Posted on 06/20/2006 4:14:32 AM PDT by Pharmboy
Corbis
Sgt. Alvin C. York, on a visit in February 1919 to the hill at Châtel-Chéhéry, where 132 Germans surrendered.
CHÂTEL-CHÉHÉRY, France On Oct. 8, 1918, Cpl. Alvin Cullum York and 16 other American doughboys stumbled upon more than a dozen German soldiers having breakfast in a boggy hollow here.
The ensuing firefight ended with the surrender of 132 Germans and won Corporal York a promotion to sergeant, the Congressional Medal of Honor and a place in America's pantheon of war heroes.
Now another battle is unfolding as rival researchers use global positioning systems and computer programs, old maps and military reports to try to establish the exact site of the fighting on that day 88 years ago. Their heated examinations do not challenge the essential heroism of Sergeant York, yet such scrutiny helps explain why it is hard to be a hero these days.
There are other reasons, too, of course. Wars are often unpopular clashes fraught with moral ambiguity, and while the news media are often attracted to heroism, they also like to challenge myth building.
The military's attempt to turn Pfc. Jessica Lynch into a hero after the invasion of Iraq unraveled when it emerged that she had not emptied her rifle at advancing Iraqi soldiers, as first reported. The initial accounts of Cpl. Pat Tillman's death in Afghanistan in April 2004 came undone when it was disclosed that the corporal, a former N.F.L. star, had been killed by members of his own unit.
Military abuses now have a longer shelf life than acts of derring-do.
It was easier to create heroic stories in 1918 when the press was more pliable and the public more gullible, and the popular media had a fondness for uplifting tales of uncomplicated bravery.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Not hardly.
and when newspapers like the New York slimes could be shut down for sedition
NY Slimes doing what it does best: tearing an American hero apart.
how long before someone claims that York was gay?
In Sgt. York's day, gay was something else. He might have been gay, in his day.
How often I wonder what the Saints would say of the sad and sorry state of our fringe culture these days? A time when the Commmander in Chief (Mr. Hillary Clinton) gotta hummer in the Oval Office. They are turning in their graves.
God Bless men like Sgt. York of yesterday and our honorable GIs of today.
All he wanted was a piece of Bottom Land.
Unfortunately he would die a pauper. The movie would bring him fame and fortune and an IRS audit. He would loose his farm, family and fortitude!
My grandmother, Lila May Roark, nee Gilbert, grew up with and went to school with Alvin York and remembered him him very well. I asked her, before her death in 1964, if the facts portrayed in the movie "Sgt. York", were true.
Her reply was that the portrayal his early life prior to the war was based very much in truth and that he was a ruffian and man you did not want to cross prior to his finding God. After his self-conversion and dedication to Christ she said you have never seen a man change so much.
After which she proceeded to show me great uncle Elzie's (Elisha) shirt that he wore when he was killed in Harlan, Kentucky. He was shot three times with a .44 across a card table for cheating. Her words to me were, "Uncle Elzie were a sportin' man, you better stay right in your ways or you'll wind up like him."
I listed to my gandma, stayed fairly right, and bought myself a S&W .44 Special. Hand no problems ever since
My grandmother, Lila May Roark, nee Gilbert, grew up with and went to school with Alvin York and remembered him him very well. I asked her, before her death in 1964, if the facts portrayed in the movie "Sgt. York", were true.
Her reply was that the portrayal his early life prior to the war was based very much in truth and that he was a ruffian and man you did not want to cross prior to his finding God. After his self-conversion and dedication to Christ she said you have never seen a man change so much.
After which she proceeded to show me great uncle Elzie's (Elisha) shirt that he wore when he was killed in Harlan, Kentucky. He was shot three times with a .44 across a card table for cheating. Her words to me were, "Uncle Elzie were a sportin' man, you better stay right in your ways or you'll wind up like him."
I listed to my gandma, stayed fairly right, and bought myself a S&W .44 Special. Hand no problems ever since
Sounds like you have some interesting history in your family...thanks for the info.
One of my customers in Cookeville, TN has a framed flyer advertising the liquidation of Sgt. York's estate on his office wall. IIRC, it mentions hogs, chickens, and other farm type stuff. Nothing of real value, save that it all belonged to a humble American hero.
Read later.
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