At 101, Dunedin World War II veteran reflects on service during ‘Victory in Europe Day'
Bob Russell, 101, was a fighter/bomber pilot with the U.S. Army Air Corps in Europe when he heard the news that the Germans had surrendered.
While the Japanese had not yet surrendered in the Pacific region, May 8 marked the end of World War II in Europe with Victory in Europe Day.
Russell and everyone in his 405th fighter squadron received air medals for containing German forces during the historic Battle of the Bulge, which was a resounding battlefield success.
DUNEDIN, Fla. - May 8, 1944, is a day Bob Russell remembers well. A fighter/bomber pilot with the U.S. Army Air Corps in Europe, he was in a hospital room near Belgium recovering from being shot down when he heard the news that the Germans had surrendered.
"There wasn't much celebration. We were just ready to come home," Russell told FOX 13.
READ: Manatee County World War II veteran receives highest honor from France
The backstory
While the Japanese had not yet surrendered in the Pacific region, May 8 marked the end of World War II in Europe with Victory in Europe Day (V.E. Day). There is another day that is equally important to Russell, however. It was the moment that lit his patriotic fire.
When news broke of the Pearl Harbor attack by the Japanese on December 7, 1941, he knew that it was his calling to serve.
"We were all very patriotic then," he said. "Much more so than we are today."
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His memory remains sharp at 101 years old.
"I'm going after 102," he told FOX 13 with a determined chuckle.
Barely three years after enlisting, he'd found himself piloting a P-47 Thunderbolt in the Army Air Corps. He flew cover for General George Patton's troops on the ground in Europe during the Battle of the Bulge in late 1944.
"We were trying to keep the German Army out of Berlin," he recalled.
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He did just that, flying low-level bombing and strafing runs at tree-top level while dodging enemy fire. His memory is rivaled only by his confidence when asked if he was a pretty good pilot; "The best," he snaps back with a wry smile and another chuckle.
He would need those sharp piloting skills on his 13th and final mission. Shot down by an explosive German shell, he managed to pull off a perfect emergency landing, landing on the belly of his plane with no landing gear and Nazi forces on the ground around him. His knee was badly damaged by shrapnel, but that didn't keep him from running to safety once he landed.
He told FOX 13 he can't believe it's been 80 years.
Big picture view
But, opening doors of reflection often reveal the weight of the unknown. He's often haunted by the unintended victims down below who just happened to be near their targets. So, heavy remains his heart.
"I was always hoping we never hit any children," he said with a long pause. "But we probably did, you know," as he wiped a wet eye.
READ: Palm Harbor WWII veteran finds comfort in new mission at 100 years old: 'Life is golden'
Russell and everyone in his 405th fighter squadron received air medals for containing German forces during the historic Battle of the Bulge, which was a resounding battlefield success. But, it did not come without tremendous loss.
By the numbers
Between December 16, 1944, and January 23, 1945, the United States suffered 81,000 casualties with 19,246 killed, 23,000 captured and 38,000 injured, according to the National Archives. A handful of Russell's friends in the 405th were among those who didn't get to come home.
He thinks of each of them often.
"It's, uh... [wipes tear] a lot of good kids," he said.
He was just 20 at the time, as were most of his squadron pals. But, there's no mistaking youth for lack of character during war.
Russell reflects on all of them fondly.
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"Of all the places I've been, it was the greatest group of people I ever associated with," he told FOX 13 of his 405th Fighter Squadron.
Another reminder that this was a generation of great sacrifice, but even greater valor, with a young Bob Russell leading the way.
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San Francisco Chronicle
20 hours ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
US military chaplaincy marks 250 years of providing spiritual support to service members
(RNS) — In 1775, a year before there was a United States and six weeks after the Continental Army was formed, George Washington made a declaration that has shaped the military ever since. 'We need chaplains,' he reportedly remarked, prompting action by the Continental Congress near the start of the Revolutionary War. The U.S. military chaplaincy marked 250 years on July 29 as the national military marked its own 250th anniversary in June. A week of celebrations includes a golf tournament at Fort Jackson in South Carolina, hosted by an organization raising funds for scholarships for family members of chaplains, and a sold-out ball nearby in Columbia. Meanwhile, across the globe, thousands of clergy in uniform continue to provide counsel and care to military members of a range of faiths or no faith. 'In times of peace and war, our chaplains have held fast as beacons of hope and resilience for our troops, whether enduring the brutal winter of Valley Forge, comforting the wounded and dying on the battlefields during the Civil War, braving trench warfare in World War I, storming the beaches of Normandy during World War II, marching the frozen mountains during the Korean War, slogging through the rice paddies and jungle battlefields of Vietnam or traveling the bomb-filled roads of Iraq and Afghanistan,' said retired Chaplain (Major General) Doug Carver, a former Army chief of chaplains in charge of the Southern Baptist Convention's chaplaincy ministries, at the denomination's June annual meeting in Dallas. A month later at the annual session of the Progressive National Baptist Convention in Chicago, Navy Chaplain J.M. Smith, the grandson of a former PNBC president, stood before delegates and described his just-completed tour as a Marine Corps command chaplain in Okinawa, Japan, and his plans to report to a ship in Norfolk, Virginia, to begin a tour of Europe and the Middle East and be promoted to lieutenant commander. 'My team and I have ministered to thousands of Marines, sailors, civilians and Japanese,' he said. 'We increased our chapel's membership from eight to 100. We incorporated spiritual readiness into our base's core curriculum.'' ___ Chaplains serve in hospitals, hospices and manufacturing plants, and while chaplaincy researchers see commonalities among them, there are also key differences in the military. All are involved in gaining the trust of people who are in their particular milieu, enabling them to think and sometimes pray through their times of greatest need and day-to-day struggles. An example of both the danger and the dedication of military service chaplaincy is the 1943 death of four chaplains — two Protestant, one Catholic and one Jewish — who helped save some of those aboard a World War II ship, turning over their life jackets and praying and singing hymns before it sank. All four were trained at Harvard University, then the site of the Army's chaplain training school, during a two-year wartime period. "It was a real defining moment,' said retired Gen. Steve Schaick, who served as Air Force chief of chaplains from 2018 to 2021, and in the same role for the Space Force from 2019 to 2021. 'The stories that came from that really kind of highlighted chaplains at their best.' The Army's chaplaincy corps also includes religious affairs specialists and religious education directors. Some service members provide armed protection to unarmed chaplains and set up worship spaces in on-base chapels or makeshift altars on truck hoods in the field. For example, Berry Gordy, who later founded Motown Records, served as a private in the Korean War and played a portable organ and was known as a chaplain assistant, notes ' Sacred Duty,' a new comic book posted on the Army's website to mark the anniversary. While 218 chaplains served in the Revolutionary War, 9,117 chaplains served in World War II, according to the Army. Currently, the Army has 1,500 chaplains on active duty. The Navy Chaplain Corps, which began on Nov. 18, 1775, had 24 chaplains during the Civil War; 203 by the end of World War I; 1,158 at its height in 1990; and currently has 898 on active duty, according to the Navy. 'Today's Chaplain Corps includes Chaplains representing a multitude of faith groups, and the Chaplain Corps recruiting team is actively working to increase the Corps' diversity, with a special focus on increasing the number of women Chaplains in the Corps and the number of Chaplains representing low-density faith groups,' reads an Army historical booklet marking the Chaplain Corps' 250 years. Initially, U.S. military chaplains were Protestants. The first Catholic chaplains served in the Mexican-American War in 1846, and the first rabbi was commissioned in 1862 and served in the Civil War. The first Muslim chaplains were commissioned in the Army in 1993. The first Buddhist Army chaplain was named in 2008, followed by the first Hindu chaplain in 2011. Chaplain Margaret Kibben, acting chaplain of the House of Representatives and former chief of chaplains of the Navy — the first woman in that role — said the isolation and the immediacy of ethical decisions faced by military members, as well as a high level of confidentially, can make the work of military chaplaincy teams different from other settings where chaplains work. 'It's the one place that people can go where there's essentially a sanctuary around them, wherever they find themselves, a safe place to have somebody to talk to about a whole host of issues,' she said, adding that topics can include anything from supporting their families to handling combat responsibilities. 'How do you deal with those issues in a place where you're not going to look stupid, you're not going to look weak or unreliable because you have these doubts and you have these concerns — to have a place that you can go to ensure that you can get that off your chest?' Those private conversations often are not faith-filled, added Kibben, reflecting on her military career that began in 1986. 'What I realized later, 20, 30 years later, was that many service members have never learned the language of faith,' she said, citing terms like confession and forgiveness. 'So as a chaplain, we had to figure out our way around the lack of a lexicon of faith. How do you speak about grace to someone who doesn't have a clue how powerful grace is?' Another change, sparked by the efforts of Julie Moore, the wife of a military officer who served in the Vietnam War, was the Army's method for notifying the next of kin when a soldier died. Soon after a 1960s battle in that war, a chaplain and a uniformed officer began teaming up to knock on families' doors; prior to that time, the news arrived in a telegram delivered by a cab driver. The work of chaplains has sometimes been the source of church-state debates. For example, Michael 'Mikey' Weinstein of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, a nonprofit that advocates for separation of church and state in the U.S. military, has questioned what he viewed as proselytism in the chaplains' ranks. Meanwhile, conservative Christian organizations have voiced concerns about an antipathy against some Christians in military ranks. Karen Diefendorf, a two-time Army chaplain and a board member of the U.S. Army Chaplain Corps Regimental Association, which supports chaplains and their families, said the primary goal for chaplains is 'to provide for the free exercise rights of every soldier, sailor, airman, Marine, Coast Guardsman.' She currently is an interim minister of an independent Methodist church in South Carolina, after serving as a chaplain at Tysons Foods and in hospice care. 'I had soldiers who were practitioners of Wiccan faith, and my job is not to say to them, 'Hey, wouldn't you like to love Jesus?'' she said, recalling how she assisted a Wiccan Army member serving in Korea. 'My job was to help that young soldier find where his particular group of folks met and where he could practice his faith.' Also during her service in Korea in the late 1990s and early 2000s, Diefendorf said she provided cassette tapes of sermons to soldiers and entrusted one with Communion elements because she knew she wouldn't be able to reach their location often. 'So far, the courts have upheld that you certainly have two competing clauses within the First Amendment, establishment and free exercise,' she said. 'And at this point, certainly chaplains have to walk that fine line not to create establishment in the midst of trying to also enable people to practice their beliefs.' Schaick recalled being deployed overseas in the Air Force when a new rabbi joined his staff. On arrival, the rabbi described himself as 'first and foremost a chaplain and secondarily a rabbi' — an order of priorities that Schaick said applies to chaplains to this day, regardless of their faith perspective. 'The longer you serve in the chaplaincy, I think the closer you get to really believing that — and therefore, religious affiliation becomes secondary,' he said. 'It's 'How're you doing today?' and 'I'd love to hear what's on your heart' and 'How can I be able to help you today?' Those kind of questions, quite frankly, are impervious to religious distinctions.'
Hamilton Spectator
21 hours ago
- Hamilton Spectator
US military chaplaincy marks 250 years of providing spiritual support to service members
(RNS) — In 1775, a year before there was a United States and six weeks after the Continental Army was formed, George Washington made a declaration that has shaped the military ever since. 'We need chaplains,' he reportedly remarked, prompting action by the Continental Congress near the start of the Revolutionary War. The U.S. military chaplaincy marked 250 years on July 29 as the national military marked its own 250th anniversary in June. A week of celebrations includes a golf tournament at Fort Jackson in South Carolina, hosted by an organization raising funds for scholarships for family members of chaplains, and a sold-out ball nearby in Columbia. Meanwhile, across the globe, thousands of clergy in uniform continue to provide counsel and care to military members of a range of faiths or no faith. 'In times of peace and war, our chaplains have held fast as beacons of hope and resilience for our troops, whether enduring the brutal winter of Valley Forge, comforting the wounded and dying on the battlefields during the Civil War, braving trench warfare in World War I, storming the beaches of Normandy during World War II, marching the frozen mountains during the Korean War, slogging through the rice paddies and jungle battlefields of Vietnam or traveling the bomb-filled roads of Iraq and Afghanistan,' said retired Chaplain (Major General) Doug Carver, a former Army chief of chaplains in charge of the Southern Baptist Convention's chaplaincy ministries, at the denomination's June annual meeting in Dallas. A month later at the annual session of the Progressive National Baptist Convention in Chicago, Navy Chaplain J.M. Smith, the grandson of a former PNBC president, stood before delegates and described his just-completed tour as a Marine Corps command chaplain in Okinawa, Japan, and his plans to report to a ship in Norfolk, Virginia, to begin a tour of Europe and the Middle East and be promoted to lieutenant commander. 'My team and I have ministered to thousands of Marines, sailors, civilians and Japanese,' he said. 'We increased our chapel's membership from eight to 100. We incorporated spiritual readiness into our base's core curriculum.'' ___ This content is written and produced by Religion News Service and distributed by The Associated Press. RNS and AP partner on some religion news content. RNS is solely responsible for this story. ___ Chaplains serve in hospitals, hospices and manufacturing plants, and while chaplaincy researchers see commonalities among them, there are also key differences in the military. All are involved in gaining the trust of people who are in their particular milieu, enabling them to think and sometimes pray through their times of greatest need and day-to-day struggles. An example of both the danger and the dedication of military service chaplaincy is the 1943 death of four chaplains — two Protestant, one Catholic and one Jewish — who helped save some of those aboard a World War II ship, turning over their life jackets and praying and singing hymns before it sank. All four were trained at Harvard University , then the site of the Army's chaplain training school, during a two-year wartime period. 'It was a real defining moment,' said retired Gen. Steve Schaick, who served as Air Force chief of chaplains from 2018 to 2021, and in the same role for the Space Force from 2019 to 2021. 'The stories that came from that really kind of highlighted chaplains at their best.' The Army's chaplaincy corps also includes religious affairs specialists and religious education directors. Some service members provide armed protection to unarmed chaplains and set up worship spaces in on-base chapels or makeshift altars on truck hoods in the field. For example, Berry Gordy, who later founded Motown Records, served as a private in the Korean War and played a portable organ and was known as a chaplain assistant, notes ' Sacred Duty ,' a new comic book posted on the Army's website to mark the anniversary. While 218 chaplains served in the Revolutionary War, 9,117 chaplains served in World War II, according to the Army. Currently, the Army has 1,500 chaplains on active duty. The Navy Chaplain Corps, which began on Nov. 18, 1775, had 24 chaplains during the Civil War; 203 by the end of World War I; 1,158 at its height in 1990; and currently has 898 on active duty, according to the Navy. 'Today's Chaplain Corps includes Chaplains representing a multitude of faith groups, and the Chaplain Corps recruiting team is actively working to increase the Corps' diversity, with a special focus on increasing the number of women Chaplains in the Corps and the number of Chaplains representing low-density faith groups,' reads an Army historical booklet marking the Chaplain Corps' 250 years. Initially, U.S. military chaplains were Protestants. The first Catholic chaplains served in the Mexican-American War in 1846, and the first rabbi was commissioned in 1862 and served in the Civil War. The first Muslim chaplains were commissioned in the Army in 1993. The first Buddhist Army chaplain was named in 2008, followed by the first Hindu chaplain in 2011. Chaplain Margaret Kibben, acting chaplain of the House of Representatives and former chief of chaplains of the Navy — the first woman in that role — said the isolation and the immediacy of ethical decisions faced by military members, as well as a high level of confidentially, can make the work of military chaplaincy teams different from other settings where chaplains work. 'It's the one place that people can go where there's essentially a sanctuary around them, wherever they find themselves, a safe place to have somebody to talk to about a whole host of issues,' she said, adding that topics can include anything from supporting their families to handling combat responsibilities. 'How do you deal with those issues in a place where you're not going to look stupid, you're not going to look weak or unreliable because you have these doubts and you have these concerns — to have a place that you can go to ensure that you can get that off your chest?' Those private conversations often are not faith-filled, added Kibben, reflecting on her military career that began in 1986. 'What I realized later, 20, 30 years later, was that many service members have never learned the language of faith,' she said, citing terms like confession and forgiveness. 'So as a chaplain, we had to figure out our way around the lack of a lexicon of faith. How do you speak about grace to someone who doesn't have a clue how powerful grace is?' Another change, sparked by the efforts of Julie Moore, the wife of a military officer who served in the Vietnam War, was the Army's method for notifying the next of kin when a soldier died. Soon after a 1960s battle in that war, a chaplain and a uniformed officer began teaming up to knock on families' doors; prior to that time, the news arrived in a telegram delivered by a cab driver. The work of chaplains has sometimes been the source of church-state debates. For example, Michael 'Mikey' Weinstein of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, a nonprofit that advocates for separation of church and state in the U.S. military, has questioned what he viewed as proselytism in the chaplains' ranks. Meanwhile, conservative Christian organizations have voiced concerns about an antipathy against some Christians in military ranks. Karen Diefendorf, a two-time Army chaplain and a board member of the U.S. Army Chaplain Corps Regimental Association, which supports chaplains and their families, said the primary goal for chaplains is 'to provide for the free exercise rights of every soldier, sailor, airman, Marine, Coast Guardsman.' She currently is an interim minister of an independent Methodist church in South Carolina, after serving as a chaplain at Tysons Foods and in hospice care. 'I had soldiers who were practitioners of Wiccan faith, and my job is not to say to them, 'Hey, wouldn't you like to love Jesus?'' she said, recalling how she assisted a Wiccan Army member serving in Korea. 'My job was to help that young soldier find where his particular group of folks met and where he could practice his faith.' Also during her service in Korea in the late 1990s and early 2000s, Diefendorf said she provided cassette tapes of sermons to soldiers and entrusted one with Communion elements because she knew she wouldn't be able to reach their location often. 'So far, the courts have upheld that you certainly have two competing clauses within the First Amendment, establishment and free exercise,' she said. 'And at this point, certainly chaplains have to walk that fine line not to create establishment in the midst of trying to also enable people to practice their beliefs.' Schaick recalled being deployed overseas in the Air Force when a new rabbi joined his staff. On arrival, the rabbi described himself as 'first and foremost a chaplain and secondarily a rabbi' — an order of priorities that Schaick said applies to chaplains to this day, regardless of their faith perspective. 'The longer you serve in the chaplaincy, I think the closer you get to really believing that — and therefore, religious affiliation becomes secondary,' he said. 'It's 'How're you doing today?' and 'I'd love to hear what's on your heart' and 'How can I be able to help you today?' Those kind of questions, quite frankly, are impervious to religious distinctions.' Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP's collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content. Error! Sorry, there was an error processing your request. There was a problem with the recaptcha. Please try again. You may unsubscribe at any time. By signing up, you agree to our terms of use and privacy policy . 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Chicago Tribune
2 days ago
- Chicago Tribune
Column: New partnership to provide after-school child care for Waubonsee Community College student-parents
I remember decades ago writing a column about the most pressing issue I faced as a parent: child care. It was a huge concern, always at the top of my list of stressors and not just in regard to affordability but also to quality. I mention this because when the new program between Waubonsee Community College and the Boys & Girls Clubs of North Central Illinois was described to me as 'a game-changer,' I knew from personal experience this is not a case of marketing hyperbole. In a new partnership, Waubonsee and the Boys & Girls Clubs of North Central Illinois are launching a free, on-campus after-school care program for students at the college's downtown Aurora campus. Unlike other colleges that offer financial assistance or care for toddlers, noted WCC President Brian Knetl, this provides no-cost quality care for elementary-aged children of enrolled students from 3:45 to 9:30 p.m. inside the college building. Convenient? For sure. But if you are, say, a single parent trying to build a better future, this program can be a lifeline. Imagine the emotional relief knowing your kid is spending quality time right down the hall as you pursue a degree or certification. Imagine the financial burden that is lifted, at a time when it's becoming increasingly difficult for so many to pay rent, keep the lights on and put food on the table. Game changer? You bet. And, as an added bonus, it is putting these youngsters in a college environment early in life that can't help but make their own pursuit of higher education at some point in their lives that much more familiar – and expected. 'I totally get it,' says Cathy Russell, CEO of Boys & Girls Clubs of North Central Illinois who remembers her own days as a single mom. 'It's a win-win for everyone.' The seed of this partnership was planted in the summer of 2022, a few months after Boys & Girls Clubs of North Central Illinois, which began in Elgin in 1993, opened its sixth club in Aurora. The board, which included WCC employee Adam Schauer, met at the college, and those early gatherings, said Russell, 'helped us to build relationships, have deep conversations' that included how after-school care can be a barrier for students. 'It just makes so much sense for parents to be able to bring their kids to a place where they too will learn,' she insisted. While Boys & Girls Clubs are known for using non-traditional sites like schools, churches and Section 8 housing, 'adult learning education is a whole new movement,' Russell told me, adding that 'I don't know any other organization doing something quite like this.' Currently the club in Aurora is meeting in more than a dozen schools in District 131 and around a half dozen in District 129. The hope is to build a new 45,000-square-foot clubhouse in the city – with help from a $500,000 federal grant secured by U.S. Rep. Bill Foster, D-Naperville, according to news reports. The WCC/BGC program, which will kick off this upcoming semester, will provide snacks for the kids, academic support and STEAM enrichment activities, and will also focus on the social and emotional well-being of the kids, said Russell. The college and this nationally-recognized youth club both have long and trusted reputations. But they also share a 'common mission' of expanding their footprints to best serve the needs of the community, said Knetl, who has been working in community colleges for over 20 years and became Waubonsee Community College president in January of 2023. The program, he added, is the 'definition of coming together.' Knetl points to a young couple, who are high-performing students at WCC but sometimes have to juggle their class to take care of their children. 'Our students are finding a way to make it work,' he said. 'What concerns us most is that we may never know about the people who want to go on to college but can't afford a trustworthy place to send their children.' And so, Waubonsee Community College and the Boys & Girls Club are anxious to get the word out about what really could be a game-changer. 'We want to break down those barriers,' said Knetl. 'We are eager to see where this will go.'
