Category Archives for Veterans

Days After 9/11 Terrorist Attacks, a WWII Veteran Reflected. 25 Years Later, We Remember

Published in RINewsToday on September 7, 2026

(Originally published in September 2001, 6 days after September 11th, Herb Weiss’s article captured one veteran’s thoughts as America confronted a new national tragedy. Weiss spoke with WWII veteran, Owen Mahony, on the disaster that day. Mahony passed away in 2021 at the age of 95.)

Using hijacked planes as deadly weapons, terrorists have brought death and destruction to the shores of our nation. Not since the American Civil War has this nation seen bombed-out buildings or civilian casualties in its cities and towns. The United States may never be the same again.

Television has brought the horrors of a terrorist war up close to the American public, states 75-year-old World War II veteran Owen Mahony. In that war, the nation was never directly hit, except Pearl Harbor, he said.  The former Rhode Island assistant director of the RI Dept. Mental Health, Retardation and Hospitals and former executive director of the United Way Organization in Rome and Niagara Falls, New York, saw extensive military action overseas from 1943 to 1946.

“During World War II civilians had little and no direct awareness of what was happening to the soldiers in the battlefields,” says Mahony, a long-time Warwick resident. “Of course, my family in Woonsocket lived through gasoline and food rationing. Those suffering the death of a loved one would signal this with a flag with a gold star, hung from their window,” he said.

The veteran of the Normandy D-Day landing saw a lot of terrible things in battle that his family did not experience, Mahony said.  “They could look at the battles in the Pacific and Atlantic from afar,” he said, adding that at this time Americans really had little fear that the mainland would be attacked.

Today, “it is a different world”, Mahony quipped. “Everybody has either seen or visited the World Trade Center or the Pentagon. Or maybe they have flown on American or United Airlines,” he added. But through television, the vivid images of the horrific, bloody acts of terrorism in New York City and Washington, DC, [have forever changed] the way we view our world. The terrorist war is here.”

Mahony, the father of 12 children, a grandparent to 29 very young grandchildren, many of whom are elementary school age, notes that it is most difficult to make sense of last week’s terrorist attack. With such a large family, he was on the phone for six hours, tracking them all down to make sure they were safe. “I was like the center of the communication hub, bringing the latest information so that everyone knew each other was safe.”

(Editor’s note: When Mahony died in 2021, he had 34 grandchildren and 6 great-grandchildren).

Meanwhile, some of his adult children took their youngsters out of school immediately after the attack so they could pray for those who lost loved ones. Throughout the evening, Mahony’s family and circle of friends, from their respective homes, offered prayers of Thanksgiving for those who made it safely out of the bombed-out Pentagon or World Trade Center, or to those who died and to their surviving loved ones.

“The biggest problem my children had was how to interpret to their young children what is going on,” Mahoney stated, noting that several of his grandchildren were upset and crying at what they saw during the intensive news coverage. “How do you explain to young children how the hate of a terrorist brings the individual to plow a plane into a building.”

“The surprise attack will bring out the best of our people,” Mahony predicts, just like it did after Pearl Harbor.”

Millions of other Americans are bringing comfort to their children and grandchildren, assuring them that even with evil people willing to kill innocent strangers for a fanatical cause, most people are good, he says. “We all know that love absolutely subdues evil.”

Publisher’s Note: Six days after 9/11, a World War II veteran believed the attack would bring out the best in the American people, just as Pearl Harbor had. As we will reflect 9,131 days later, it seems that we never truly moved beyond that terrible morning. World War II ended with surrender, homecomings and new beginnings. The wars born of 9/11 ended less clearly, while fear, anger and suspicion burrowed ever more deeply into the American spirit. To this very day. Let us think on these things.

From Detroit to Pawtucket, and back again: The journey of a WWII footlocker

Published on January 13, 2025 in RINewsToday

“There and Back Again.” originating from J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit, is an expression that means a complete round trip to a place, including the journey back to where you started.

The journey of my late-father’s military olive-green footlocker began last June, after I was notified by a Detroit couple, Michael Shannon and his girlfriend Cetaura Bell, that it had been found cast away on a sidewalk for anyone to claim. The long-lost trunk that I never knew existed, had been stored in a vacant garage for over 60 years, ultimately ended up on my front steps, delivered almost 700 miles by FEDEX from Detroit to Pawtucket.  

Shannon, a 55-year-old retiree of Detroit’s wastewater facility, and Bell, a retired teacher, didn’t have to seek me out to return the footlocker to the family. They could have just kept the vintage military footlocker for use as a coffee table, or could have sold it at a flea market or on eBay.

But they offered to give me my father’s footlocker, as a gift, asking me for nothing in exchange. Shannon told me that he was just glad it could end up with the family of its rightful owner instead of being dumped in a landfill or another stranger’s home.

After the footlocker arrived, I closely examined a faded mailing label on its top.  By enlarging the label, filled out by my father, Lt. Frank M. Weiss, with Photoshop, my graphic designer was able to identify his  Detroit mailing address, 16841 Wildemere Avenue,  (which matched the address in his military records) on the label.  It was like winning a million-dollar lottery. Now I was convinced that this trunk was owned by my father.   

The footlocker, meantime, sat in my basement. Although it was empty when it arrived, I placed a folded American flag, given to my family at my father’s funeral, his military memorabilia, scrapbook of faded photos of his comrades in arms and assigned military bases from his long-ago days during WW II, and military documents for safe keeping.

What a story to share?  

In a crazy world where people don’t care about strangers, but an act of kindness returned a WWII veteran’s lost military footlocker to a family member.  My article, published here, and in the Blackstone Valley Call & Times, detailing Shannon and Bell’s kindness, was picked up by the Cranston Herald, Warwick Beacon, Senior Digest, and then later by Columnist Neal Rubin, of the Detroit Free Press, a Gannet publication, in both their digital and print editions. Then other Gannet papers, including the Providence Journal, the Cincinnati paper and the Indy Star, reprinted Rubin’s column. Perhaps the biggest connection, though, was made Military Reporter, Corey Dickstein, with Stars & Stripes – the US military’s independent news source with a circulation of over 1 million readers, reported on this story.

There and Back Again

After a talk at the Hope Historical Society (HHS) about my father’s footlocker’s return to Rhode Island from a street curb in Detroit (a most appropriate topic for a monthly meeting scheduled around Veterans Day), Fred Faria, a retired professor at Johnson & Wales and one of HHS’s founders, asked me how this footlocker would be protected after my passing away.  Being over age 70, this question induced me to act.

So, I reached out to the Washington, DC-based Smithsonian Institution’s’ National Museum of American History, offering to donate this military heirloom with a unique background story. 

“The footlocker indeed has a wonderful story but at present time this item is outside the scope of our current collecting plan. Might I recommend your state history museum or the National WW II Museum [in New Orleans] as worthy homes for this piece?” said Frank A. Blazich, Jr., PhD., Curator, Military History, Division of Military and Society, responding to my offer.   

Following up Blazich’s referral, this is a response off the New Orleans-based Museum. “We would be happy to have the contents of the footlocker for our collection; however, due to the number of footlockers that we already have and the size of these items, we are not able to accept the footlocker itself,” said Assistant Curator Brandon Daake, Assistant Curator.

 “If you are interested in keeping the footlocker and its contents together to tell one story, I would suggest reaching out to the Michigan’s Military Heritage Museum (MMHM), or another museum in the Detroit area,” suggested Daake, recognizing the fact that my father was a Detroit WW II veteran.

And that I did…

Small military museum takes possession of military footlocker 

After several phone calls, a conversation with Scott Gerych, MMHM’s Chairman, the deal was quickly sealed.  My father’s military footlocker, with its Detroit, Michigan ties, would return to Michigan to become a unique addition to their growing collection of military artifacts.  

In a message left on my Apple iPhone, Gerych, a 25-year veteran who served in the U.S. Army and a noted author, said: I am just dropping a line to say how neat it was to receive your father’s trunk with items from his service in WWII. What a joy! To have it go from Detroit to Rhode Island and now back to Michigan is certainly a great story to tell and to ultimately have it reunited with the items your dad saved from his wartime service is just awesome!”

“We are proud to have received it and will be getting it, all cataloged so we can eventually work it into an exhibit here at the MMHM. We love to see these stories saved and get them out on the public eye for all who are interested to see. Once again, thank you for thinking of us here at the museum,” said Gerych.

From its first home, at the Coe House Museum in Grass Lake, MMHM set up a one-room display showcasing uniforms and original artifacts of veterans highlighting their military service.   

With a growing reputation and growing number of supporters and donations of historical military items, MMHM found a larger home, a 3,300-sf building in Grass Lake. After its five-year lease ran out, the small military museum found new location near the site of Camp Blair, a former 11-acre Civil War Union camp in Jackson. The military camp was an assembly point for  new recruits and a discharging station for soldiers after the war’s end.

The collection of military artifacts grew and in 2021, the 3,600-former store-front in Jackson, Michigan, MMMH, opened its doors (now open half days, four days a week or by appointment.). This permanent location would allow MMHM to showcase thousands of military artifacts and large military vehicles,  including  three military jeeps, a Spanish-American War ambulance wagon,  a WWI Model T ambulance, a replica of a M3 Lee tank and even four cannons.  Specifically: a 1831 6lb cannon from the Mexican War and then used by the Confederates in the Civil War; a WWII German Pak 40, a standard antitank gun; and a WWI US M1905 gun.

Getting MMHM Off the Ground

The idea of starting a Michigan military museum started off with questions posed to a small group of friends who later helped to establish the MMHM.  That is, “what happens to all these individual collections when we are gone?”  Most of the original group were collectors of some type of militaria and all were interested in seeing the stories preserved.

That question was asked in 2013 and their idea would be answered by filing articles of incorporation with the state and later establishing a 501 C 3 nonprofit corporation in 2016.

As the group grew, meetings were held, partnerships created with the local historic society.   After Liam Collins, who was knowledgeable about Michigan history and archaeology and an original member of the group passed away, the group not only preserved the memory of Liam by sharing the stories of the state’s veterans.

According to the nonprofit military museum, its mission is to tell the stories of “Great Lake State” military veterans through interpretive displays of artifacts, pictures, and written and oral histories.  “Our state has currently two aviation museums and a museum dedicated to Medal of Honor Recipients and Astronauts,” says Gerych but nothing for the average service member who sacrificed and endured so much for our freedoms. We will be that institution,” he says.

The museum served as the headquarters for Michigan’s World War I Centennial. During 2019 and 2020, the museum participated in the 75th Anniversary of the end of  WW II.  

The nonprofit’s Board members, all extremely interested in Michigan’s military history brings different skills to the table, says Gerych, noting that one has a master’s  degree in history and museum studies, another is an archivist who has decades of experience, as well as a Distinguished Fellow in the Company of Military Historians. “No one is paid,” he adds, saying that all are actively involved because of their love for history.

Gerych estimates that 5,000 to 8,000 visitors come to see the museums exhibits and learn about the personal history of everyday veterans.  “Our records indicate that these visitors come from more than 30 countries and all 50 states,” he says.

From Detroit to Pawtucket and back again. Now my family’s military heirloom has truly come home to become part of the MMHM’s growing military artifact collection.

Watch a JTV television commercial advertising MMHM. Go to https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1079607069959492

For more information about the MMHM, 331 N. Wisner, Jackson, MI 49202, call  (517) 926-6696.  Or email mmhminfo2020@gmail.com.

 

In the coming years, generations of older Veterans will be leaving us

Published in RINewsToday on November 13, 2023

Of the 16.6 million living veterans, serving in World War II to the Global War on Terror, one half of these veterans are age 65 and over.  The graying of America’s veterans is well-documented in a U.S. Census Bureau report released last July. 

Taking a Look at America’s Aging Veterans

The Census Bureau report,  Aging Veterans: America’s Veteran Population in Later Life, released in July 2023, examines demographic characteristics of the nation’s aging veterans who served in World War II, Korea, and Vietnam, 

According to the new census data, of the 16.6 million living veterans, 8.1 million, that is nearly one-half (49%) of all veterans in the United States, were age 65 and older. Of all veterans, 1 in 4 is 70 to 79 years old.  The largest group of older veterans (5.5 million) served during the Vietnam War.  World War II veterans made up the smallest group (183,000) of war-time veterans.

The Census data noted that living veterans are overwhelming men, especially those who are older than 70 years old.  The largest age groups of male veterans are 72-74 years old.  This has occurred as the result of the United States entering the Vietnam War in 1964, with soldiers 18-20 years old making up the core age group of draftees and enlistees. 

But census data also reveals that today there are an increasing number of living female veterans.  This is due in large part to changes made in the 1970s when the military transitioned to an all-volunteer force combined with Congress passing legislation that allowed woman to enroll in service academies. Now woman make up one 1 in 10 veterans, says the Census Bureau.

The 9-page report, based on data from the 2021 American Community Survey, reported that older veterans were less likely to be living in poverty and had higher incomes than other older adults.  These individuals were more likely to have a functional disability than other older adults. However, these individuals were less likely to have a service-connected disability compared with all veterans.

This Census Bureau report is based on data from the 2021 American Community Survey (ACS). The ACS is a nationwide survey designed to provide timely and reliable data every year on the demographic, social, economic and housing characteristics of the nation, states, counties and other localities. 

The Census Bureau researchers found that older veterans were less likely to be at risk of isolation than other older adults. About 43% of older veterans experienced at least one characteristic of isolation compared with 46% of older adults who never served. In contrast, veterans in general, regardless of their age, were more likely to have at least one characteristic of isolation than nonveterans (34% compared with 27%, respectively).

The Last Man Standing

As the living veterans grow older, we will witness the passing away of generations of these individuals. As the living veterans grow older, we will witness the passing away of generations of these individuals.  Wikopedia, a free online encyclopedia hosted by the Wikopedia Foundation, details two of the following examples. 

In the 1950s, we saw the passing of the last Civil War veteran.  Wikipedia reported that on August 2, 1956, Albert Henry Woolson, 106, was the undisputed last surviving Civil War veteran on either side.  The drummer Boy in Company C 1st Minnesota Heavy Artillery Regiment, serving in the Grand Army of the Republic, had  enlisted in 1864 to fight in the nation’s bloody American Civil War, also referred to as the War Between the States.   The last verified Confederate soldier was Pleasant Crump, who passed away on Dec. 31, 1951. 

Over 13 years ago, a veteran of World War I was nationally recognized, like Civil War Veteran Woolson, for being the last of his generation of veterans to pass away.  Frank Buckles, 101, was reported to be the last  survivor of 4.73 million Americans who fought in the War to End All Wars.  In 1917, the 16-year-old, who would ultimately leave military service as a corporal, had enlisted in the U.S. Army and was assigned to drive  ambulances and motorcycles near the front lines in France.

As we celebrate Veterans Day, there are fewer aging World War II veterans attending ceremonies held throughout the country to honor their military service.  With their medium age now pegged at 93 years, many of the “Greatest Generation,” are frail, and their numbers are dwindling.  The U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs estimates that out of the 16.1 million soldiers who served in World War II, 183,000 are still alive today. Over 1,200 of these veterans reside in the Ocean State. 

By 2040,  America’s last living World War II veteran is expected to pass away like Woolson and Buckles.  The last surviving veterans of Korea and Vietnam will mark an end of an era.  When this happens, their stories can’t be shared to us personally, but only told in our history books or by television documentaries or movies (like Saving Private Ryan) or by historians and academics at universities and colleges. 

Like many I know, I failed to ask my father, the late Frank M. Weiss, to share his World War II experiences.  All that I have now are his scrap book, filled with faded pictures of his military service, yellowed letters and military memorabilia, his medical and discharge papers, sitting in a red Neiman Marcus box in my basement.  The names of his comrades, activities and state-side base locations captured on film no longer have any context to me with his passing. 

Two days ago, on November 11, 2023, Veterans Day ceremonies and activities were being held throughout the Ocean State and across the country to honor those who are serving or have served in the U.S. Armed Forces. By 2025, the Department of Veteran Affairs estimated that there will be a couple of hundred World War II veterans, over 1,600 Korean and 14,000 Vietnam veterans still alive in Rhode Island.  In the coming years, frailty and health issues will keep these elderly veterans’ from attending Veteran Day celebrations and even at their reunions.     
 
As a generation of Civil War and World War I veterans vanish right before our eyes in 1956 and 2011, we must cherish the surviving older veterans.  In the next thirty years, we are poised to see new generations of veterans who fought in three wars die out of right before our eyes. I say, cherish them as long as you can. Urge those who fought in World War II, Korea and Vietnam to share their personal stories and oral histories for the sake of America’s future generations. They have so much to say and  America’s younger generations has much to learn from them.  

Remember, don’t miss the opportunity to thank any living older veteran you meet in your daily travels. Thank them for their service to our country.  

Today’s commentary is dedicated to my father, Second Lt. Frank M. Weiss, who died in December 2003, in Dallas, Texas, at 89 years old.