Veterans

Your awards are listed on your DD214. If you do not have that we can not really assist you as each individual can (and often does) rate awards that others do not. We recommend that if you do not have your DD214 that you contact the VA at

http://www.va.gov/ and ask their assistance with this matter.

Replacement medals are not provided by the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA).

They are however, available from the National Personnel Records Center (NPRC) which is under the jurisdiction of the National Archives and Records Administration.

Marine’s remains missing since World War II identified

Times staff

A leatherneck from Madera, Pa., who had been missing in action since World War II has been identified, the Defense Department announced Tuesday.

Sgt. John H. Branic was fighting on Guadalcanal with Lima Company, 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines, on Aug. 19, 1942, and was killed when Japanese fighters overran the unit’s position, a Defense Department release said.

U.S. Embassy officials discovered Branic’s remains at a construction site in 1992. A ring with the inscription “JHB” was found nearby, according to the release.

The Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command and the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory used DNA to help identify the remains.

Branic was buried at Arlington National Cemetery on Wednesday.

Some veterans bear visible signs of their service: a missing limb, a jagged scar, a certain look in the eye. Others may carry the evidence inside them: a pin holding a bone together, a piece of shrapnel in the leg - or perhaps another sort of inner steel: the soul's ally forged in the refinery of adversity. Except in parades, however, the men and women who have kept America safe wear no badge or emblem. You can't tell a vet just by looking. What is a vet?

He is the cop on the beat who spent six months in Saudi Arabia sweating two gallons a day making sure the armored personnel carriers didn't run out of fuel.

He is the barroom loudmouth, dumber than five wooden planks, whose overgrown frat-boy behavior is outweighed a hundred times in the cosmic scales by four hours of exquisite bravery near the 38th parallel.

She - or he - is the nurse who fought against futility and went to sleep sobbing every night for two solid years in DaNang.

He is the POW who went away one person and came back another - or didn't come back AT ALL.

He is the Quantico drill instructor that has never seen combat - but has saved countless lives by turning slouchy, no-account rednecks and gang members into Marines, and teaching them to watch each other's backs.

He is the parade-riding Legionnaire who pins on his ribbons and medals with a prosthetic hand.

He is the career quartermaster who watches the ribbons and medals pass him by.

He is the three anonymous heroes in The Tomb Of The Unknowns, whose presence at the Arlington National Cemetery must forever preserve the memory of all the anonymous heroes whose valor dies unrecognized with them on the battlefield or in the ocean's sunless deep.

He is the old guy bagging groceries at the supermarket - palsied now and aggravatingly slow - who helped liberate a Nazi death camp and who wishes all day long that his wife were still alive to hold him when the nightmares come.

He is an ordinary and yet an extraordinary human being, a person who offered some of his life's most vital years in the service of his country, and who sacrificed his ambitions so others would not have to sacrifice theirs. He is a soldier and a savior and a sword against the darkness, and he is nothing more than the finest, greatest testimony on behalf of the finest, greatest nation ever known. So remember, each time you see someone who has served our country, just lean over and say Thank You. That's all most people need, and in most cases it will mean more than any medals they could have been awarded or were awarded.

Author Unknown

THE VETERAN IS OUR FRIEND

The Veteran went above the best

To fight for Freedom in time of unrest.

The Veteran stormed the beaches sandy

And the jungles deep with traps a plenty.

The Veteran didn't think of time deployed

They thought of ome more moment enjoyed.

The Veteran never had "electronic mail"

Back then, deployed, it truly moved like a snail.

The Veteran joined a brotherhood like none other

It was a bond born of blood, closest next was their mother.

The Veteran, the brotherhood they shared

Is nothing else close to compare.

The Veteran fought for life of self and everyone

Even if he was the last Patriot standing, all alone.

The Veteran is now punished by an ungrateful Nation

How DARE they grow sick and expect their station?

The Veteran should stand Honored to America that he was PERMITTED to serve

Wasn't THAT, after all, all he DESERVED?

HELL NO! STRIVING FOR THE RIGHTS OF AMERICA'S HEROES.

Author: Diane M. Weller

Date: August 11, 2006

To Contact me simply email me at: powmiaangel@gmail.com

Groups I own/operate:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FunGraphix

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/VVU Veterans Voices Unite

I am a forum leader on www.emilitary.org

Marine News

Marine Moms

Veterans

The following are other websites I have on the internet:

http://fungraphix.tripod.com

http://militarygraphix.tripod.com

and for a few friends, I built:

http://veteranshonorpowmia.tripod.com

http://ronmiller11.tripod.com

http://www.uppins.com

and have done graphics for many other websites.

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This POW/MIA Ring site
is owned by Diane M. Weller Site ID#1132
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