Posts Tagged ‘leo’
Wednesday’s Hero
This week’s hero is a good one. Robert Cone is the second Cousin of Wednesday Hero’s partner in crime, Greta.
85 years old from Delray Beach, Florida
506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division
Surrounded by family, feted by a U.S. congressman and a Veterans of Foreign Wars color guard, one of the few surviving members of the “Filthy Thirteen” was honored on October 8, 2006 in a backyard on Massapoag Avenue.
Robert S. Cone, 85, now of Delray Beach, Fla., finally received the 13 military medals he was due for his service on D-Day during World War II, including the Bronze Star, Purple Heart, POW medal and Presidential Unit Citation.
“To tell you the truth, I never expected it. I’m very honored to get it and really feel good about it,” Cone said.
“He’s finding it an honor, and he’s a little embarrassed, to be honest,” said Cone’s son, Edward R. Cone, 45, who hosted the family barbecue that included a visit from U.S. Rep. Stephen F. Lynch.
Only a few members remain of the 101st Airborne Division’s famed “Filthy Thirteen,” an elite parachute and demolition unit that volunteered for a suicide mission on June 5, 1944, the eve of the D-Day invasion of Normandy.
The Filthy Thirteen, who shared a Quonset Hut in England, were a group of “pretty bad boys,” Edward Cone said, renowned for hard-living and fierce fighting. They are believed to be the inspiration for the 1967 movie “The Dirty Dozen,” although none of the Filthy Thirteen was a convict.
The unit’s mission was to parachute behind enemy lines on the night before D-Day to blow up bridges and impede the Nazis.
Many were killed on the drop. The survivors found it difficult to reunite on the ground because the pilots had panicked when the Germans opened fire.
Cone said he spent two days in a hedgerow battle and was shot in the right arm. When he escaped to a French farmhouse, the owner turned him over to the Nazis and he became a prisoner of war.
His unit and his family thought he was dead. His mother, in Roxbury, received a telegram from the War Department saying he had been killed in action.
Cone spent 11 months in three POW camps in Germany before being liberated by the Russians near the Polish border. He fought alongside the Russians as they made their escape, his son said.
Cone walked to freedom through Poland, Russia and Romania, journeyed by ship to Egypt and was eventually flow to Italy, finally making his way home.
All the medal ceremonies had taken place without him.
Cone married Ida, now his wife of 61 years; became a postal worker and plumber; raised three children in Hull; and spoke very little about the war, Edward Cone said.
About four years ago, Edward Cone decided to find out whether any of his father’s Army colleagues were still alive.
He found the Filthy Thirteen’s leader, Jake McNiece, in Oklahoma, and put his father in touch by telephone. Their conversation was recorded by the BBC and played on the anniversary of D-Day.
Later, the History Channel filmed its own segment on the pair, which still airs, Edward Cone said.
The group reunited in Taccoa, Ga., the home of their jump school.
“My Dad and I drove from here to Georgia. I heard everything on that trip,” Edward Cone said. “Three were alive from the unit. They talked and drank and told stories for days.”
Three years ago, McNiece published a book, “The Filthy Thirteen: From the Dustbowl to Hitler’s Eagle’s Nest: The 101st Airborne’s Most Legendary Squad of Combat Paratroopers.”
It was McNiece who mentioned that Cone was due a few medals. Edward Cone and his fiance, Kate Guthrie of Leominster, who works at the Statehouse, gathered documentation and contacted Lynch.
The result was the Sunday party, also attended by Cone’s daughters, Ronna Townsend of Monroe Township, N.J., and Natalie Gaudet of Hampton, N.H., and most of his seven grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.
Cone admits he never talked much about the war before.
“I really didn’t,” Cone said. “But they insisted I tell the grandchildren and the great grandchildren. So I talk to them. I tell them stories. I tell them true stories. They all enjoy it.”
These brave men and women sacrifice so much in their lives so that others may enjoy the freedoms we get to enjoy everyday. For that, I am proud to call them Hero.
We Should Not Only Mourn These Men And Women Who Died, We Should Also Thank God That Such People Lived
This post is part of the Wednesday Hero Blogroll. For more information about Wednesday Hero, or if you would like to post it on your site, you can go here.
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What Does Love Mean?
I got this in an email. I thought it was sweet and cute and it made me tear up, so I thought I’d send it your way.
A group of professional people posed this question to a group of 4 to 8 year-olds, “What does love mean?”
The answers they got were broader and deeper than anyone could have imagined. See what you think:
“When my grandmother got arthritis, she couldn’t bend over and paint her toenails anymore.
So my grandfather does it for her all the time, even when his hands got arthritis too. That’s love.”
Rebecca- age 8
“When someone loves you, the way they say your name is different.
You just know that your name is safe in their mouth.”
Billy – age 4
“Love is when a girl puts on perfume and a boy puts on shaving cologne and they go out and smell each other.”
Karl – age 5
“Love is when you go out to eat and give somebody most of your French fries without making them give you any of theirs.”
Chrissy – age 6
“Love is what makes you smile when you’re tired.”
Terri – age 4
“Love is when my mommy makes coffee for my daddy and she takes a sip before giving it to him, to make sure the taste is OK.”
Danny – age 7
“Love is when you kiss all the time. Then when you get tired of kissing, you still want to be together and you talk more.
My Mommy and Daddy are like that. They look gross when they kiss”
Emily – age 8
“Love is what’s in the room with you at Christmas if you stop opening presents and listen.”
Bobby – age 7 (Wow!)
“If you want to learn to love better, you should start with a friend who you hate,”
Nikka – age 6
(we need a few million more Nikka’s on this planet)
“Love is when you tell a guy you like his shirt, then he wears it everyday.”
Noelle – age 7
“Love is like a little old woman and a little old man who are still friends even after they know each other so well.”
Tommy – age 6
“During my piano recital, I was on a stage and I was scared. I looked at all the people watching me and saw my daddy waving and smiling.
He was the only one doing that. I wasn’t scared anymore.”
Cindy – age 8
“My mommy loves me more than anybody
You don’t see anyone else kissing me to sleep at night.”
Clare – age 6
“Love is when Mommy gives Daddy the best piece of chicken.”
Elaine-age 5
“Love is when Mommy sees Daddy smelly and sweaty and still says he is handsomer than Robert Redford.”
Chris – age 7
“Love is when your puppy licks your face even after you left him alone all day.”
Mary Ann – age 4
“I know my older sister loves me because she gives me all her old clothes and has to go out and buy new ones.”
Lauren – age 4
“When you love somebody, your eyelashes go up and down and little stars come out of you.” (what an image)
Karen – age 7
“Love is when Mommy sees Daddy on the toilet and she doesn’t think it’s gross.”
Mark – age 6
“You really shouldn’t say ‘I love you’ unless you mean it. But if you mean it, you should say it a lot. People forget.”
Jessica – age 8
And the final one — Author and lecturer Leo Buscaglia once talked about a contest he was asked to judge.
The purpose of the contest was to find the most caring child.
The winner was a four year old child whose next door neighbor was an elderly gentleman who had recently lost his wife.
Upon seeing the man cry, the little boy went into the old gentleman’s yard, climbed onto his lap, and just sat there.
When his Mother asked what he had said to the neighbor, the little boy said,
“Nothing, I just helped him cry”
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THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW BUT PROBABLY DON’T…
1. Money isn’t made out of paper, it’s made out of cotton..
2. The Declaration of Independence was written on hemp (marijuana) paper.
3. The dot over the letter i is called a “tittle”.
4. A raisin dropped in a glass of fresh champagne will bounce up and down continuously from the bottom of the glass to the top.
5. Susan Lucci is the daughter of Phyllis Diller.
6. 40% of McDonald’s profits come from the sales of Happy Meals.
7. 315 entries in Webster’s 1996 Dictionary were misspelled.
8. The ‘spot’ on 7UP comes from its inventor, who had red eyes. He was albino.
9. On average, 12 newborns will be given to the wrong parents, daily.
10. Warren Beatty and Shirley MacLaine are brother and sister.
11. Chocolate affects a dog’s heart and nervous system; a few ounces will kill a small sized dog.
12. Orcas (killer whales) kill sharks by torpedoing up into the shark’s stomach from underneath, causing the shark to explode.
13. Most lipstick contains fish scales (eeww)
14. Donald Duck comics were banned from Finland because he doesn’t wear pants.
15. Ketchup was sold in the 1830′s as medicine.
16. Upper and lower case letters are named ‘upper’and ‘lower’ because in the time when all original print had to be set in individual letters, the upper case’ letters were stored in the case on top of the case that stored the smaller, ‘lower case’ letters.
17. Leonardo DA Vinci could write with one hand and draw with the other at the same time hence, multi-tasking was invented.
18. Because metal was scarce, the Oscars given out during World War II were made of wood.
19. There are no clocks in Las Vegas gambling casinos.
20. The name Wendy was made up for the book Peter Pan; there was never a recorded Wendy before!
21. There are no words in the dictionary that rhyme with: orange, purple, and silver!
22. Leonardo Da Vinci invented scissors. Also, it took him 10 years to paint Mona Lisa’s lips.
23. A tiny amount of liquor on a scorpion will make it instantly go mad and sting itself to death.
24. The mask used by Michael Myers in the original “Halloween” was a Captain Kirk’s mask painted white.
25. If you have three quarters, four dimes, and four pennies, you have $1.19 You also have the largest amount of money in coins without being able to make change for a dollar (good to know.)
26. By raising your legs slowly and lying on your back, you can’t sink in quicksand (and you thought this list was completely useless.)
27. The phrase “rule of thumb” is derived from an old English law, which stated that you couldn’t beat your wife with anything wider than your thumb.
28. The first product Motorola started to develop was a record player for automobiles. At that time, the most known player on the market was the Victrola, so they called themselves Motorola.
29. Celery has negative calories! It takes more calories to eat a piece of celery than the celery has in it to begin with. It’s the same with apples!
30. Chewing gum while peeling onions will keep you from crying!
31. The glue on Israeli postage stamps is certified kosher..
32. Guinness Book of Records holds the record for being the book most often stolen from Public Libraries.
33. Astronauts are not allowed to eat beans before they go into space because passing wind in a space suit damages it. I NEED TO REMEMBER THIS!
34. George Carlin said it best about Martha Stewart: “Boy, I feel a lot safer now that she’s behind bars. O. J. Simpson and Kobe Bryant are still walking around; Osama Bin Laden too, but they take the ONE woman in America willing to cook, clean, and work in the yard, and they haul her fanny off to jail.
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