Carl Letterie was a 1965 graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y. After graduation his first assignment as a young second lieutenant was Fort Bliss, Texas to attend the Air Defense Officers Training School. From there he went to Fort Hancock, N.J. for a year as a member of a “Hawk Missile”…
Col. Bob Carroll never mentioned he was awarded a “Silver Star” in Vietnam “For Gallantry in Action.” The Manasota Key, Fla. resident also has an 8 X 10, black and white, framed photograph of President Lyndon Johnson pinning the medal on him at Fort Benning, Ga. The commendation accompanying the medal says it all.
Sgt. Bryan Coward is in an elite group. He’s part of a handful of local students attending one of the United States’ military academies. Coward is midway through his junior year at West Point. He is a 2003 graduate of Charlotte High School in Punta Gorda, Fla. His parents, Tony and Sandee Coward , live…
Before he worked for the Central Intelligence Agency, and the Defense Intelligence Agency, Jack Bohan of Englewood, Fla. began his second hitch in the Navy serving aboard a destroyer during the Korean War.
Jim Fraser already had two years of college behind him at the Missouri School of Mines when he got a chance to take a competitive exam in 1944, along with 360 other potential candidates, for the United States Military Academy at West Point.
Second Lt. Bryan Coward officially became an officer and a gentleman May 26, 2007 upon graduation from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, together with 977 classmates — members all of the “Long Gray Line.”
Col. James Oliver Stephenson of Venice, at 93, may be the oldest West Point graduate in southwest Florida.
When Ruth Russell of Charlotte Ratchets, south of Punta Gorda, joined the Army in 1973 it was still known as the Women’s Army Corps. In short, the WACs.
War Tales 