Author Topic: Piggyback Hero  (Read 438 times)

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Offline SZonian

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Piggyback Hero
« on: March 24, 2017, 09:45:22 pm »
In 2003 they laid the remains of Glenn Rojohn to rest in the Peace Lutheran Cemetery in the little town of Greenock, Pa., just southeast of Pittsburgh. He was 81, and had been in the air conditioning and plumbing business in nearby McKeesport. If you had seen him on the street he would probably have looked to you like so many other graying, bespectacled old World War II veterans whose names appear so often now on obituary pages.

But like so many of them, though he seldom talked about it, he could have told you one hell of a story. He won the Air Medal, the Distinguished Flying Cross and the Purple Heart all in one fell swoop in the skies over Germany on December 31, 1944. Fell swoop indeed.

Capt. Glenn Rojohn, of the 8th Air Force’s 100th Bomb Group was flying his B-17G Flying Fortress bomber on a raid over Hamburg. His formation had braved heavy flak to drop their bombs, then turned 180 degrees to head out over the North Sea. They had finally turned northwest, headed back to England, when they were jumped by German fighters at 22,000 feet. The Messerschmitt Me-109s pressed their attack so closely that Capt. Rojohn could see the faces of the German pilots.

[excerpted]
https://www.warhistoryonline.com/featured/piggybackhero.html
Throwing our allegiances to political parties in the long run gave away our liberty.

Offline Fishrrman

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Re: Piggyback Hero
« Reply #1 on: March 25, 2017, 01:41:05 am »
Great story, read it all.

Offline Smokin Joe

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Re: Piggyback Hero
« Reply #2 on: March 25, 2017, 02:14:55 am »
Wow.
How God must weep at humans' folly! Stand fast! God knows what he is doing!
Seventeen Techniques for Truth Suppression

Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.

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Offline Sanguine

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Re: Piggyback Hero
« Reply #3 on: March 25, 2017, 02:48:58 am »
Good story.