21, of Indianapolis; 2^nd Lt. Regis E. Dietz, 28, of Pittsburgh, Pa.; 2^nd Lt. Edward J. Lake, 25, of Brooklyn, N.Y.; 2^nd Lt. Martin P. Murray, 21, of Lowell, Mass.; 2^nd Lt. William J. Shryock, 23, of Gary, Ind.; Tech. Sgt. Robert S. Wren, 25, of Seattle, Wash.; Tech. Sgt. Hollis R. Smith, 22, of Cove, Ark.; Staff Sgt. Berthold A. Chastain, 27, Dalton, Ga.; Staff Sgt. Clyde L. Green, 24, Erie, Pa.; Staff Sgt. Frederick E. Harris, 23, Medford, Mass.; Staff Sgt. Claude A. Ray, 24, Coffeyville, Kan.; and Staff Sgt. Claude G. Tyler, 24, Landover, Md. The remains representing the entire crew will be buried as a group, in a single casket, Aug. 4 in Arlington National Cemetery near Washington, D.C.  Eight of the airmen were identified and buried as individuals during previous ceremonies.  Shryock, Green and Harris were also individually identified and will be interred individually at Arlington on the same day as the group interment. 
                  These 12 airmen were ordered to carry out a reconnaissance mission in their B-24D Liberator, taking off from an airfield near Port Moresby, New Guinea, on Oct. 27, 1943. Allied plans were being formulated to mount an attack on the Japanese redoubt at Rabaul, New Britain.  American strategists considered it critical to take Rabaul in order to support the eventual invasion of the Philippines.  The crew's assigned area of reconnaissance was the nearby shipping lanes in the Bismarck Sea.  But during their mission, they were radioed to land at a friendly air strip nearby due to poor weather conditions.  The last radio transmission from the crew did not indicate their location, and in the following weeks, multiple searches over land and sea areas did not locate the aircraft. 
                  Following World War II, the Army Graves Registration Service conducted investigations and searches for 43 missing airmen, including these airmen, in the area but concluded in June 1949 that they were unrecoverable.
                  In August 2003, a team from the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) received information on a crash site from a citizen in Papua New Guinea while they were investigating another case.  He also turned over an identification card from one of the crew members and reported that there were possible human remains at the site of the crash.  Twice in 2004 other JPAC teams attempted to visit the site but were unable to do so due to poor weather and hazardous conditions at the helicopter landing site.  Another team was able to successfully excavate the site from January to March 2007 where they found several identification tags from the B-24D crew as well as human remains. 
                  Among other forensic identification tools and circumstantial evidence, scientists from JPAC and the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory used mitochondrial DNA - which matched that of some of the crewmembers' families - in the identification of their remains.
                 Of the 16 million Americans who served in World War II, more than 400,000 died.  At the end of the war, the U.S. government was unable to recover and identify approximately 79,000 Americans.  Today, more than 73,000 are unaccounted-for from the conflict.
                  For additional information on the Defense Department's mission to account for missing Americans, visit the DPMO website at http://www.dtic.mil/dpmo or call 703-699-1169.    

A Couple of our local regional MIA's are now identified, returned home and given proper recognition.

Do Not Use Veterans as Pawns in a Dangerous Political Game

Received today from the Congressional Committee on Veteran Affairs

IMMEDIATE RELEASE July 27, 2011                       CONTACT: Amy K. Mitchell (202) 225-3527

Miller: “Do Not Use Veterans as Pawns in a Dangerous Political Game”

WASHINGTON, D.C.—Today, the Chairman of the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, Rep. Jeff Miller, issued the following statement on the latest tactic in the debt crisis debate:

“Taking care of America’s veterans has been, and always will be, one of this country’s highest priorities. Many questions have been raised recently regarding the debt crisis and what will happen to America’s veterans come August 2. As of today, the Administration has yet to provide clarity to these men and women. This is a serious situation and it requires a serious response.

Why would the President invite some of the largest Veterans Service Organizations to the White House under the guise of discussing the details of reaching the debt limit on August 2nd, and not assure them that veterans will continue to receive funding whether or not an agreement is reached? Why would the President not offer assurances to the men and women who wore this country’s uniform, but instead unapologetically attempt to use veterans as pawns in a dangerous political game? 

Under the Budget Control Act of 2011 put forth by Speaker Boehner, and consistent with the ideals and priorities for veterans outlined in the House-passed budget resolution, veterans programs will continue to be adequately funded. These are the facts. Through the Budget Control Act, veterans will also continue to receive the best care and services possible from the Department of Veterans Affairs.  

We have made great strides in meeting the needs of veterans of today, while keeping our promise to yesterday’s veterans

For more news from the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, please visit:

Veterans.House.Gov

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Follow us on Twitter at: @HouseVetAffairs and on YouTube at: YouTube.com/HouseVetsAffairs

Setting the Record Straight: Veterans and The Path to Prosperity

I am posting this information from the Congressional Veterans Affairs Committee in order to offset the 'fear-mongering' of the Democratic 'Progressive" Caucus.. aka Liberals or Socialists

Setting the Record Straight

The Path to Prosperity increases America’s funding for services and benefits earned by veterans. Of the $6.2 trillion in spending reductions included in The Path to Prosperity, not a single dollar comes from veterans programs or services.  Under the House-passed budget, spending for veterans will increase from $128.3 billion in FY2012 to $164.4 billion in FY2021, providing $155 million more than the President has requested. This is the only area of discretionary spending in the House-passed budget to see significant growth across the budget window

Myth 1: The House-passed budget seeks to end advance appropriations for veterans programs.

Fact: The Budget Resolution passed by the House authorizes $52.5 billion in advance appropriations for FY 2013, a record level of funding for veterans health programs. The House recently passed an appropriations bill providing that full amount. Veterans health programs are not the programs referred to on page 37 of The Path to Prosperity, because these advance appropriations are specifically authorized in law, namely the Veterans Health Care Budget Reform and Transparency Act of 2009. There are no savings from veterans programs assumed in the $6.2 trillion in spending reductions under The Path to Prosperity and no proposals for changing how appropriations for those programs are handled.

Myth 2: The House-passed budget seeks to end enrollment in veterans health programs for Priority Group 7 and 8 veterans

Fact: The Path to Prosperity provides full funding, including authorization for advance appropriations, for the Veterans Health Administration. This will allow VA to provide medical care for a record number of veterans and eligible dependents. The budget proposes no restrictions on any priority groups’ access to VHA and it assumes no savings from changes to veterans benefits or programs.

Everyone.. let's get the word out about the facts!!  Main Strean Media is not reporting the complete truth,.. I have never in my life witnesses such 'Yellow Journalism" as we are seeing at this time.

Big Surprises Uncovered in Fed Audit

When read closely, I found this article to have various points which are  very disconcerting to the informed person.


Written on July 25, 2011 by Ann-Marie Murrell

The Federal Reserve has recently had a complete audit and according to Vermont Senator Bernie Sander’s website, one of the big surprises found was the fact that the “U.S. provided $16 trillion in secret loans to bail out American and foreign banks and businesses during the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.”

Senator Sanders created an amendment to the Wall Street reform law a year ago which directed the Government Accountability Office to conduct the audit.

“As a result of this audit, we now know that the Federal Reserve provided more than $16 trillion in total financial assistance to some of the largest financial institutions and corporations in the United States and throughout the world,” said Sanders. “This is a clear case of socialism for the rich and rugged, you’re-on-your-own individualism for everyone else.”

Included in the audit findings, the Fed provided trillions of dollars in financial aid from South Korea to Scotland

“No agency of the United States government should be allowed to bailout a foreign bank or corporation without the direct approval of Congress and the president,” Sanders said.

The audit also discovered that the Fed “lacks a comprehensive system to deal with conflicts of interest, despite the serious potential for abuse” and provides “conflict of interest waivers to employees and private contractors so they could keep investments in the same financial institutions and corporations that were given emergency loans.

An example Senator Sanders gives is that the CEO of JP Morgan Chase served on the New York Fed’s board of directors “at the same time his bank received more than $390 billion in financial assistance from the Fed.”  Also, JP Morgan Chase “served as one of the clearing banks for the Fed’s emergency lending programs.”

Another “surprise” discovered in the audit is that, according to the GAO report, on Sept. 19, 2008, William Dudley, president of the New York Fed, was given a waiver allowing him to keep his investments in AIG and General Electric “at the same time AIG and GE were given bailout funds”.  According to the audit, one of the reasons Dudley didn’t have to sell his holdings is because it might have “created the appearance of a conflict of interest.”

“No one who works for a firm receiving direct financial assistance from the Fed should be allowed to sit on the Fed’s board of directors or be employed by the Fed,” Sanders said.

Other information revealed by the audit is that the Fed outsourced most of its emergency lending programs to private contractors, “many of which also were recipients of extremely low-interest and then-secret loans.”

“The Fed outsourced virtually all of the operations of their emergency lending programs to private contractors like JP Morgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, and Wells Fargo,” Senator Sanders posted on his writes.  “The same firms also received trillions of dollars in Fed loans at near-zero interest rates. Altogether some two-thirds of the contracts that the Fed awarded to manage its emergency lending programs were no-bid contracts. Morgan Stanley was given the largest no-bid contract worth $108.4 million to help manage the Fed bailout of AIG.”

Another more detailed GAO investigation into potential conflicts of interest at the Fed is due on October 18.

As Sanders says, “The Federal Reserve must be reformed to serve the needs of working families, not just CEOs on Wall Street.”

To read the GAO report, click here.

Navy Names Littoral Combat Ship Little Rock

IMMEDIATE RELEASE 

No. 616-11
July 15, 2011

 

Navy Names Littoral Combat Ship Little Rock

                Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus announced today that the next freedom-class littoral combat ship (LCS) will be named the USS Little Rock (LCS 9).
                Little Rock is the second ship to bear the name of the capital city in Arkansas. The USS Little Rock (CL-92/CLG-4/CG-4) was originally a Cleveland-class light cruiser that served after World War II, and was one of six to be converted to a Galveston-class guided missile cruiser. She was decommissioned in 1976 and now holds a place of honor as a museum ship in Buffalo, N.Y
                Little Rock will be designed to defeat growing littoral threats and provide access and dominance in the coastal waters.  A fast, agile surface combatant, the LCS provides the required war fighting capabilities and operational flexibility to execute focused missions close to the shore, such as mine warfare, anti-submarine warfare, and surface warfare.
                The LCS Class consists of two different hull forms, the Freedom variant and Independence variant – a semi-planing monohull and an aluminum trimaran – designed and built by two industry teams; Lockheed Martin and Austel USA.  These seaframes will be outfitted with reconfigurable payloads, called mission packages, which can be changed out quickly as combat needs demand.  These mission packages are supported by special detachments that will deploy manned and unmanned vehicles and sensors in support of mine, undersea and surface warfare missions.
                Little Rock will be 378 feet in length, have a waterline beam of 57 feet, displace approximately 3,000 tons, and make speed in excess of 40 knots.  The construction will be led by a Lockheed Martin industry team in Marinette, Wis.
                Additional information about Freedom class Littoral Combat Ships is available online at http://www.navy.mil/navydata/fact_display.asp?cid=4200&tid=1650&ct=4 .