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honor the fallen

Navy dedicates California information warfare center in honor of senior chief killed in Syria suicide bombing

Unsung Heroes
Navy Senior Chief Cryptologic Technician (Interpretive) Shannon M. Kent. (U.S. Navy)

Senior Chief Petty Officer Shannon Kent may be gone, but she won't be forgotten.

On Wednesday, the Navy detachment at the Presidio of Monterey dedicated a stage and several buildings at the service's Information Warfare Training Command in honor of the 35-year-old cryptologic technician was killed while deployed to Syria in January.

The clutch of buildings will now be known as Kent Navy Yard.

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knock knock

The badass Coastie who leapt aboard a moving narco sub will receive an award

news

Editor's Note: This article by Richard Sisk originally appeared onMilitary.com, a leading source of news for the military and veteran community.

That Coast Guardsman who banged on the hatch of a semi-submersible to catch a couple of alleged cartel drug runners in a viral video is now up for an award, the top enlisted Coast Guardsman said Wednesday.

"We will definitely recognize that person" with an appropriate award, said Master Chief Petty Officer of the Coast Guard Jason Vanderhaven.

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honor the fallen

A dozen statues have arrived in the Gulf of Mexico for an underwater memorial to American veterans

Community

You can't see them yet, but the heroes have arrived: a dozen 6-foot concrete statues that were recently lowered 40 feet underwater to their new home on the floor of the Gulf of Mexico.

They will form the new Circle of Heroes memorial about 10 miles off the Pinellas County, Florida coast. It will serve as an underwater monument and therapeutic dive site for veterans dealing with post-traumatic stress disorder, trauma and depression.

The underwater Circle of Heroes memorial  takes shape

(Preston Rudie)

A statue is lowered into the Gulf of Mexico Thursday, July 18, 2019. The first 12 statues, forming the nation's first underwater dive memorial honoring veterans, were lowered into place Thursday

The statues depict members of the U.S. military and will be placed in a 100-foot circle. At the center will be a 4-foot high, 3-ton monument that will display bronze emblems of the five military branches.

The underwater memorial was conceived by Heywood Mathews, a longtime St. Petersburg College oceanography professor who started the Pinellas County Artificial Reef program.

A dedication ceremony is set for Aug. 5, but until then divers and boaters are asked to stay away from the area as work continues. Organizers hope to add another 12 statutes to the circle next year.

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©2019 the Tampa Bay Times (St. Petersburg, Fla.). Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

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rangers lead the way

A soldier has finally been restored to the Ranger Hall of Fame after 20 years

Unsung Heroes
(U.S. Army/Sgt. Austin Berner)

DEFUNIAK SPRINGS, Fla. -- No one close to him knows exactly how Sgt. 1st Class Wilton "Pappy" White was removed from the Ranger Hall of Fame, which honors the best of the elite U.S. Army Rangers.

There was, however, enough question about his mysterious removal nearly 20 years ago that the work of fellow Rangers and others in the intervening years got White reinstated to the Hall of Fame earlier this month, in ceremonies at Fort Benning, Georgia.

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the greatest generation

This 100-year-old vet escaped a Nazi prison camp. Now he's at the center of a lawsuit over a Bible at his local VA

Unsung Heroes
(U.S. Air National Guard/Staff Sgt. Curtis J. Lenz)

Herman "Herk" Streitburger was on his final bombing mission and due to go home when his plane was hit by German fighters over Hungary in 1944. He was captured and held as a prisoner of war, enduring starvation, forced marches and a harrowing escape.

Streitburger just turned 100 years old. That makes him a national treasure as well as a Granite State hero.

Streitburger, who lives in Bedford, gets around using a cane and remains active in POW groups and events. It was he who donated his family Bible to a POW "missing man" display at the VA Medical Center in Manchester, which prompted a federal First Amendment lawsuit.

And every year, he tells his World War II story to Manchester schoolchildren. It's a story worth retelling.

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the greatest generation

This 100-year-old Marine vet fought in WWII and Korea. Now he's being honored for his place in Corps history

Unsung Heroes

Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton has played a major role in military history over the past 77 years, and John Farritor is one of the rare men who has seen that history unfold from the start.

The Vista, California veteran, who turned 100 on Tuesday, is one of the few surviving Marine veterans who marched 55 miles from Camp Elliott in San Diego to christen the newly opened base near Oceanside in September 1942.

He also fought with Camp Pendleton-based divisions in some of the Corps' most defining and deadly battles of World War II and the Korean War, including at Iwo Jima, Bougainville, the Pusan Perimeter, the Inchon Landing and the Chosin Reservoir.

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