written by Mary Klepper My father recently had to stop driving, so I’ve been taking him to points south of Baltimore to visit his siblings. In July, my cousin mentioned the National D-Day Memorial in Bedford, Virginia, only 30 miles from his home in Roanoke, Virginia. I was especially excited to see the memorial,
As told to Todd DePastino Julia Parsons is the last surviving codebreaker of World War II. On March 2, 2025, she will turn 104 years old. Julia served in the Navy WAVES and was assigned to the Shark Division at the Naval Communications Annex in Washington, DC, where he worked on
. . George Cahill (November 5, 1925 - July 2, 2018) served with the 390th Bomb Group during World War II. He remembers always wanting to fly planes. But he didn’t think he’d become a togglier. Toggliers were enlisted bombardiers—they toggled open the bomb bay door switch. Bombardiers and navigators sat
The VBC lost a dear friend, and the world lost a hero on Monday night when WWII Marine Corps and Iwo Jima veteran Jack Watson passed away at age 98. I encourage everyone to spend some time listening to his story. Perhaps it was in war when humans first encountered the failure of language
. . Peter P. Zivic Jr. grew up in the Lawrenceville section of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. As a teenager when Hitler invaded Poland and Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, Peter Zivic followed the daily developments of World War II daily. He supported the war effort by training younger pilots; only a close call kept
. . Al Zimmerman was still in high school when Pearl Harbor was bombed, and he still remembers people screaming about what had happened and listening to the radio for more information. He had an older brother stationed at Hickam Field in Hawaii, and unlike today it took several weeks for
