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} d n e k e e {W DAILYWILDCAT.COM Friday, April 28, 2017 – Sunday, April 30, 2017 VOLUME 110 ISSUE 87
ARTS & LIFE | PAGE 9
UA MUSEUM SHOWCASES PHARMACEUTICAL HISTORY WITH ARTIFACTS DATING BACK TO 1800S
SPORTS | PAGE 16 CESAR SALAZAR’S LOVE FOR BASEBALL HAS LED HIM FROM HERMOSILLO TO THE COLLEGE WORLD SERIESS
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COL. ROBERT D. DWAN, left, Gerrit Steenblik, center, and Cpl. Lawrence W. Strahler, right, pose for a photo at the American Legion Post 109 Sunday, April 23. Both WWII Veterans earned the Ordre national de la Legion d’honneur, France’s highest honor.
Former UA ROTC commander receives France’s highest honor BY TORI TOM @DailyWildcat
Col. Robert D. Dwan was one of two U.S. World War II veterans awarded the Ordre National de la Légion d’honneur for military heroism on Sunday, April 23, at the American Legion Post 109. The stoic 97-year-old army retiree labored out of his wheelchair at the start of the ceremony and stood for five long minutes throughout the Pledge of Allegiance, the national anthem, French national anthem and Cienega High School’s JROTC presentation of the colors.
Dwan is a former commander of UA’s ROTC program from 1966 to 1971. He said his job on campus was to equip student cadets with basic military principals and regulations. Dwan graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point, similar to his father, after briefly attending Harvard University. Although he was in the class of 1944, Dwan was commissioned a year early because of the war. Following tactical warfare training in the California desert at Camp Coxcomb, Dwan, leader of the 15th Calvary Regiment, fought on Utah
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Beach in the Allied invasion of Normandy. “The assault troops had been briefed as to their exact destination, and if the Germans found out, the results would have been disastrous,” Dwan wrote in a letter after the war to the sisters of a fellow soldier, Ted Dobosz. “There were many rehearsals since the exact D-Day was unknown. Then, during one rehearsal, it happened and it was for real.” His platoon had arrived in England aboard the Queen Mary vessel, which was formerly a luxury liner, in June 1944. Thomas Dwan, Dwan’s second son, fondly recalled
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some of his father’s stories surrounding the voyage. “Guys were stacked in there with six-[unit]-high bunks,” Thomas said. “Guys who had never been on a ship before were just puking all over the place. He was saying they didn’t have any escorts and if they sank, they would have lost about 15,000 men.” In a diary entry, Dwan remembered a close call that left him wounded from German artillery fire. A half-inch shell fragment struck his lower leg as he checked on an injured soldier in an adjacent St. Claude trench, near Brest, France.
VETERAN, 4
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