By: Helen Mooradkanian – June, 2014 Dr. Richard Mooradkanian, U.S. Army, 1953-1955, was my trusted military advisor who critiqued each “Hero of the Month” column I wrote before I sent it to press. For the past two-and-a-half years, his wisdom, counsel, and insight guided me in my columns for “The Valley Patriot.” When Richard passed […]
The Valley Patriot newspaper has announced the nominees for the 2016 Valley Patriot BASH Awards. Winners will be announced at the Valley Patriot’s 12th Anniversary BASH ceremony on March 25th at the Firefighter’s Relief In, 1 Market St in Lawrence at 7PM. (Get Tickets HERE) OFFICER TOM DUGGAN SR. LAW ENFORCEMENT AWARD On March 16, 1990, Lawrence Police Officer […]
The Valley Patriot newspaper has unveiled the nominees for the 2015 Valley Patriot Awards. Each Year the Valley Patriot gives awards at the annual BASH to members of the community and members of The Valley Patriot family. The winners will be announced on March 20th at the Firefighter’s Relief In (Get Tickets HERE) VALLEY PATRIOT […]
By: Helen Mooradkanian – February, 2014 They called it “the Valley of Death”—the dreaded Hiep Duc Valley in Vietnam. The enemy’s stronghold. A major battleground. One where American units were nearly annihilated. Sergeant Dudley H. Farquhar, A Troop, 1/1st Cav, Americal Division (23d Infantry), as a member of Americal’s Reactionary Forces was sent in with […]
VALLEY PATRIOT OF THE MONTH By: Helen Mooradkanian – January, 2014 NORTHANDOVER – “We were the second largest convoy to leave for Europe—5,000 of us aboard the U.S. Army troopship George Washington—when we left New York in early 1944, bound for Liverpool, England. By the time we arrived in England in April, two months before […]
By: Helen Mooradkanian – December, 2013 In the early dawn hours of March 25, 1969, in the rice paddies of South Vietnam, near Bong Son, in the province of Binh Dinh, 22-year old Sergeant Thomas F. Siopes, Company A, 2nd Battalion, 503d Infantry, 173d Airborne Brigade (separate), was leading a patrol on a “search and […]
VALLEY PATRIOT OF THE MONTH By Helen Mooradkanian – November, 2013 At 6:54 a.m. Sunday, December 7, 1941, the quiet midnight watch was about to end for 20-year old Gerald L. Halterman, U.S. Navy, Yeoman 3rd Class. An urgent message came in on the teletype in the communications office at Pearl Harbor, 14th Naval District, […]
By: Helen Mooradkanian – October, 2013 TEWKSBURY – Nineteen-year old George A. Flibotte, U.S. Army Air Corps, now of Tewksbury, was with the Ninth Air Force stationed across the English Channel from Omaha Beach on D-Day, June 6, 1944. As part of the 1925th Ordnance Ammunition Company, he was loading bombs onto convoys of trucks […]
HERO IN OUR MIDST By: Helen Mooradkanian – September 2013 It was January 1, 1945 as the convoy of 556 ships filled the horizon—LSTs, troop ships, aircraft carriers, submarines, destroyers, cruisers, and warships equipped with the largest guns, 16-inch diameter. They were sailing from Dutch New Guinea to Lingayen Gulf on the island of Luzon, […]
By: Helen Mooradkanian – August, 2013 Nineteen-year old Corporal William T. Poulios, of Chelmsford, 87th Infantry Division, 347th Regiment, swept across France, Belgium, Luxembourg, central Germany, to Czechoslovakia—in 154 days of combat! From December 6, 1944, to May 8, 1945 (when Germany unconditionally surrendered), the 87th drove relentlessly from Metz, France, to Plauen on the […]
By: Helen Mooradkanian – July 2013 On D-Day, June 6, 1944, Walter Hedlund, then a sergeant, U.S. Army, 29th Infantry Division, 3rd Battalion, 115th Regiment, Company I, stormed Omaha Beach in Normandy—part of the second assault wave. “The first assault wave, our own 116th Regiment, was slaughtered by the Germans. They never got beyond the […]
VALLEY PATRIOT OF THE MONTH By: Helen Mooradkanian – June, 2013 In that assault landing on Morotai, 45 LSTs (landing ship, tank) lined the shore. Offshore coral reefs and boulders caught landing craft. Troops, vehicles, and supplies were unloaded onto the beach—with no opposition from the 500 or more Japanese caught there by surprise. But […]
By: Helen Mooradkanian – May 2013 In this Memorial Day issue, we honor a local WWII veteran who survived the brutality of the Japanese POW camps and the “Hell Ships.” Although he passed away February 3, 2013, shortly before his 93rd birthday, his story of courage and endurance lives on. *** Sergeant Victor Cote, […]
By Helen Mooradkanian – April 2013 The “island hopping” strategy in the Pacific had proved successful as the Marines secured one island after another in their advance toward the Japanese mainland: Roi and Namur in the Marshall Islands (February 1944), Los Negros (March 1944), Wake Island (May 1944), Saipan and Guam (July 1944), and Tinian […]
By: Helen Mooradkanian – March 2013 Having arrived in France only in mid-November, they were somewhat inexperienced. Auffay, Luneville, Bining, and Rohrback did not really prepare them for the nightmare of Herrlisheim. Herrlisheim became their “baptism by fire.” It was there that they lived up to their name, the “Hellcats” Division. Snow 15 inches deep […]