The Remarkable Doctor Dutch

Every once in a while you run across a story so strange it is impossible to summarize it.  You just have to read it through.... 

If you want the "short form" version it is as follows.

An unusual man turned up in Chippewa Falls in the pre-Civil War era.  If it indeed was in the "early '50's" there would have been only a few hundred people in town, divided between Chippewa Falls proper and the rather improper adjacent community known as Frenchtown.

Who he really was is unknown and presumably unknowable.  If you are trying to escape your past you really couldn't do much better than to turn up in a pioneering lumber town and insist that your name was Danelia Mahomet Le Duche.

The writer of this piece was Thomas McBean, a fairly keen observer of the local scene.  In general I have found his accounts of the early days - this one by the way was published in the local paper in 1897 - to be reliable.

McBean was pretty sure the guy was English and that he had served in the British Army.  His fluency with languages suggests an educated man.  

Whether he was indeed a physician and whether his interest in matters relating to India was more than a bit of harmless nonsense is hard to say.

Thomas McBean comes across as a bit harsh with respect to the state of the medical profession in the 1890s.  I guess you have to know that his father was the first physician in town, arriving in 1856.  So there were likely some strong opinions in the McBean family regards the laxity of medical licensing in that era.

Dr. Dutch apparently was many things.  A drunk.  A story teller.  A gentleman who would tip his hat to the most humble woman of the community.  And a person it would have been well worth knowing.

Northumberlandia - Now that's a Big Girl

No doubt you've heard the expression "Coals to Newcastle".  They used to mine a great deal of coal in the area back in the day.  Which left a bit of a mess.  Some years back an open pit mine just north of Newcastle was tidied up in a rather distinctive way....by making the world's largest nude figure out of 1.5 million tons of rock and mine tailings.  Behold Northumberlandia, the Lady of the North.

I've seen her from the air when approaching the Newcastle airport.  Although she is posed somewhat demurely, you can't help but notice those 100 foot tall....er....mounds.

On our recent visit several members of our band of adventurers went in for a closer look.

And of course.....

That's Sue, our excavator-novelist.  She has a history of doing cartwheels over various landscapes.  While far from being a Prude, she did at least show Prudence in not attempting to careen straight off the giant nipple and down into the Cleavage below.

I don't get to use my Larger than Life tag very often, but the Lady of the North deserves nothing less.  

Naming the Liberty Ships - Part Six

Note: This is part of a series of posts on odd bits of history as memorialized in the names of World War II Liberty Ships.  I am organizing them, after a fashion, around proposed artwork for imaginary "ships' insignia"  For a more complete explanation and background:  Part One

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Now here is a fine starting point for a ship's insignia:

Not for any of the guys shown above.  No, this would be for the S.S. Gutzon Borglum which honored the sculptor who created Mount Rushmore.

Anyway, both Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt had Liberty ships named after them already.  Jefferson and Washington did not, but only because the Navy already had transports named for them before the Liberty ship program began.  (Oddly the S.S. George Washington got its name from the Germans.  It was built in 1908 for the North Atlantic routes.  When the U.S. got the ship after World War I they of course kept the name!)

Borglum was an interesting figure.  In some ways he was the quintessential American. A child of the frontier, a son of immigrants. He absorbed the arts and culture of Europe and brought them back to enhance American life.  He was confident and extroverted. But with the benefit of hindsight there are some aspects to him that concern later viewers, while not diminishing the greatness of his work.

He was a member of the Ku Klux Klan, a relationship that was formed during his time working on a Memorial to the Confederacy at Stone Mountain, Georgia.  And the whole concept of semi-deifying our leaders has a whiff of totalitarianism to it.  Stare for a moment at Teddy Roosevelt as shown above.... see a faint trace of Lenin there?

Speaking of Roosevelt, there was a second Liberty ship of that name: the S.S. Kermit Roosevelt. And that story is a sad one.

Theodore Roosevelt must have been the ultimate fatherly role model.  He swaggered, he charged up hills into enemy fire, he shot fierce beasts and defeated savage political foes.  He may have been our most Manly president, a man for whom obstacles existed only to be laughed at and then gleefully overcome.

It would be hard for any son to live up to that.  But they tried.  Three of the four died trying.

Quentin went first.  Only 20 years old he was a Harvard student and promising writer.  But when the U.S. entered World War I he did not hesitate.  He became that most romantic of Great War combatants, a fighter pilot.  He was shot down and killed on July 14, Bastille Day, 1918.

The oldest son, Theodore Roosevelt Jr. probably came the closest to living up to his father's greatness. His story should wait for another day, but suffice it to say that he was the only General to come ashore by sea on D-Day.  He died of a heart attack not long after.

But it is Kermit who cuts the most tragic figure.  He had done some amazing things in life.  He explored the Amazon jungles with his father, on an expedition that came close to killing the both of them.  He also fought in World War I, on the often forgotten Mesopotamian campaigns.  While there he learned Arabic.  He went on a hunting expedition with his brother Ted, seeking trophy sheep in mysterious Kashmir valleys.

But Kermit struggled with depression and with alcohol.  In the early days of World War II he used his friendship with Winston Churchill to wangle himself a British commission.  After nearly taking off on an ill advised mission to fight with the Finns against the soon-to-be-Ally Russia he apparently went on at least one commando raid into Nazi occupied Norway.

But his health was failing.  He resumed drinking and was discharged from the British Army in 1941 with a rank of captain. Returning to the States he vanished for a while, supposedly his cousin Franklin Delano had to send the FBI to find him and bring him home.

Probably to keep him out of trouble, or at least out of public trouble, he was commissioned a Major in the US Army and sent to Fort Richardson, Alaska.  His job sounds unimportant, he was an intelligence officer who helped organize local Eskimo militia units.

Alaska is a hard land.  In the winter night has no end.  Even in the summer the days stretch on and on without division one from the next.  It is not a good place to send a drinking man and a terrible one to send a depressed one.  On June 4th, 1943 Kermit Roosevelt died of a self inflicted gun shot wound. Authorities lied to his mother and called it a heart attack.

History has peculiar side channels, places where influences run from one point to another in unexpected ways.  From Teddy Roosevelt charging up San Juan Hill in 1898 we get Kermit fighting in the Middle East a generation later.  And his son, Kermit Jr. took his father's interest in the area and his grandfathers expansive world view....and organized the coup that put the Shah of Iran into power in 1953.  Sometimes you start out with "a splendid little war" and end up being The Great Satan.

The Dog Days King of Iceland

The hot, lazy days of late July and early August have been known since ancient times as "the dog days".  Although you can easily imagine a languid dog sleeping in the heat the name actually comes from  the Romans.  The hottest time of the year was also a time of sickness, which they felt to be under the influence of the star Sirius, largest in the constellation Canis Major (the large dog).

When double checking a few facts on the matter of "dog days" I encountered a remarkable biography, one I could not resist investigating further.  Here then is the bizarre tale of the "Dog Days King of Iceland".

Jorgen Jorgenson did not have a happy childhood.  Although quite bright he did poorly in school and was expelled at age 14.  Although he was Danish it was arranged that he would go to sea on an English merchant ship.  After the fashion of such times he was caught up by a press gang that delightful method of staffing the British Royal Navy by simply grabbing trained sailors from seaside taverns or directly off of their ships.

He spent a number of years in the South Seas, visiting Australia and New Zealand, before returning to his homeland just in time to witness first hand the Battle of Copenhagen in which Admiral Horatio Nelson attacked the anchored Danish-Norse fleet.  As there was no formal declaration of war involved, the phrase "to Copenhagen" was a term for a surprise attack long before Pearl Harbor came along historically.

Jorgenson was soon given command of a small naval vessel that sailed for France, but was captured by a British ship.  He was put "on parole", which mostly consisted of hanging around in England with nothing much to do.

News came to him that Iceland was short of food.  He talked a merchant into funding a single ship expedition to trade with Iceland.  His first attempt failed.  Despite flying false colors as an American ship, his vessel was determined to be British.  Probably noticing the current state of hostilities the Danish governor of Iceland refused to let any trading occur.

Returning to England the irrepressible Jorgenson launched another trade mission to Iceland, this time with two ships.  The Flora and the Margaret and Anne reached Iceland in June of 1809.

At this point the goings on start to sound like a cheaply written comic opera.

The governor of the island, Count Trampe, would still not permit trading.  So on Sunday when most of the population was in church, Jorgenson and his sailors surrounded the governor's house and arrested him.  Jorgenson proclaimed himself "His Excellency, the Protector of Iceland, Commander in Chief by Land and Sea".  Taxes were remitted.  Danish property given away. The salaries of clergy were increased.  There were promises of peace and cheap food.

It all was going so very well until a British ship turned up in August and deposed Jorgenson.  As his brief reign corresponded to the Dog Days of Summer he is remembered in Iceland as The Dog Days King.  It should also be noted that late summer in the newspaper business was once called The Silly Season, and this sort of tale would fit right in.

I recommend those interested in the later adventures of Jorgen Jorgenson to peruse this remarkable biographical sketch.  For those short of time I will simply say that his later career was no less eccentric.  At various times he was imprisoned for breaking parole, for bad debts and for pawning his land lady's furniture.  He found intermittent employ as a spy, an author, a surveyor, an editor, a drunkard and in one remarkable instance a rather successful ship's surgeon.  (While being shipped as a convict to Australia he was assistant to the ship's doctor.  When said individual died Jorgen just took over the job).

Once established in Tasmania, then called Van Diemen's Land, he served in the police force with some gallantry against the "Bushrangers", convicts who had gone into the wild as bandits.  Probably he was less gallant in action during The Black War, a genocidal campaign against the aboriginal inhabitants.

Oh, and he also married an ex-convict woman named Deborah Carbon in 1831, and managed to write two volumes of his autobiography before his death in 1841.

Two volumes was probably not enough.

More on The Dog Days King here.

The Curious Legacy of General Claude Martin

Claude Martin probably intended to follow the traditional path for Europeans in India.  He would work hard, accumulate a large amount of money and then return home in triumph.  But the last did not work out for him.  In his later years France was convulsed in revolution and at war with England.  And as a long ago deserter from the French cause to the British East India Company he would have been regarded at best with suspicion in either country.

So he stayed.  He was by now putting the finishing touches on another, even grander mansion called Constantia.

As his health began to fail in early 1800 he created a rather remarkable Will, which is only partly contained at the link.

Martin was a very rich man.  When we speak of one being able to "buy and sell" others, it was literally true in his case...there was considerable disapproval even in his time over Martin's buying of slaves.  At his death his fortune was somewhere in the neighborhood of 500,000 pounds, which in the purchasing power of that time and place would make him the equivalent of a significant multi-millionaire.  The inventory of his belongings reflected his wealth both of material things and of interests.

There were supplies and machines for bookbinding, carpentry and diamond cutting.  There were fossils, minerals, shells, an entire puppet theater, a complete suit of armor, crystal bottles for perfume of his own manufacture.  There was cloth from the Falkland Islands, a "hand in plaster of the Irish Giant", telescopes, guitars, a stuffed monkey and '1 small roomfull Hindostanee Fireworks".  The latter it seems were the work of his own personal pyrotechnician, a man whose artistry he had admired enough to make him an employee!

Being no doubt mindful of the extent of fiscal chicanery extant at that time - to which he had been a very active party one might add - Martin tried to make his Will very specific.

His various mistresses all got financial arrangements and in some instances houses.  He seems in the case of one favorite to have also left instructions on dealing with any subsequent husbands should they do her wrong.   Also arranged were funds to pay her staff of 11 servants for the rest of her life.

He deeded a number of properties in his native Lyon to various family members, although he seems to have scarcely been in contact with them.

He left a small fund for "creditable" prisoners in Calcutta, especially recommending for largess any military officers incarcerated over bad debts.

He set aside monies for the poor in Calcutta, Lucknow and Chandernagore.  The principle was to remain untouched, the interest used for a daily distribution by "a Christian padre or priest, Protestant or Chatholic or Muslim, Hindoo...".  This worthy aim is still honored in principle by the occasional distribution of alms at the tomb of Martin's favorite mistress, but a memento of the more ambitious project can apparently still be seen in the form of an obscure metal marker inside St. John's Church in Calcutta:

 "The sum of fifty thousand Sicca Rupees is a Gift granted by Major General Claud Martin To the Poor of Calcutta.  The Interest of which is to be daily distributed in perpetuity".

The point of posting such notices in public places was to reduce the chance of corrupt middlemen, a species well known to the General, from simply pocketing the money.

And most remarkably designated the bulk of his estate to the establishment and continued upkeep for a college for '..learning young Men the english language, and Christian religion if they find themselves inclined."

Much more detailed instructions followed, and after much legal wrangling a series of schools, all called La Martiniere were established in Lyon France and in Calcutta and Lucknow India.  They are all going strong 212 years after Martin's death.

Lucknow was Martin's home for most of his life, and the city most associated with him.  So it is the Lucknow school that is most closely linked to his legacy.  It is based in Martin's mansion house of Constantia, and indeed Martin's crypt lies beneath it.  Once a year on the anniversary of his death wreaths are laid there, and a Founder's Day dinner is held.  Alas, the specific menu items which Martin designated are no longer served.   The school song is an unashamed paean to Martin.  It goes in part:

All his martial deeds may die,
Lasting still his charity;
This his laurel blooms for aye,
Dead, he lives in us today.
This, then, our song shall be,
As we chant his eulogy -
"May our Founder's name endure,
Ever spotless, ever pure!"

The La Martiniere schools are to this day held in very high repute.  They are run along the lines of English Public schools but with provisions for students of lesser means to have their tuition supported.  Students are divided up into four "houses" each with their own name and color scheme.  Academics and sports are pursued with enthusiasm.

But the Lucknow La Martiniere can claim a distinction unique among schools.

The year was 1857.  Festering resentment to British abuses erupted into The Mutiny.  As rebel forces approached Lucknow the headmaster had the school fortified and provisioned to withstand a siege.  At the last moment the students and teachers were instead ordered into the Residency, the nearby government complex, and ordered to defend a section of the perimeter.

Through a long and bloody siege, until eventual relief and evacuation, the students of La Martiniere took up arms and upheld the martial traditions of their founder with distinction. They also continued their classes.  All concerned were awarded the Defense of India medal with a special clasp for Lucknow.

And the school itself?  It became the only educational institution every to be awarded a Regimental battle honor, which they are allowed to display on ceremonial occasions.

After reading this tale I started to wonder.  It just sounded a little familiar I guess.  A British style school, divided into four houses.  A place very set apart and different from its surrounding world.  A ornate castle like campus.  A gallant defense by students against formidable odds.

My goodness, you don't suppose J.K. Rowling ever heard this story?

There is by the way an active alumni association for the La Martiniere Schools.  By now male and female, they meet in various countries around the globe.  So it is that near to and far from his native and adopted homes, Old Martinians still gather on Founders Day to celebrate the life of Claude Martin.

Addenda:

Here are some nicely done pictures of  La Martiniere, Lucknow.
And I must note that the original "template" for Hogwarts is said by some to be here.

The Remarkable General Claude Martin

I think there have been some periods of history where it was just easier to be heroic, to attain a larger than life status.  The 1700s were such a time.  There were still unexplored places on earth and mankind's entire viewpoint was being reshaped by the Enlightenment of Jefferson and Rousseau.  These were the times of Claude Martin, a man whose life and posthumous memorials read like fiction.

He was born in 1735 in Lyon, France.  The name Claude is rather atypical for France as a whole, but was fairly common in Lyon since the discovery there of a massive bronze tablet called the Edict of Claudius.

to be seen in the Gallo Roman museum, Lyon

For reasons unclear young Claude Martin joined the French Army at age 16, much against his mother's wishes.  He shipped out for India which at that time was being fought over by France, Britain and their various local allies.  He never left.

Things did not go well for the French cause and in 1760 Martin simply defected and changed employers.  This may account for his somewhat diminished reputation in his home country.  But Martin was ever the opportunist, and working for the British East India Company was simply where the opportunities were.

And he grabbed at opportunity with both hands.  He served the British as a surveyor and as an army officer. He dabbled in real estate, grew indigo and loaned money at high interest rates to raj and raja alike.  He succeeded in getting himself appointed to a ridiculously profitable post as superintendent of an armory.  He made money hand over fist.

But he was not a simple money grubber.  He was an architect, building himself a magnificent palace of a home called Farad Baksh.  Among other things it had a treasure vault in the basement where he kept the money of other Europeans safe in a time where there were no banks.  Charging a 12% annual fee for the service of course.  But safety he provided, the house was a fortress with a couple of small artillery pieces guarding the front door.

He was also a scientific tinkerer.  In the hinterland city of Lucknow, India he seems to have launched the first manned balloon flight in Asia, in 1785. This was a mere two years after the first ever such flight took place in Paris.

He was a contemporary of Ben Franklin and also experimented with electricity.  He actually had some early  apparatus for electrical lighting, although it appears to have been more parlor trick than practical.

Claude was one tough hombre.  He once survived a ship wreck, subsequent detainment by unfriendly locals, and a cross-the-jungle trek to freedom in which at least one other castaway was eaten by "a tyger".

The tropics were a harsh environment to 18th century Europeans.  Most suffered ill health and many died there.  Claude Martin's particular cross to bear was bladder stones.  Not much fun at all, and a condition that tended to slowly progress to renal failure and death.  So he decided to operate on himself.

Yes, on himself.  The details are cringe worthy and involved daily use of a special metal catheter with a sharpened edge that he used to file away the stone---using it six to eight times a day over the course of several months.  He sent a written account of his novel surgical procedure to "a Medical Society in London" to be published.

By the time of his death in 1800 Claude Martin was the stuff of legend.  Fabulously rich, known by everyone of importance.  His palatial homes were social gathering places, his library one of the most extensive in India.

Oh, he was no saint.  Some of his letters allude to his urinary difficulties being in part due to venereal disease.  If so his self treatment seems to have done him wonders, at the time of his death he had seven mistresses, all scandalously at least 30 years younger than he.

His business dealings were dubious and he seems to have always held the Indians in contempt, referring to them as "blacks" and painting few positive pictures of them.

Perhaps it was an awareness of his shortcomings in life that prompted him to write a rather extraordinary will near the end.  European rule of India vanished.  But the legacy of Claude Martin endured....

Next:  The Legacy of General Martin.

Ho, Ho, Ho-Green Version not the Red Version

"In the Valley of the Jolly...

HO, HO, HO!

Green Giant!"

I heard that jingle so often growing up that intoning the "Ho, Ho, Ho" part is an automatic reflex if someone sings the first line.  But being a non shopper whose affection for veggies is only moderate I go a long time between occasions when I think about Mr. J.G. Giant.  

But while on a recent road trip we pulled over in Blue Earth Minnesota for a stretch and some ice cream.....and there he was:

Of course you just have to pose in front of him.  I did notice that he was a bit under dressed for the raw, biting wind that was swirling around him.  In fact, I noticed that he was just plain under dressed, period.  You try to help a brother out....

To the continued annoyance of my long suffering better half, I always want to know about the origins of things.  In the case of the Jolly Green Giant that is not as easy as you might imagine.  He has been sold off several times since his creation back in 1925, as smaller companies get gobbled up by corporate raiders with considerably more enthusiasm than toddlers eating peas and carrots.  All that I could learn was that he originally did not have green skin and was simply called "The Green Giant".  I also found vague reference to him being based on "folklore and mythology".

Well.  I am going to go out on a limb here and offer some speculation.  I seriously doubt that JGG was based on Jack and the Beanstalk.  No, it would hardly do to have your spokesbeing shilling for eating meat, and at that for the blood of an Englishman.  A rather more plausible case can be made for him being a modern reinvention of "The Green Man".

Green Man is an odd holdover of pagan imagery that got a marginal pass from the Medieval Church.  He appears in various guises, usually with foliage sprouting out from him (see leafy hair, above) and as a patron of fertility generally and of the annual renewal of agriculture specifically.  His image turns up in a lot of churches across Europe:

I have been thus far unable to pin down exactly when our corporate friend added the word "Jolly" to his name.  But I rather suspect is was sometime after the debut of the Marvel character "Incredible Hulk" in 1962.  I was a kid in that era and can just imagine the routines along the lines of "Brussels Sprouts make Hulk ANGRY!!!".

A few parting thoughts as we finish our virtual visit to the Jolly Green Giant in his lonely bachelor pad.  

Dude, how's that whole fertility symbol thing working out for you?

The Giant has endured a long reign as a corporate symbol because he is inherently likable.  So I think well of him and worry just a bit about his welfare.  My hero may not have feet of clay, but....

Get those cracks in the fiberglass attended to J, the wind off the prairies is fierce and I don't want to be reading about you in the paper.

Fathers Day with Jerry Jeff Walker

I suppose the two grey haired fellows sharing an odoriferous joint might have been doing so as an adjunct to chemotherapy.

But the Grannie in the tie-dyed t shirt, gyrating and shimmying away down front required a less plausible explanation:  I guess you really can go back, at least for a little while.

Fatherhood has landed me in some very unusual places, and in the Year of Our Lord 2012 I found myself in the company of my youngest son at a Jerry Jeff Walker concert.

I have mentioned Jerry Jeff once before.  His was the music of my young restless days, starting at just the age my son is now.  I was tossed unprepared into my freshman year of college.  It was a time of high pressure weeks and party weekends.  Girl friends came and went.  Future plans were misty and out of focus.  And you could go to a place called Rho House, pay a nominal fee for a plastic glass and drink more beer than you should while listening to Jerry Jeff sing “Up Against the Wall, Redneck Mothers” as a wavering conga line snaked its way out the door going who knows where.

A year or two into Med School, and having met my future wife, my interests shifted, but I still kept track of Mr. Walker’s career.  He had married a good woman, cleaned up his lifestyle a bit, played a couple of Presidential inauguration gigs, but mostly just kept on making the kind of music he liked whether or not it was commercially successful.

My son became a second generation fan when I suggested he give a listen, and now has all the good old albums on good old classic vinyl.

But back to Father’s Day.  Jerry Jeff is pretty much retired; he plays a big Reunion show in Texas once a year and a smattering of mostly benefit gigs.  I have to admit, I was not sure what to expect.  The crowd was an enthusiastic full house, but mostly my age and up.  You would see the guys swigging a beer or two while waiting for the show, and not long after see them-in the fashion of old guys and fluids-trekking off to the bathrooms.

Jerry Jeff came on stage to loud applause.  He has put on a few pounds, and walks a bit stiffly.  I read somewhere that he has had some major back surgery.

At first it seemed like it was not going to be much of a show.  His voice was weak, his vocals overpowered by an energetic lead guitar.  He was fiddling with his amp and before each song he would look over his shoulder at the side men and say something.

Eventually he mentioned that his allergies were really “kicking my ass”, and that they were having to switch things around on the fly.  In fact, he said, “I don’t believe that song has ever been done in that key before!”.

He did most of the old standards, and some fun new stuff.  And a very strange thing happened.  His voice got stronger and stronger as the show went on.  He seemed like that rarest of baseball players, the pitcher who is throwing a lot harder in the ninth inning than he was in the first.

To the delight of all he even got up a bit towards the end and was dancing on the edge of the stage while playing a spirited guitar solo.  The fans dancing around down front-and I saw at least one three generation family there-loved it.

Jerry Jeff was what I hoped he would be.  Sure, he is greyer, heavier, slower than he was when I first saw him back in the mid 1970s.  As am I.  But he seems totally comfortable with it, and given his hard living lifestyle early on he is probably pleasantly amused/surprised to be doing as well as he is.

We first generation fans should take that lesson to heart.

The world is a quirky place.  So I never say never.  But it is unlikely that I will see Jerry Jeff again.  Eventually he will kick back to the well earned comforts of his ranch, enjoy life on his own terms, and essentially become one of his songs:

“One day I looked up, he’s pushin’ eighty,

 Got brown tobacco stains all down his chin.

 To me he’s one of the heroes of this country,

 So why’s he all dressed up like them old men?”

National Amps. A Roll of Honor

It's more common in football and basketball-two sports that use collegiate sports as a farm system-but sometimes you see a team roster and the alma maters of the players.  For the National Amps check out the "schools" these guys attended:

And,

It is not always easy to search out information on people, even in the day of the internet.  This is especially true with common names.  But for the benefit of posterity here are a few pictures and details about the National Amps players:

Dick Adelchi.  Left Fielder.

Bob Anderson.  Shortstop and Team Captain.

Gale Beccue, 5th Ranger Battalion.  Veteran of D-Day.  Lost his leg after stepping on a mine in February of 1945.  Holding his glove is his son.

Julius "Julie" Feig.  At one time he was Chief of the Prosthetic and Sensory Aids division of the New York Region Veterans Administration.  Several scientific articles on phantom limb pain and the psychological effects of amputation credit his assistance.  Was once an "Eastern District Basketball star".

Fiorello "Bill" Marino.  1924-1997.  A one armed pitcher he was likely the only man since the 1870s to play baseball bare handed.

Jack Miller.  Later employed as a sales rep for a prosthetics company.

Morris Novgrad.  Wounded in World War I. (Arm amputee)  Went on to become an attorney of some repute.  Chairman of the Baseball Committee.

Jack Palminteri.

Norman Shubinsky.  A good example of history being unfair.  With the tenacious survival of official records I can read about his lawsuit for unfair termination by the Naval Applied Science Laboratory in 1969, but of his honorable military service and his later civilian employment by the above agency and previously by the Brooklyn Naval Shipyard.....nothing.

Tom Trovato.

Matt Valuri.  In July 1945 he won a $50 war bond in a bicycle race for amputees while recuperating at Walter Reed Hospital in Washington D.C.

James Whiteside.

They are mostly gone now, but I had an opportunity a few years ago to chat with several of the National Amps players.  By extremely unlikely chance I first stumbled upon this story and only later realized that one of the above gentlemen was the father of a friend of mine. 

These men were very matter of fact when discussing their military service, their injuries and their later lives.  The whole concept of amputee baseball teams, slightly odd though it seems to our later generation, was no big deal to them.

The random mayhem of a battle field sometimes means that this fellow will lose a limb and the man next to him come through without a scratch.  The courage and stoicism displayed by the Amps really was no big deal.  It typified the entirety of our Father's Generation.

But in giving proper respect where it is due, lets not overlook the heroism of the current generation.  In a prior post I mentioned a revival of amputee baseball (or at least softball) among the wounded veterans of our recent conflicts.   Here is the 2012 Wounded Warrior Amputee softball team:

And their  website .

They are wearing Washington Nationals uniforms here, as that major league team has been instrumental in their organization.  As in the days of Bert Shepard, the proximity to Walter Reed is no doubt a factor.

They will be on tour this summer and I for one am planning on catching a game.  The saying goes "Heroes are hard to find". 

Nonsense.