#veteranoftheday

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#VeteranOfTheDay Army Veteran Beau Biden - VA News

Today’s #VeteranOfTheDay is Army Veteran Beau Biden. On May 30, 2015, Beau passed away at Walter Reed Medical Center after a fight with brain cancer.

Today’s #VeteranOfTheDay is Army Veteran Beau Biden. Beau served in Iraq. Beau was born in Wilmington, Delaware in 1969. At the age of three, he survived a car accident that claimed the lives of his mother and sister. He joined the military in 2003 as a member of the Delaware Army National Guard. He in the Judge

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#VeteranOfTheDay Army Veteran William Wooldridge - VA News

Today’s #VeteranOfTheDay is Army Veteran William Wooldridge, who was the first Sergeant Major of the Army.

Army Veteran William Wooldridge served for more than 30 years and became the first Sergeant Major of the Army. Wooldridge was born in 1922 in Shawnee, Oklahoma, but grew up in Texas. He enlisted into the Army on Nov. 11, 1940, at Fort Worth, Texas. He was

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#Repost @deptvetaffairs • • • • • • Today’s #VeteranOfTheDay is Marine Veteran Ruth Streeter, who served as the first director of the U.S. Marine Corps Women’s Reserve. Streeter was born in October 1895 in Brookline, MA. She grew up attending schools abroad and graduated from Bryn Mawr College in PA in 1918. Out of college, Streeter met her husband and moved to New Jersey to raise her four children with him. During the Great Depression, Streeter began humanitarian aid efforts, volunteering in public health, unemployment relief and care for the elderly in her community. In 1940, Streeter transitioned out of welfare development positions and pursued a lifelong dream of attaining her pilot's license. Streeter at the time had two sons in the Navy and one in the Army, and desired to join the military like them and put her flying skills to use. However, after being rejected several times from WAVES and WAFS due to her age, she applied for the Marine Corps Women’s Reserve, where she subsequently became the director. As director, Streeter sought to promote more opportunities for women in the @marines other than clerical and administrative roles. Streeter, and other female officers, faced backlash from many male Marines and public skepticism about women serving during WWII. The public attitude had shifted from an “early enthusiasm for women in uniform” to “a nasty, demeaning smear campaign that started as a whisper and grew to a roar.” Streeter toured the country with her public relations officer to ease public concerns and advocate for women’s right and place in the #military. Streeter remained firm in her beliefs and developed the formal goal to have 18,000 women in the Marine Corps Women’s Reserve. In June 1944, shortly after Streeter was promoted colonel, the Marine Corps Women’s Reserve reached its goal of employing 18,000 women. For her service, Streeter was awarded the American Campaign Medal, the World War II Victory Medal and the Legion of Merit, the highest award received by a female Marine during the war. Streeter passed away September 1990 in Morristown, NJ. We honor her service. #womenshistorymonth #womenshistory #women #veterans #herstory #USMC #Semperfidel https://www.instagram.com/p/CptIE5BPRCv/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

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#Repost @deptvetaffairs • • • • • • Today’s #VeteranOfTheDay is Marine Corps Veteran Steve McQueen, who served as a tank driver and mechanic during his service from 1947 to 1950. Terrence Stephen “Steve” McQueen was born in March 1930 in Beech Grove, Indiana, to Julian Crawford and William McQueen. He joined the United States Merchant Marines for a short time in 1946, then worked various jobs until 1947, when he joined the United States Marine Corps. Although McQueen completed basic training at Parris Island, South Carolina, his track record with authority caused him to be demoted to private at least seven times. During an exercise, however, McQueen saved five of his fellow Marines by removing them from a tank before it fell through the ice-covered Arctic sea. Eventually, he was assigned to the honor guard and was tasked with protecting the USS Williamsburg, the presidential yacht for President Harry S. Truman. He also worked as a tank driver and mechanic. He was honorably discharged in 1950. After his time in the Marine Corps, McQueen used the G.I. Bill, and took acting lessons in New York. In 1952, he studied at the Herbert Berghof Studio through a scholarship. He made his Broadway debut in the 1955 show "A Hatful of Rain," and went on to star in various other works, including the 1958 horror film "The Blob," the CBS Western series "Wanted: Dead or Alive" and the 1960 Western film "The Magnificent Seven." His anti-hero characters led him to be regarded as one of the most popular actors of the 1960s and 1970s and known by fans as “The King of Cool.” McQueen received various nominations and awards during his acting career, including two Golden Globes and a Jules Verne Award. He also received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1986. McQueen died at age 50 in November 1980. We honor his service. https://www.instagram.com/p/CnPm8HmPhLl/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

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#Repost @deptvetaffairs • • • • • • Today’s #VeteranOfTheDay is U.S. Army Veteran Elsie Chin Yuen Seetoo, who served during World War II from 1944 to 1946. Seetoo was born in Stockton, California, in 1918. When she was 12 years old, her father closed his grocery store due to constraints from the Great Depression and moved the family to Xinhui in the Guangong Province in China. In October 1938, she started nursing training at Queen Mary Hospital in Hong Kong. After the Japanese invasion of Hong Kong, Seetoo joined the Chinese Red Cross Medical Relief Corps in Guiyang; she spent eight months there before leaving to serve in India. She returned to China in 1943 and was stationed in Kunming in China’s southern Yunnan Province where she continued her medical training. In 1944, Seetoo joined the U.S. Army Nurse Corps and was commissioned as a first lieutenant. She was first assigned to the 14th Air Force as a member of the Air Service Command. She was then assigned to the 95th Station Hospital Kunming and Chengdu. In 1945, she was stationed with the 172nd General Hospital in Shanghai and continued serving there until the end of World War II. She returned to the United States in February 1946 and was discharged from the Army. After the war, Seetoo used the G.I, Bill to attend the Women's College of the University of North Carolina in Greensboro. There she received her bachelor’s degree in nursing. She married Joseph Yuen, and they raised their family in Washington, D.C. She became a translator, working to translate Chinese medical literature into English and later worked as a technical publications writer and editor for the Naval Medical Center and the National Institutes of Health. She retired in the mid-1980s. Seetoo has four children, seven grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren. In December 2020, Seetoo received a Congressional Gold Medal. We honor her service. #HonoringVets #Veterans https://www.instagram.com/p/CdkZ6PquAK8/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

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#Repost @deptvetaffairs • • • • • • Today’s #VeteranOfTheDay is Army Veteran Barney F. Hajiro. Denied a Medal of Honor for his service during World War II, He received it 56 years later. Barney Fushimi Hajiro was born in Hawaii in September 1916. Hajiro was drafted into the Army in early 1942, shortly after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor drew the United States into World War II. He initially served with an engineering battalion but was limited to performing acts of menial labor because, due to his Japanese heritage, he was not allowed to carry a weapon. Wanting to prove his loyalty to his country, Hajiro volunteered to serve with the 442nd Regimental Combat Team. Over the course of 10 days in October 1944, Hajiro was involved in three separate combat engagements in France. On Oct. 19, he assisted Allied troops by standing on an embankment and drawing hostile fire while shooting at snipers; on Oct. 22, he and another soldier ambushed an 18-man patrol, killing two and capturing the rest. On Oct. 29, Hajiro led a charge against an enemy position dubbed “Suicide Hill,” running a distance of 100 yards while under enemy fire, killing two snipers and destroying two machine gun nests. In this last battle, Hajiro was shot four times. Bullet wounds to his shoulder and wrist left one of his arms partially paralyzed, and he was barred from further combat duty before being sent back to the United States to recover. Hajiro was originally awarded a Distinguished Service Cross for his actions, one of three he received over the course of his career. However, in the 1990s, a congressional review determined that racist attitudes during and after World War II had led soldiers of Asian descent to be discriminated against. In 2000, at a White House ceremony, President Bill Clinton awarded Hajiro and 21 other Asian American Veterans the Medals of Honor they had once been denied. Hajiro died on Jan. 21, 2011. At the time of his death, he was the oldest living Medal of Honor recipient, aged 94. Hajiro is buried in the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Hawaii. We honor his service. https://www.instagram.com/p/CdEJNa5JblO/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

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#Repost @deptvetaffairs • • • • • • Today’s #VeteranOfTheDay is Army Air Forces Veteran Burgess Meredith, who found fame as an actor known as a Batman villain. Oliver Burgess Meredith was born in Cleveland in November 1907. The youngest of three children, he began acting in grammar school. In 1942, during World War II, Meredith joined the Army Air Forces (AAF). As part of the Office of War Information, Meredith helped to create training and recruiting films for the military. He wrote, produced and starred in them himself. Meredith appeared in both “A Welcome to Britain” alongside comedian Bob Hope and in “The Rear Gunner” with Ronald Reagan, future president of the United States. Meredith was placed on inactive duty in 1944 so that he could play the part of war correspondent Ernie Pyle in the film “The Story of G.I. Joe.” He was discharged from the AAF with the rank of captain in 1945. In 1966, he was cast as the villainous Penguin in the “Batman” television series, wearing an iconic top hat and monocle and speaking with a distinctive, quacking laugh – a habit that Meredith developed as a result of coughing on the smoke from the Penguin’s cigarettes. “Of all the roles I’ve ever done,” Meredith said, “this is the first time my own kids have wanted to watch me.” A decade after his debut as the Penguin, Meredith was cast in another career-defining role: that of Mickey Goldmill, Rocky Balboa’s curmudgeonly trainer in “Rocky.” The part brought Meredith an Academy Award nomination, and he reprised the role alongside Sylvester Stallone in several sequels. “Mickey is one of my favorite characters,” Meredith said in a 1983 interview. “I’ve seen a lot of men like him in my time – beaten people who have been worn down by life.” Though fame came to Meredith late in life he always looked forward to his next role and had no interest in retiring. “I’m a worker and I like to keep working,” he wrote in his 1994 autobiography. We honor his service. https://www.instagram.com/p/Cc35Gk9v_-8/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

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#Repost @deptvetaffairs • • • • • • Today’s #VeteranOfTheDay is Coast Guard Veteran Cesar Julio Romero Jr., who served during World War II and was a dancer and actor with a long career. Cesar Julio Romero Jr. was born in New York in February 1907. The grandson of Cuban poet and revolutionary José Martí, Romero was born into a family of wealthy immigrants who worked in the sugar export business but lost much of their money in the stock market crash of 1929. In the 1930s, Romero moved into theatrical productions and motion pictures, making his screen debut in the 1933 mystery film “The Shadow Laughs.” Tall and handsome, he fit the classic image of the “Latin lover.” Despite his good looks and acting ability, Romero found himself typecast and rarely appeared in lead roles. He starred as “The Cisco Kid” in a series of six westerns released between 1939 and 1941. During World War II, Romero took a break from acting. He enlisted in the U.S. Coast Guard in 1942 and deployed to the Pacific Theater. Romero reported for duty aboard the assault transport USS Cavalier in 1943 and took part in the Allied invasions of Tinian and Saipan. A hard worker who requested no special treatment, Romero was admired by his shipmates. When circumstances allowed for recreation, he would help to put on a variety show for the crew. At the end of the war, Romero was honorably discharged at the rank of chief boatswain’s mate. After the war, Romero returned to acting. Throughout a career that spanned seven decades, he played a wide variety of characters but may be best remembered for his appearance in the 1966 “Batman” television series, in which he played the part of the villainous Joker. In contrast to later, darker portrayals of the character by other actors, Romero’s campy version of the Joker was a clown rather than a killer. Years after “Batman” went off the air, fans would stop Romero on the street and ask him to duplicate the Joker’s distinctive laugh, a request he readily obliged. He refused, however, to shave his signature mustache while playing the role, forcing makeup artists to simply cover it up with white face paint; it can still be seen in close-ups. We honor his service. https://www.instagram.com/p/CcyCdGVJyT7/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=