WW II B24 gunner laid to rest

Matthew

Matthew

Touchdown! Greaser!
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Matthew
Yesterday I got an FB message from someone in my high school graduation class. It had been posted to our HS class FB page.

It was interesting on a couple of levels - a local guy, 19 yrs old when he was shot down and killed in 1943. Same last name as a girl I used to know way back as far as 2nd grade. We were in the same class in 2nd grade, I moved away, then we were in the same graduating class in HS after I moved back. I'm pretty sure he was her father's brother.

It's an interesting story of how his remains were identified.

http://www.hdnews.net/news/20180726/missing-no-more---local-airman-returned

http://www.davisfuneralchapelinc.com/obituary/vincent-politte

His picture was probably when he was 18yo, right out of high school.
 
Pretty amazing.

Wonder if they’ll be able to identify the 50 or so poor souls the North Koreans just delivered to us, may they finally R.I.P.
 
Matthew said:
Maybe. Those guys that do those recoveries and IDs seem to make it a personal challenge.
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Probably more useful to society than what I do for a living. I applaud them trying so hard to find out for the families.

Nobody’s going to be thanking me the rest of my life that I walked over and hit CTRL-ALT-DEL for them because computer code is crap, and their dumb terminal ran better and more consistently and did exactly what it needed to do to get their job done, in the 80s hooked to a mainframe, than their PC does today.

LOL. :)
 
denverpilot said:
Probably more useful to society than what I do for a living. I applaud them trying so hard to find out for the families.

Nobody’s going to be thanking me the rest of my life that I walked over and hit CTRL-ALT-DEL for them because computer code is crap, and their dumb terminal ran better and more consistently and did exactly what it needed to do to get their job done, in the 80s hooked to a mainframe, than their PC does today.

LOL. :)
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I was caught a bit, not quite what to make of this. The UN flags on the remains bothered me. But there's always the possibility that not all are American.

180727-A-AP391-527.JPG
 
Matthew said:
I was caught a bit, not quite what to make of this. The UN flags on the remains bothered me. But there's always the possibility that not all are American.

View attachment 65524
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I hadn’t seen that photo. There’s an exterior shot of the plane arriving in S Korea with a US flag I saw earlier. Interesting.

I can’t really see paying respects to the UN... seems very, not right. But then again, countries are just lines on a map for politicians to argue over, in the end.

Getting folks back to their families and closure is more important than the flag worship.
 
denverpilot said:
Probably more useful to society than what I do for a living. I applaud them trying so hard to find out for the families.

Nobody’s going to be thanking me the rest of my life that I walked over and hit CTRL-ALT-DEL for them because computer code is crap, and their dumb terminal ran better and more consistently and did exactly what it needed to do to get their job done, in the 80s hooked to a mainframe, than their PC does today.

LOL. :)
Click to expand...


denverpilot Thank you for your CTRL-ALT-DEL.

LOL

Back in the early 1980s I was part of the team the broke the 1 micron barrier for semiconductor devices.
Every electronic device on the planet uses the technology I helped developed. (no, I did not get rich. IBM owns all the patents)
But it's a significant achievement, and we all had to increase our hat sizes so our heads would fit.
Fast forward to 2010. I'm doing a "Visiting Scientist" talk at my former elementary school. After a glowing introduction, I wow the crowd of kids and teachers with my talk and demonstrations.
Let's face it, technology is awesome.
Open up the hat band yet again.
Until.
A teacher walks up to me. "So you're the guy responsible for making my life a living hell!"
She then explains how all this technology has negatively impacted her class content, teaching, student cheating, moral and ethical issues, etc, etc, etc.
Then a couple more people pile on.
Severe hat size reduction required.
Now I try to find ways to mitigate the damage done by technology so we can achieve some balance in our lives. It's a losing battle.
 
Returning remains of warriors who bled out on foreign soil is sacred in my book...I am glad this administration has prioritized this and hope for success that the professionals in Hawaii...true patriots for the job they do.
 
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