John, standing, third from left with his Coast Guard buddies John was in the Coast Guard before and during World War II. When the war started, he was based in San Juan, Puerto Rico. His wife-to-be, Laurel Crawford lived in Jacksonville, Florida. They met when John’s...

Submitted by Carl Burkhart[adapted from ‘The Coast Guard at War’ by Alex Larzelere] Smoke streamed from an Air Force F-105 Thunderchief as it flew south toward the demilitarized zone separating North and South Vietnam.  It was the afternoon of 1 July 1968 when its...

Geraldine Hamilton, wife of WWII veteran Howard Hamilton, speaking about her husband’s capture in WWII: This is from an article in the Pittsburgh (PA) Post-Gazette, May 21, 2000.They’d been married only three months when Howard Hamilton left. They’d known each other...

Howard Hamilton, father of Brevard veteran LTC Jana Gruber, USAR, Ret, was born October 28, 1923 in the small town of Augusta, KS. Upon graduating from high school in 1942, he joined the Army and became a bombardier on B-17 “Flying Fortress”, stationed at Thorpe...