Pfc. Bob Hemingway served as a light machine-gunner in the 2nd Marine Division during the 1960s. Here he’s horsing around with the .30-caliber gun for the camera. Photo provided
Bob Hemingway of Lake Suzy, near Port Charlotte, Fla. was a junior in high school in New Haven, Conn. when he dropped out of school and joined the Marine Corps. He ended up in the 1st Battalion, 6th Marine Regiment, 2nd Marine Division stationed at Camp Lajeune, N.C. Read the rest of this entry »
Capt. Luis Chirichigno, Ret., second from left, presents Tami Cash, executive director of the Military Heritage & Aviation Museum in Punta Gorda, Fla. with the POW garb he wore in North Vietnam’s infamous “Hanoi Hilton” during his three-and-a-half years in captivity. Looking on is retired Brig. Gen. Jim Shelton, left, holding Chirichigno’s Ho Chi Minh sandals, and retired Maj. Gen. Rufus Lazzell, both on the museum’s board of directors. Sun photo by Don Moore
Charlotte Sun (Port Charlotte, FL) – Sunday, April 15, 2007
Capt. Luis Chirichigno was piloting an Army Cobra attack helicopter high above a couple of low-flying observation copters eight miles south of Duc Lap, South Vietnam, on Nov. 2, 1969. What happened next would make this Peruvian-born American chopper pilot a POW for the next 3 1/2 years. Read the rest of this entry »
Joe Rex was a lifer. He served 25 years in the U.S. Navy from World War II into the Vietnam War. He lives in Englewood, Fla. Photo provided
Joe Rex joined the U.S. Navy at 17 in February 1945 near the end of World War II. In 1970, twenty-five years later, he retired as a Master Chief Petty Officer.
Although he was in the service during the Second World War, he served aboard the destroyer, USS Mole –DD-693—at the start of the Korean War and served as a Mobile Electronic Technician near then end of his quarter century in the Navy, Rex’s finest hour may have been during the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962.
Capt. William Ecker of Punta Gorda spent 32 years in the service. He was a key player in the Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962.
Capt. William Ecker who flew a secret low-level photo-reconnaissance mission over Cuba in 1962 to capture Soviet nuclear missiles on film during the Cuban Missile Crisis died last Thursday (Nov. 5, 2009) at his home in Punta Gorda, FL. He was 85.
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