2011 SCHEDULE - NOTE TUESDAY MEETINGS

555 Christmas Stockings Enjoyed in Afganistan

Below is SGT Shamp's message to us:

Thank you for the box of Christmas Stockings! It got here just in time. I collected them up and passed them around to the guys that were around and they all wanted me to thank you guys. The lens of my camera had dust on it when I was taking the pictures, but I guess that just adds to the "realness" of the images!
Merry Christmas! Mason

PFC Liber Berardinelli

Indigent WWII vet in Ohio gets proper burial

By Brian Albrecht - The (Cleveland) Plain Dealer via AP
Posted : Monday Apr 26, 2010 22:07:25 EDT

RITTMAN, Ohio — Army Pfc. wasn't alone when he fought across France and Germany during World War II.

He had buddies to watch his back.

And the 85-year-old former infantryman from Euclid wasn't alone Friday, when he was laid to rest at the Ohio Western Reserve National Cemetery in Rittman.

He may have died indigent, and there may not have been any family or friends to say goodbye at the funeral, but he had buddies there, too.

The first link in a chain of caring started with Michael Brown, assistant law director for the city of Euclid, whose duties include arranging for the burial or cremation of indigent residents.

He handles about a dozen such cases every year. But the one involving the April 5 death of Berardinelli brought back a rush of old memories.

Berardinelli had been his neighbor on Dille Road when Brown was growing up. Brown had cut the guy's grass. Berardinelli's wife, Bessie, made extra spaghetti sauce for the Brown kids. The Berardinellis attended all the graduations and first communions of the Browns. And the Browns went over to Berardinelli's house every Christmas Eve.

"He was a really nice guy. Very friendly," Brown recalled. "Just a down-to-earth guy."

Sometimes the vet, who worked as a school crossing guard, would talk about the war. About landing on the D-Day beaches of Normandy where — as Brown said Berardinelli once put it — "your life expectancy was about 15 seconds."

When Brown received notice of Berardinelli's death and indigent status, he was unable to find any family members. So he decided to make sure the old soldier got a proper military burial.

"He was a good guy and he served our country, and he deserved to be treated like that," he said.

Berardinelli actually had two brothers, Anthony, 82, of Cleveland Heights, and Joseph, 84, of Cleveland. But Anthony Berardinelli said Friday that he and Anthony had been estranged from Liber, at his insistence, since their high school days in Collinwood.

He was not aware that his older brother had died.

After confirming Berardinelli's military history through the county Veterans Service Commission, Brown contacted the Corrigan Craciun Funeral Home to arrange for a casket, hearse and transportation.

Jim Craciun, a manager of the funeral home, said the Veterans Service Commission provides $995 toward the burial expenses of indigent veterans. The sum doesn't cover the actual costs, he said, but "if you're not doing this, you're not doing what you should be doing in the community.

"Everybody's helping out," he added. "Us, this attorney (Brown), the people of Cuyahoga County, the cemetery. This guy's going to get a beautiful service."

Come Friday, as the one-car funeral procession traveled from Cleveland to the national cemetery, preparations were under way to provide Berardinelli with full military honors.

Every veteran and spouse gets a burial plot, vault, headstone and perpetual care at the cemetery, where 65 percent of the graves are those of World War II veterans.

Each vet also gets ceremonial honors including a three-volley rifle salute, the playing of "Taps" and the formal folding and presentation of an American flag by active-duty military members.

"It doesn't matter whether you have money or not. Everybody gets this, everybody deserves this," said Lorri Tagliaferro, cemetery program assistant. "That's the least we can do for them.

"Nobody goes out alone," she added. Sometimes when mourners are totally absent, cemetery volunteers will step in.

When the hearse bearing Berardinelli's casket pulled up to the cemetery's open air chapel, members of the 555th Honors Detachment of Wooster braced to attention. For the ceremonial flag, rifle and bugle salutes, 41 volunteer honor teams of Northeast Ohio veterans rotate the cemetery duty.

As the hearse arrived with no motorcycle escort, no procession, no grieving relatives and no pallbearers, Detachment member Russ Davidson, 60, a Vietnam-era veteran, noted, "It happens, and it's unfortunate.

"But he's entitled to the same ceremony as anybody else," he added. "That's who we're doing this for — the veteran. As for us, it's just our way of giving back."

A cemetery worker wheeled Berardinelli's casket into the chapel, where the air hung heavy and suitably somber.

Michael Brown took a front seat, a lone mourner in a chapel of empty benches and whispered breezes.

A member of the honor team read a poem, "Reflection on a Friend."

"... We do not know if he was enlisted or called. We know that when his country called, he answered ..."

Seven rifles drilled into the blue skies overhead. "Taps" drifted from an invisible bugler via the chapel sound system.

Two white-gloved members of the Ohio Army National Guard's Honor Team removed the flag covering the casket and crisply tucked it into a triangle. Staff Sgt. Larry Jenkins handed the folded flag to Brown, in lieu of a loved one, with the formal "on behalf of a grateful nation" salutation.

As usual. As always. Everything to the military letter in 13 minutes flat. The only thing missing was people.

Yet for Brown, a guy who had seen this through solely on the weight of some distant childhood memories, it was an unexpectedly moving tribute.

Red-faced, clutching the flag to his chest, he said, "I feel — I don't know — more emotional than I thought I would.

"But I feel good," he added. "He was paid his respects for serving his country, and I feel good. I wanted to be here, so I'd know he was taken care of."

Brown walked back to the hearse for the long ride home, a buddy that Liber Berardinelli never knew he had.

But as it turned out, one of many.

Military Fellowship Endures

When a Veteran leaves the 'job' and retires to a
better life, many are jealous, some are pleased, and others,
who may have already retired, wonder if he knows what he is
leaving behind, because we already know.

1. We know, for example, that after a lifetime of
camaraderie that few experience, it will remain as a longing
for those past times.

2. We know in the Military life there is a fellowship which
lasts long after the uniforms are hung up in the back of the
closet.

3. We know even if he throws them away, they will be on him
with every step and breath that remains in his life. We also
know how the very bearing of the man speaks of what he was
and in his heart still is.

These are the burdens of the job. You will still look at
people suspiciously, still see what others do not see or
choose to ignore and always will look at the rest of the
Military world with a respect for what they do; only grown
in a lifetime of knowing.

Never think for one moment you are escaping from that life.
You are only escaping the 'job' and merely being
allowed to leave 'active' duty.

So what I wish for you is that whenever you ease into
retirement, in your heart you never forget for one moment
that you are still a member of the greatest fraternity the
world has ever known.

NOW! Civilian Friends vs. Veteran Friends Comparisons

CIVILIAN FRIENDS: Get upset if you're too busy to talk
to them for a week.
VETERAN FRIENDS: Are glad to see you after years, and will
happily carry on the same conversation you were having the
last time you met.
------------------------------ ---------------------
CIVILIAN FRIENDS: Have never seen you cry.
VETERAN FRIENDS: Have cried with you.
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CIVILIAN FRIENDS: Keep your stuff so long they forget
it's yours.
VETERAN FRIENDS: Borrow your stuff for a few days then give
it back.
------------------------------ -------------------
CIVILIAN FRIENDS: Know a few things about you.
VETERAN FRIENDS: Could write a book with direct quotes from
you.
---------------------------------------------------
CIVILIAN FRIENDS: Will leave you behind if that's what
the crowd is doing.
VETERAN FRIENDS: Will kick the crowd's ass that left
you behind.
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CIVILIAN FRIENDS: Are for a while.
VETERAN FRIENDS: Are for life.
----------------------------------------------------------
CIVILIAN FRIENDS: Have shared a few experiences.
VETERAN FRIENDS: Have shared a lifetime of experiences no
citizen could ever dream of.
---------------------------------------------------
CIVILIAN FRIENDS: Will take your drink away when they think
you've had enough.
VETERAN FRIENDS: Will look at you stumbling all over the
place and say, 'You better drink the rest of that before
you spill it!' Then carry you home safely and put you to
bed...
----------------------------------------------------
CIVILIAN FRIENDS: Will talk crap to the person who talks
crap about you.
VETERAN FRIENDS: Will knock the hell out OF THEM for
using your name in vain.
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CIVILIAN FRIENDS: Will ignore this.
VETERAN FRIENDS: Will forward this.
----------------------------------------------------
A veteran - whether active duty, retired, or reserve- is
someone who, at one point in their life, wrote a blank check
made payable to 'The Government of the United States of
America ' for an amount of 'up to and including my
life'.
From one Veteran to another, it's an honor to be in your company. Thank you