Kitsap Veterans Life, November 04, 2016

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$68 MILLION n Page 9 And the VA still isn’t fixed, says GAO.

PRELUDE TO WAR n Page 3 Kitsap life before Dec. 7.

HOLIDAY INN n Page 11 Navy Lodge Bangor is a great place for family coming for the hoilidays.

HONOR FLIGHT n Page 12 Bremerton vet honored for his service.

Kitsap

MilitaryTimes The Voice for Kitsap County’s Active-Duty

This Veterans Day, a moment of silence — and thanks By JEFF TOLMAN Correspondent

This Nov. 11, we offer you a Veterans Day column from correspondent Jeff Tolman, who spent time recently in an area near Colmar, France.

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hile the Battle of the Bulge raged on the west coast of Europe, a few hundred miles east U.S.French combined forces were fighting to break the Colmar Pocket, Germany’s stronghold on the Rhine blocking an Allied entrance to eastern Germany. The campaign from the Vosges Mountains into Colmar, which began in November 1944, was hill by hill, village by village, often house to house. Many lives were lost and sacrifices made before the Colmar Pocket was defeated in February 1945. It is here Audie Murphy (“To Hell and Back”) and the great American, Sen. Daniel Inouye, earned their Congressional Medals of Honor. Driving back from Colmar, we stopped at the German cemetery in Bergheim where 5,308 German soldiers, participants in the Colmar Pocket

battle, are buried, three to a grave, their graves all facing Germany. The oldest person’s headstone I saw was 51, the youngest 18. The oldster, instead of bouncing grandchildren on his knee every week-end, was fighting in his Second World War. The youngster, who should have been seeking his first kiss or entry into a university, instead spent his young adulthood, to his death, lobbing grenades at opposing soldiers. The show stopper, though, was at the Ludwig Papst-Heinrich WeirachSiegfried Kukbauer grave, where a German flag had been recently placed, along with a 70-plus year-old photo of a young soldier, with a note written on the photograph in German. After 71 years, a friend, relative or loved one had remembered one of these three men and had come to a hard-to-find hilltop outside Bergheim, France, to do so. What an honor to that soldier and the character of those who still love him today. On a hill in nearby Sigolsheim, we walked in the French cemetery for those who died in the See COLMAR, Page 2

PENINSULA SUBARU

November 2016

Personnel, Veterans and their Families

KITSAP GOES TO WAR!!! 75th anniversary of Pearl Harbor marks the beginning of Sound Publishing’s year-long salute to Kitsap’s ‘Greatest Generation.’

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ec. 7 marks the 75th anniversary of the bombing of Pearl Harbor and the entry of the United States into World War II. But, while Dec. 7 shall live forever as a “Day of Infamy,” it will soon vanish from living memory. All too quickly, the last of that generation is passing; soon there will be no one left who can say, “I remem-

ber that day. I was there.” As a salute to that “Greatest Generation,” and to help those of us who came later better understand what daily life in Kitsap County was really like in those dark days, Sound Publishing is proud to present a 12-month series that we call “Kitsap Goes to War!!!” Drawing on personal memories, official records,

local histories, photos and cartoons of the day, and back issues of our Kitsap newspapers from that period, our staff will give you a glimpse of that long-ago war as seen through the eyes of those earlier Kitsap residents. To accomplish this, each KMT issue will cover four months of that war, beginning with the December issue, which will cover Dec.

7, 1941 — Pearl Harbor Day — to March 31, 1942. While Pearl Harbor marked the bloody entry of our country into that global conflagration, many events led up to it. Therefore, on page 3 of this editoon we provide you with a timeline of key events that led up to that moment in time.

—Terryl M. Asla Editor

Secretary of the Navy sees expanded role for Kitsap region in the near future By MARK BRIANT Kitsap News Group

Outgoing Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus, left, chats with U.S. Rep. Derek Kilmer, D-Bremerton, center, and other guests at a reception and Q&A session with the Secretary in Bremerton on Oct. 21. Mark Briant / Kitssp News Group

BREMERTON — He has logged 1.3 million frequent-flyer miles, visited 142 countries and earned the distinction of being the longest-tenured Secretary of the Navy since World War I. So it would make sense if Ray Mabus sounded like he was ready for a vacation. Far from it. As President Barack Obama’s second term winds to a close, Mabus’ time as SECNAV is also reaching its end. But in a visit to Kitsap as part of his self-described “Farewell

Tour” on Oct. 21, he exuded enthusiasm both for myriad accomplishments and milestones reached — and also for the greatly expanded role Kitsap County and the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard will be asked to play in the coming decades. “I leave knowing that our future will be as successful as our storied past,” Mabus told a gathering of senior Naval officers, local elected officials and prominent citizens at the Kitsap Conference Center. Possibly the most important of those initiatives will be rebuilding of the Navy’s

SUBARU SALUTES YOUR SERVICE.

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3888 W St Hwy 16-Bremerton www.peninsulasubaru.com All vehicles subject to prior sale. All vehicles plus tax, license and up to $150 negotiable doc fees.

CLOSED SUNDAYS FOR FAMILY DAY

K I T S A P DA I LY N E W S .C O M | A S U P P L E M E N T T O T H E B R E M E R T O N PA T R I O T

See NAVY, Page 2


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