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America on Vacation

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The Green Machine This great Nation & Its People

Welcome Home Troop!

Remains of Korean War veteran finally come home after being MIA for 71 years

A Korean War veteran who went missing in action 71 years ago is finally coming back home to his final resting place.

The remains of Cpl. David B. Milano were brought back to the United States by members of the Utah National Guard and arrived at the Salt Lake City International Airport on April 26.

“Corporal Milano’s remains were returned to the United States as a result of a repatriation agreement between the U.S. and Korean governments,” according to his obituary. 

Korean War vet edit

Freeze frame of National Guard members receiving the remains of Cpl. David B. Milano on April 26, 2022. (Staff Sgt. Jordan Hack via Utah National Guard Public Affairs)

Milano went MIA during a battle in the vicinity of the Chosin Reservoir in North Korea on Dec. 2, 1950. He was ranked Private First Class when he went missing but was promoted to the grade of Corporal on May 1, 1953.

All of Milano’s remains were accounted for on April 14, 2020, and they were turned over to American service members to be returned home.

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Freeze frame of remains of Cpl. David B. Milano arriving to Salt Lake City International Airport on April 26, 2022. (Staff Sgt. Jordan Hack via Utah National Guard Public Affairs)

Milano was born in Chicago, Illinois, on Dec. 23, 1932, to Albert and Linda Milano, according to his obituary.

He enlisted in the United States Army on March 13, 1950, and was originally assigned to be deployed to Germany but was reassigned to serve in Korea.

“As a patriot and defender of freedom, he chose to accept his assignment to Korea,” his obituary read.

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Freeze frame of National Guard members receiving the remains of Cpl. David B. Milano on April 26, 2022. (Staff Sgt. Jordan Hack via Utah National Guard Public Affairs)

“We’re finally getting closure,” Milano’s nephew Kevin Jordan told FOX 13 News. 

“It’s a miracle, it’s unreal what we’ve all experienced,” Jordan added. “When we first got the news, it set in. And now, with the plane landing and the coffin coming off the plane, for me, that’s when it really hit me hard. I felt it. I felt it in my heart and in my soul. We were united again.”

This story was reported out of Los Angeles. 

 

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Two Hundred Forty-Seven Years Ago…

“Major John Pitcairn at the head of the Regular Grenadiers,” detail from The Battle of Lexington, April 19th. 1775. Plate I, by Amos Doolittle, 1775.

Twenty-three-year-old Sylvanus Wood was one of the Lexington militia who answered the call that spring morning. Several years after the event he committed his recollection to paper in an affidavit sworn before a Justice of the Peace which was first published in 1858:

When I arrived there, I inquired of Captain Parker, the commander of the Lexington company, what was the news. Parker told me he did not know what to believe, for a man had come up about half an hour before and informed him that the British troops were not on the road. But while we were talking, a messenger came up and told the captain that the British troops were within half a mile. Parker immediately turned to his drummer, William Diman, and ordered him to beat to arms, which was done. Captain Parker then asked me if I would parade with his company. I told him I would. Parker then asked me if the young man with me would parade. I spoke to Douglass, and he said he would follow the captain and me.”I, Sylvanus Wood, of Woburn, in the county of Middlesex, and commonwealth of Massachusetts, aged seventy-four years, do testify and say that on the morning of the 19th of April, 1775, I was an inhabitant of Woburn, living with Deacon Obadiah Kendall; that about an hour before the break of day on said morning, I heard the Lexington bell ring, and fearing there was difficulty there, I immediately arose, took my gun and, with Robert Douglass, went in haste to Lexington, which was about three miles distant.

By this time many of the company had gathered around the captain at the hearing of the drum, where we stood, which was about half way between the meetinghouse and Buckman’s tavern. Parker says to his men, ‘Every man of you, who is equipped, follow me; and those of you who are not equipped, go into the meeting-house and furnish yourselves from the magazine, and immediately join the company.’ Parker led those of us who were equipped to the north end of Lexington Common, near the Bedford Road, and formed us in single file. I was stationed about in the centre of the company. While we were standing, I left my place and went from one end of the company to the other and counted every man who was paraded, and the whole number was thirty-eight, and no more.

Just as I had finished and got back to my place, I perceived the British troops had arrived on the spot between the meeting-house and Bucknian’s, near where Captain Parker stood when he first led off his men. The British troops immediately wheeled so as to cut off those who had gone into the meeting-house. The British troops approached us rapidly in platoons, with a general officer on horseback at their head. The officer came up to within about two rods of the centre of the company, where I stood, the first platoon being about three rods distant. They there halted. The officer then swung his sword, and said, ‘Lay down your arms, you damned rebels, or you are all dead men. Fire!’ Some guns were fired by the British at us from the first platoon, but no person was killed or hurt, being probably charged only with powder.

Just at this time, Captain Parker ordered every man to take care of himself. The company immediately dispersed; and while the company was dispersing and leaping over the wall, the second platoon of the British fired and killed some of our men. There was not a gun fired by anv of Captain Parker’s company, within my knowledge. I was so situated that I must have known it, had any thing of the kind taken place before a total dispersion of our company. I have been intimately acquainted with the inhabitants of Lexington, and particularly with those of Captain Parker’s company, and, with one exception, I have never heard any of them say or pretend that there was any firing at the British from Parker’s company, or any individual in it until within a year or two. One member of the company told me, many years since, that, after Parker’s company had dispersed, and he was at some distance, he gave them ‘the guts of his gun.’”

And the first rounds were fired…

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A man who really was a stud!

May be an image of outdoors, monument and text that says 'NEAR THIS SPOT SAMUEL WHITTEMORE THEN 80 YEARS OLD, KILLED THREE BRITISH SOLDIERS APRIL 19.1775 He WAS SHOT BAYONETED BEATEN AND LEFT FOR DEAD BUT RECOVE AND LIVED TOBE98 OF AGE'

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Soldiering This great Nation & Its People

Another wild man that really left an impression on the USMC

Brigadier General, United States Marine Corps Florida State Flag

Back in the Old Corps, at a time when the average Leatherneck stood 5’8″ and weighed scarcely 148 pounds, young Bo Harllee, a square-jawed, hard-nosed, independent thinker from rural Florida, was already larger than life — a strapping 6’2″, 197 pounds.

He came by his commission the hard way, after being discharged from the Citadel for excessive demerits, and later tossed out of West Point (where he stood second in his class, but was deemed “too strong, too colorful, too willful, too independent a character”) for “deficiencies in discipline.”

He distinguished himself in action during the Philippine Insurrection of 1899 as a 22 ‘year old’ Corporal with the 33rd U.S. Volunteer Infantry. And on February 2, 1900, he finished first among all applicants in the competitive examinations for commissioning in the United States Marine Corps. He was commissioned a year ahead of his less colorful classmates at West Point.

As a Marine, Bo Harllee was always surrounded by controversy. He was very nearly court-martialed a number of times — especially when, in 1917, on the eve of our reluctant entry into World War I, he testified before Congress: “… The biggest challenge, the most serious problem if war should come, will be working off the old dead wood which has risen to the top by the passage of time.” (Politically correct he was not.)

He retired a Colonel in 1935 but he was advanced to Brigadier General (a distinction awarded for his valorous service) in 1942.

He was laid to rest at Arlington National Cemetary by an escort of 8th & I Marines, in November 1944. He is buried next to our 13th Commandant, Major General John A. Lejeune.

So, who was Bo Harllee? Well, he was “The Father of Rifle Practice,” regarded in his own time as our nation’s preeminent authority on small arms marksmanship training; the first Marine officer to qualify Expert with the service rifle. He was our first Public Affairs Officer, opening the Marine Corps’ very first “publicity office,” in Chicago, Illinois, where he revolutionized our recruiting service (and was frequently under investigation by Headquarters Marine Corps). He was “first to fight” — a superb combat leader as a Marine who distinguished himself in action in the Philippines, in China during the Boxer Rebellion, at Vera Cruz, and in Cuba, Haiti, and in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.

So when John A. Lejeune needed someone to ensure the success and survival of his radical invention, the Marine Corps Institute, he knew precisely who to turn to: Lieutenant Colonel William C. Harllee. And so it was that Bo Harllee became another “first” — the first Director of MCI.

On February 2, 1995, 95 years to the day after Bo Harllee earned his commission, we celebrated, at Lejeune Hall in the Historic Washington Navy Yard, the 75th Anniversary of the Founding of the Marine Corps Institute. And high tribute was paid to the immortal John A. Lejeune, the founding father of MCI. But all these years later, much of what is ours to celebrate is really attributable to a lesser known, always controversial and colorful, unsung “giant” of our Corps — the man General Lejeune judiciously picked to pull it off and “make it happen,” Bo Harllee.

“… Without Harllee’s power to defy tradition, without his tremendous drive and vitality, the success of General Lejeune’s school, might not have been so successful … The success of the program was largely due to the intelligent, fiery, and even rebellious nature of Colonel Harllee.” (Marine Corps Gazette, February 1950).


Brigadier General William C. Harllee, U.S. Marine Corps, had a dream of making America a nation of marksmen. With strong ties to the National Rifle Association, he first taught the Marines how to shoot, then the Navy, and later soldiers, civilians & women. He became known as ‘the Father of Rifle Practice’ in the Marine Corps.”