Saturday, September 10, 2005

A Couple of Upbeat Pieces for Saturday




One of the more poignant "success" stories out of the Katrina disaster involved the relocation of more than 400 veterans from the Armed Forces Retirement Home in Gulfport, Mississippi, to the Armed Forces Retirement Home in Washington, D.C.

The cheering started as soon as the buses rumbled up the driveway of Washington's Armed Forces Retirement Home. Officers and enlistees mixed with civilians in a two-sided receiving line, waving small American flags and clapping for the elderly veterans who had survived World War II, Korea and, now, Katrina.

Read more here.

Read more about the Armed Forces Retirement Home here and here. The AFRH is in need of donated items [critical list ] [wish list ] and cash to assist displaced veterans. Go to the AFRH homepage for information on how to donate items or cash.

The piece about the veterans reminded me of a family story originally published about five years ago.

Catherine L. Bowie watched her three brothers go off to war in 1942 and decided a year later to get into the fight, too. Later, when her brothers went home, she liked the Women's Army Corps and stayed.

Asked about her military career of more than 24 years, the 86-year-old Bowie quipped, "Well, I can't remember much today. Yesterday, I knew everything."

Read the rest of the story here.


3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hello, googled a surname Johnson and came upon your blog. Interesting. Sure wish I had all those links prior to my tree search. Found them the hard way. Read parts of your blog. Have you done any DNA or had relations take the tests? Recently, I had great results that have led me closer to solving the slave history mystery....

Craig Manson said...

I haven't gotten into the DNA testing yet. Just don't know enough about it. But I have a feeling this will be more and more popular in the future. At the same time, techniques will improve, costs will fall, and there will be both positive and negative unforeseen consequences. But I say anything that helps us understand our history is worth pursuing.

Anonymous said...

Actually, it has become fairly reasonable. National Geographic is doing a migration project for $99- 12 marker test. Ya know... if your related to someone 4000 years ago. Serious matches in the database (25 marker) cost $150. at Family Tree DNA and up. Y DNA traces father to father lineage. MtDNA only your mother's mother...
I had a great uncle take the test for our Johnson slave history. We matched 25/25 to a different surname (not the one oral history states). This leads me to explore a connection to that surname---a better starting place.