Bernard Edelman
Member Stories: After 40 Years, Ed Dyke Opens Up About Surviving 2 Deadly Assaults During WWII
"Those first days in the hospital, the pain was so bad I prayed that I’d die," Ed says. After three or four days, though, "I thanked God for not taking me."
Cover Story: To Assist Vet Entrepreneurs, SBA's Bill Elmore Innovates to Overcome Bureaucratic Inertia
Twenty years ago, "Jobs for Vets" was one of the rallying cries of advocates who cared about those who had returned to a less than rousing ’welcome home’ after serving in Southeast Asia. Forced to acknowledge that too many Vietnam veterans had been "left behind" their cohorts, agencies of government on the state and national level geared up to offer aid and comfort. Laws were enacted and programs were funded to train and place un- and under-employed veterans in career-path jobs. While some of these efforts, which are now well into their third decade, have worked out well, others have done little more than ensconce themselves in the roster of programs nourished by tax dollars.
Cover Story: Modern Technology Weds Old'Time Storytelling at the Digital Clubhouse And Captures the Memories of Veterans
In 1996, a focus group sponsored by NASA came up with what was then a novel idea. Charged with thinking about how to narrow the "digital divide" between those with access to information technology and those for whom the advances in computer science were more science fiction than reality, the group hit upon the concept of a clubhouse: a place where the "haves" and the "have-nots," old and young and in between could come together to build community through "digital storytelling."
Honoring Vietnam Veterans through the Yearly Memorial Day Writers Project
It began, as so many inspired ideas do, in a conversation over a cup of coffee. Mike McDonell and Clyde Wray had been introduced by a mutual friend. Both were then living in Washington, D.C. Both were writers. Both had served in Vietnam, McDonell as an officer with the 11th Marines in 1967-68, and Wray, during the same period, as a rifleman with the Army’s 199th Light Infantry Brigade.
Jack Farley, Teaching Young People About War’s Lessons
He had been working toward his master's degree in business administration at Columbia University when his draft board on Long Island tried to induct him. "They were good about it, though," Jack Farley said. "They let me finish school and I "volunteered.' It was what was known as an "encouraged enlistment.'"
Cover Story: When Professional Athletes Went to War
When Pat Tillman, the hard-charging safety for the Arizona Cardinals, relinquished a multi-million dollar contract to join the Army with the professed goal of making it as a Ranger, he immediately became an anomaly: In this era of pampered, million-dollar ballplayers, he is a throwback to an earlier age, when the best athletes in America gave some of the best years of their professional careers to serve in the Armed Forces during a time of war.
HeroVet: Jim Manley, Marine Corps Scholarship Foundation
When he reflects on his life, Jim Manley is proud – of his family; of his prowess at football; of his service to Corps and country. His family is a constant. His abilities on the gridiron, when he starred for both St. John's High School in Pittston, Pennsylvania, and the University of Pennsylvania, is a fond memory. His service to the Corps, like family, is a lifelong proposition.
Cover Story: Florence Aby Blanchfield, 1882-1971
As superintendent of the Army Nurse Corps from 1943 to 1947, and the first woman to be commissioned in the regular army of the United States, Florence Aby Blanchfield was among the most respected nurse leaders of the twentieth century. Devoting a significant part of her illustrious career to serving her country, Blanchfield’s military experiences included meritorious service in World War I and World War II.
HeroVet: Tyrone T. Dancy, Serving His Fellow Veterans with Passion and Commitment
“I feel there’s an obligation here,” says Tyrone T. Dancy, veterans’ employment program supervisor with the Pennsylvania Department of Labor. For almost a quarter of a century, he has been helping fellow veterans get the assistance they need – assistance they’ve earned – to steer them to productive lives. His motto could be “Service with a smile”; his goal is to “really help those who seek and need help.” And his satisfaction comes from those he’s assisted. “Because when you’re helpful and treat them with respect,” he says, “they really appreciate it.”
TopVet: E. S. Bagley, Jr. / Amtrak
When Stan Bagley joined the Air Force during the height of the Vietnam War, he had little inkling at how much the esprit de corps of a tight unit would come to mean to him. When his wife, his college sweetheart, was killed after a month of marriage, his buddies at the 1035th Special Field Activities Group provided him with no small measure of aid and comfort.
HeroVet: Michael Plummer, Reaching Across the Miles To 'Adopt-a-Platoon'
The hot spots where Americans have been deployed to douse post — Cold War fires may be exotic, but they also are far from home. Very far. For the soldiers and sailors, airmen and Marines who find themselves on the front lines in locales halfway across the globe, being away from their loved ones and removed from the routines of the lives they left behind are voids that are difficult to fill. Keeping in touch with family and fri
HeroVet: Al Peck
On Veterans Day in 1987, the City of New York opened a new, 400-bed shelter for the homeless in a converted belt and pocketbook factory in Queens. What made this facility different from others scattered across the five boroughs was its clientele: to be admitted to the Borden Avenue Veterans Residence, a man had to have served in the Armed Forces. This was a condition imposed by the community and agreed to by the city, which wanted to site a shelter in the solid, lower middle class community of Long Island City.Cover Story: Setting the Record Straight on POW Frauds, Imposters, and Wannabes
As the image of the Vietnam veteran has achieved a startling transformation from pariah to status symbol over the past fifteen years, the number of frauds and wannabes claiming to have served in Southeast Asia - in "special ops" and "clandestine activities" - has proliferated.
HeroVet: Andy Baumgartner, Ex-Marine and 'National Teacher of the Year'
There was a time not too long ago when a male kindergarten teacher would more often than not draw more than a few snickers. After all, teaching in the lower grades was very much the province of women.
HeroVet: John C. Whitehead, Redeveloping Lower Manhattan
In the wake of the terrorist attack that felled the World Trade Center and several adjacent buildings, leaving a 16-acre hole in downtown Manhattan, New York Governor George Pataki zeroed in on John C. Whitehead, a former Deputy Secretary of State and onetime chairman of the investment firm Goldman Sachs, to run the Lower Manhattan Redevelopment Corporation.
Cover Story: For Emma Lampert, 'Miss USO 2001,' Singing for the Troops Has Been a Blast
Emma Lampert never knew that one of her "absolutely favorite aunts," Frances Conti, had been a performer. "She was very funny," Emma remembers. "She had a Lucille Ball-ish personality. She was always singing and tap dancing. When she died, she was even buried in her red tap shoes."
Cover Story: A Rebuilt Vietnam Veterans Plaza Is Rededicated in New York City
The Friday before Veterans Day dawned brisk and bright, auguring a near perfect Indian summer day to dedicate the reconstructed Vietnam Veterans Plaza in downtown Manhattan, and to rededicate the glass block-and-granite memorial that is the centerpiece of the plaza.
Cover Story: Bill Broyles Joins Veterans Advantage Board of Advisors
PENN Award-winning author and screenwriter William Broyles, Jr. has joined the Board of Advisors of VeteransAdvantage, the Company’s Founder and CEO, Scott Higgins, has announced.
Member Stories: Bernard Edelman, Vietnam Veteran, Learned of 9/11 in Vietnam
As I walk along the streets of the cities and villages in Vietnam, I feel totally safe. I never imagined I’d feel safer in Vietnam than in the streets of lower Manhattan.
Cover Story: James Lee Burke
"Most of my dreams about Vietnam were nightmares that at one time made me fear sleep. I used to drink three beers before bed so I would sleep through to the morning. But now somebody was carrying me in the warm rain and I knew that I was once again in the loving care of the soldiers in my platoon. I had heard the klatch under my foot in the dark on the jungle trail; then, as though I were a spectator rather than a participant, I saw myself covered with cobalt light, my body crawl with electricity, my soul light the trees like an enormous candle." -- from The Neon Rain
Cover Story: The Military Artwork of Richard Rezac
John Rezac has had a long and productive career as a professional photographic retoucher and illustrator. Working with state-of-the-art imaging computers, he digitally manipulates images for such clients as Vogue International, Coca Cola, and Anheuser Busch.
Richard Rezac, Photographer, Captures the Courage of the Common Soldier
While best known for his sculpture, Richard Rezac has had a long and productive career as a professional photographic retoucher and illustrator. Working with state-of-the-art imaging computers, he digitally manipulates images for such clients as Vogue International, Coca Cola, and Anheuser Busch.