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Obit watch: August 9, 2022.

Tuesday, August 9th, 2022

I’m thinking about no longer posting obits.

Recently, it seems like as soon as I post one obit watch, two or three or more people die. Clearly, correlation implies causality: my posting obits is making people die, therefore, if I stop posting, people will stop passing away. Right?

Well, it’s a theory, anyway.

David McCullough, historian and author. It is an odd thing: I enjoy history, but I mostly haven’t read any of McCullough’s work, and I don’t know why. (I say “mostly” because we did have some of those Reader’s Digest Condensed Books volumes around the house when I was very young, and one of them had The Johnstown Flood in it. I remember being fascinated, but more for the account of the actual flood itself than the human and engineering factors leading up to it. I should probably grab a copy of the real book somewhere and read it.)

Olivia Newton-John.

In 1970, she was asked to join a crudely manufactured group named Toomorrow, formed by the American producer Don Kirshner in an attempt to repeat his earlier success with the Monkees. Following his grand design, the group starred in a science-fiction film written for them and recorded its soundtrack. Both projects tanked.
“It was terrible, and I was terrible in it,” she later told The New York Times.

The name of the film is also “Toomorrow“, as best as I can tell. There’s a PAL DVD listed on Amazon as “currently unavailable”, but you can get the soundtrack on vinyl.

Lawrence emailed the obit for Lamont Dozier.

In collaboration with the brothers Brian and Eddie Holland, Mr. Dozier wrote songs for dozens of musical acts, but the trio worked most often with Martha and the Vandellas (“Heat Wave,” “Jimmy Mack”), the Four Tops (“Bernadette,” “I Can’t Help Myself”) and especially the Supremes (“You Can’t Hurry Love,” “Baby Love”). Between 1963 and 1972, the Holland-Dozier-Holland team was responsible for more than 80 singles that hit the Top 40 of the pop or R&B charts, including 15 songs that reached No. 1. “It was as if we were playing the lottery and winning every time,” Mr. Dozier wrote in his autobiography, “How Sweet It Is” (2019, written with Scott B. Bomar).

…

Sometimes he would have an idea for a song’s feel: He wrote the Four Tops’ “Reach Out I’ll Be There” thinking about Bob Dylan’s phrasing on “Like a Rolling Stone.” Sometimes he concocted an attention-grabbing gimmick, like the staccato guitars at the beginning of the Supremes’ “You Keep Me Hangin’ On” that evoked a radio news bulletin.
And sometimes Mr. Dozier uttered a real-life sentence that worked in song, as he did one night when he was in a Detroit motel with a girlfriend and a different girlfriend started pounding on the door. He pleaded with the interloper, “Stop, in the name of love” — and then realized the potency of what he had said. The Holland-Dozier-Holland team quickly hammered the sentence into a three-minute single, the Supremes’ “Stop! In the Name of Love.”

Posted in Books, History, Movies, Music, Obits | 3 Comments »

Short observation on film.

Monday, August 8th, 2022

The Saturday Night Movie Group watched “The Last Emperor” over the weekend.

“The Last Emperor” is a beautiful looking movie. Wikipedia claims the budget was $23.8 million in 1987 dollars and every penny of that shows on the screen. Of course, the production had a lot of help from the Communist Chinese government, so I’m sure they were able to stretch their budget quite a bit…

(IMDB says £23,000,000. I’m not sure what the conversion factor between 1987 pounds and US dollars is.)

Here’s my quick point: $23.8 million in 1987 dollars translates to $62,079,241.20 in 2022 dollars.

The “unspekable” “Batgirl” movie that is allegedly so bad Warner Brothers won’t release it cost $90 to $100 million (sources vary).

I guess talent will out. Helped, of course, by the Commies.

Posted in History, Movies | Comments Closed

Obit watch: August 1, 2022.

Monday, August 1st, 2022

It never fails. I posted an obit watch yesterday, and as soon as I did, it got hectic.

Samuel Sandoval has passed away at the age of 98. Mr. Sandoval served his country with honor during WWII as one of the Navajo code talkers.

Sandoval was among four remaining code talkers still alive today, from the hundreds who had been recruited during the war. The three others who are living include Peter MacDonald, John Kinsel Sr. and Thomas H. Begay.

Nichelle Nichols. THR. Tributes.

I’m sorry if it seems like I’m giving her death short shrift, but her passing has received an enormous amount of attention, and anything I could add at this point would be superfluous.

Bill Russell.

Russell was the ultimate winner. He led the University of San Francisco to N.C.A.A. tournament championships in 1955 and 1956. He won a gold medal with the United States Olympic basketball team in 1956. He led the Celtics to eight consecutive N.B.A. titles from 1959 to 1966, far eclipsing the Yankees’ five straight World Series victories (1949 to 1953) and the Montreal Canadiens’ five consecutive Stanley Cup championships (1956 to 1960).
He was the N.B.A.’s most valuable player five times and an All-Star 12 times.
A reedy, towering figure at 6 feet 10 inches and 220 pounds, Russell was cagey under the basket, able to anticipate an opponent’s shots and gain position for a rebound. And if the ball caromed off the hoop, his tremendous leaping ability almost guaranteed that he’d grab it. He finished his career as the No. 2 rebounder in N.B.A. history, behind his longtime rival Wilt Chamberlain, who had three inches on him.
Russell pulled down 21,620 rebounds, an astonishing average of 22.5 per game, with a single-game high of 51 against the Syracuse Nationals (the forerunners of the Philadelphia 76ers) in 1960.
He didn’t have much of a shooting touch, but he scored 14,522 points — many on high-percentage, short left-handed hook shots — for an average of 15.1 per game. His blocked shots — the total is unrecorded, because such records were not kept in his era — altered games.

Pat Carroll. THR. Other credits include “She’s the Sheriff”, “Too Close For Comfort”, and “ER”.

John Aielli, longtime local public radio host.

Paul Coker Jr. Interesting guy: he was one of the old-time “Mad Magazine” staff (aka the “Usual Gang Of Idiots”). He was also a production designer for Rankin/Bass.

As either a character designer or production designer, Coker lent his talents to such Christmas and Easter specials as Cricket on the Hearth (1967), Frosty the Snowman (1969), Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Town (1970), Here Comes Peter Cottontail (1971), The Year Without a Santa Claus (1974), Rudolph’s Shiny New Year and Frosty’s Winter Wonderland (both 1976), Nestor, the Long-Eared Christmas Donkey and The Easter Bunny Is Comin’ to Town (both 1977), Jack Frost (1979), Pinocchio’s Christmas (1980), The Leprechauns’ Christmas Gold (1981) and Santa, Baby! (2001).

Hattip to Lawrence on this one, and for reminding me to order the Rifftrax of “Nestor the Long-Eared Christmas Donkey” for Christmas viewing this year.

Posted in Christmas, History, Obits, Sports, TV | Comments Closed

Obit watch: July 18, 2022.

Monday, July 18th, 2022

It was a bad weekend for SF writers. Lawrence sent me two obits:

Herbert W. Franke.

…not only studied physics, mathematics, chemistry, psychology and philosophy at the University of Vienna, was the author of numerous science fiction novels and an avid cave explorer.

Eric Flint. I’ve heard good things about his “1632” books, but haven’t read any of them.

Claes Oldenburg, visual artist. His thing seems to have been making huge versions of everyday objects.

One of his most famous installations, erected in 1976 — the bicentennial of the Declaration of Independence — is “Clothespin,” a 45-foot-high, 10-ton black steel sculpture of precisely what the title indicates, complete with a metal spring that appropriately evokes the number 76. The work stands in stark contrast to conventional public sculpture, which Mr. Oldenburg, impersonating a municipal official, said was supposed to involve “bulls and Greeks and lots of nekkid broads.”

Gerald Shargel, criminal lawyer. He defended a lot of Mob guys, including Gotti.

The lanky, bearded lawyer got so close to some Mafia clients that a federal district judge, I. Leo Glasser, removed him from representing one mob figure after prosecutors accused him of serving as “house counsel” to an organized crime family, an allegation he denied.
Mr. Gotti himself also got upset with Mr. Shargel, for being too talkative to reporters. The mob boss was caught on a wiretap warning his lawyer: “I’m gonna show him a better way than the elevator out of his office” (which was on the 32nd floor).

…

When one witness explained that the accessories required for a mob induction included not only a needle to draw blood for the ritual oath, but a bottle of alcohol to sterilize the pinprick, Mr. Shargel asked mordantly: “In other words you were going to get into the Mafia, but you didn’t want to infect your finger?”

Lily Safra. I probably wouldn’t have said anything about this at all, were it not for all the stuff in the obit about the death of husband number four, Edmond J. Safra. (Archive.is link for those who can’t read it otherwise.)

Posted in Art, Books, History, Law, Obits | Comments Closed

Obit watch: July 15, 2022.

Friday, July 15th, 2022

Ivana Trump.

Mark Fleischman, owner of Studio 54.

Owning Studio 54, Fleischman partied with the likes of Andy Warhol, Calvin Klein, Halston, Liza Minelli and Cher. The lifestyle may have taken a toll on the business owner.
“I liked to be high. So I would do drugs and drink. Possibly, this [health condition] is because I drank a lot and did drugs,” he told The Post.

He was 82 years old, and died from assisted suicide in Switzerland.

For the record: Monty Norman, composer of the James Bond theme.

John R. Froines, one of the Chicago Seven.

This isn’t quite an obit, but: according to news reports, the 988 number for access to the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline will go into effect this weekend. The old 1-800-273-8255 number will continue to work as well.

Posted in History, Obits | Comments Closed

Sniper! No sniping!

Thursday, July 14th, 2022

I thought I mentioned this in my NRA Show coverage this year, but apparently not. Mike the Musicologist and I went to a talk by Maj. John L. Plaster, U.S. Army (Ret.), noted sniping expert, on “Sniping in the Ukraine”.

If you were not able to go this year, Maj. Plaster has an article in the new American Rifleman.

Days before the invasion, Bilozerska spoke with Nick Craven of the London Mail newspaper about her feelings on taking enemy lives. “When the enemy crawls toward our position to kill me, does he think if I have a husband, parents or kids? Of course not. And I don’t bother myself with stupid things either. That stuff is for books and movies.”

…

Interestingly, the FSB snipers had British-made Accuracy International AZ rifles chambered in .338 Lapua Mag.

Interesting indeed. From what I’ve read in the two Swift and Bold sniping books, AI keeps very tight control on who their guns go to. Perhaps these went to the FSB back in the good old days?

Individual foreign volunteers, too, have appeared in Donbas, the most notable being a Serbian sniper nicknamed “Deki.” Armed with a quality Russian T-5000 rifle chambered in .338 Lapua Mag., Deki was the focus of a 2018 Russian documentary, “A Sniper’s War.” His sniping ability, however, was questionable, due to his jerking the trigger and carelessly exposing himself at windows.

Posted in Guns, History | 2 Comments »

Obit watch: July 7, 2022.

Thursday, July 7th, 2022

Bradford Freeman. He was 97.

Mr. Freeman was a private first class assigned to a mortar squad in Easy Company, Second Battalion, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division. He took part in the unit’s jump behind Utah Beach in the D-Day invasion of Normandy on June 6, 1944, carrying an 18-pound mortar plate strapped to his chest. Landing in a pasture filled with cows, he helped a fellow soldier with a broken leg hide before joining the rest of his squad.
He fought with Easy Company in its battles with the Germans in France, its parachute drops into the German-occupied Netherlands and the Battle of the Bulge, in bitter cold and snow.
He was unscathed in the fighting at the Bulge’s strategic town of Bastogne, Belgium, but he was wounded at nearby Noville in mid-January 1945. “A Screaming Mimi came in howling and it exploded in my leg,” he told the American Veterans Center in an April 2018 interview, referring to the nickname given by G.I.s to the Germans’ devastating multiple rocket launchers. He returned to Easy Company in April 1945 and participated in its occupation of Berchtesgaden, Hitler’s abandoned mountain retreat near the Austrian border, and then in the occupation of Austria.

According to the paper of record, he was the last surviving member of Easy Company.

Ni Kuang. Interesting guy: he wrote a bunch of screenplays for Shaw Brothers movies, and went on to write a lot of Chinese SF and fantasy. He also hated Commies.

His 1983 novel, “Chasing the Dragon,” was widely cited as a prescient description of the political backdrop that prompted pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong in 2019, followed by a sweeping crackdown.
In the book, Mr. Ni writes about an unnamed metropolis that is reduced to a shell of itself:

There’s no need to destroy the architecture of this big city, no need to kill any of its residents. Even the appearance of the big city could look exactly the same as before. But to destroy and kill this big city, one only needs to make its original merits disappear. And all that would take are stupid words and actions coming from just a few people.

When asked by Mr. Shieh of RTHK what disappearing merits he meant, Mr. Ni said, “Freedom.”
“Freedom of speech is the mother of all freedoms,” he continued. “Without freedom of speech, there is no other freedom at all.”

I saved James Caan for last because I wanted to put in a jump. NYT.

Possible spoilers follow for two of his best movies:

(more…)

Posted in Books, Heroism, History, Movies, Obits | Comments Closed

Obit watch: July 1, 2022.

Friday, July 1st, 2022

Richard Taruskin, musicologist.

An emeritus professor at the University of California, Berkeley, and a specialist in Russian music, Mr. Taruskin was the author of a number of groundbreaking musicological studies, including the sweeping six-volume Oxford History of Western Music. He was also a contributor to The New York Times, where his trenchant, witty, and erudite writings represented a bygone era in which clashes over the meaning of classical music held mainstream import.
“He was the most important living writer on classical music, either in academia or in journalism,” said Alex Ross, music critic of The New Yorker, in a recent interview. “He knew everything, his ideas were potent, and he wrote with dashing style.”

…

His words were anything but sterile: Mr. Taruskin courted controversy in nearly everything he wrote. In the late 1980s, he helped ignite the so-called “Shostakovich Wars” by critiquing the veracity of “Testimony: The Memoirs of Dmitri Shostakovich, as related to and edited by Solomon Volkov” (1979), which portrayed the composer as a secret dissident. (Mr. Volkov is a journalist, historian and musicologist.) Drawing on a careful debunking by the scholar Laurel Fay, Mr. Taruskin called the book’s positive reception “the greatest critical scandal I have ever witnessed.”

…

Mr. Taruskin’s most consequential flamethrowing was his campaign against the movement for “historically authentic” performances of early music. In a series of essays anthologized in his 1995 book “Text and Act,” he argued that the use of period instruments and techniques was an outgrowth of contemporary tastes. He didn’t want conductors like Nikolaus Harnoncourt and Roger Norrington to stop performing; he just wanted them to drop the pretense of “authenticity.” And many did.
“Being the true voice of one’s time is (as Shaw might have said) roughly 40,000 times as vital and important as being the assumed voice of history,” he wrote in The Times in 1990. “To be the expressive medium of one’s own age is — obviously, no? — a far worthier aim than historical verisimilitude. What is verisimilitude, after all, but correctness? And correctness is the paltriest of virtues. It is something to demand of students, not artists.”

…

“I have always considered it important for musicologists to put their expertise at the service of ‘average consumers’ and alert them to the possibility that they are being hoodwinked, not only by commercial interests but by complaisant academics, biased critics, and pretentious performers,” he wrote in 1994.
Mr. Ross said: “Whether you judged him right or wrong, he made you feel that the art form truly mattered on the wider cultural stage.” Mr. Taruskin’s polemics, he added, “ultimately served a constructive goal of taking classical music out of fantasyland and into the real world.”

Posted in Books, History, Music, Obits | Comments Closed

Link of the day.

Friday, July 1st, 2022

Apropos of nothing in particular (no, really, I ran across this link before my vacation and have been meaning to post it):

Edward Stratemeyer & the Stratemeyer Syndicate

Whodewhatnow? Edward Stratemeyer was an author who created the Stratemeyer Syndicate, an early book packager. The Stratemeyer Syndicate brought us the Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, and Tom Swift, among other series.

There’s a lot to mine here. Ever hear of “Ralph of the Railroad“? And I’m kind of wanting to find some “Ted Scott” books as a Christmas present for Someone Who Isn’t Me.

Posted in Books, History | Comments Closed

Happy holidays!

Friday, July 1st, 2022

Apologies for missing Gavrilo Princip Day on Tuesday. I was distracted by some car issues that turned up on both cars in the house: thankfully, those turned out to be minor.

This is not a holiday I usually celebrate, but to make up for missing the last one: Happy Bobby Bonilla Day!

Yes, I know it is baseball. But it also sort of counts as “epic failure”, which makes it more relevant to this blog. (That’s “epic failure” for the Mets, not for Mr. Bonilla.)

Posted in History, Sports | Comments Closed

Obit watch: June 29, 2022.

Wednesday, June 29th, 2022

Hershel “Woody” Williams, big damn hero and Medal of Honor recipient. He was 98.

His Medal of Honor citation:

For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty as demolition sergeant serving with the 21st Marines, 3d Marine Division, in action against enemy Japanese forces on Iwo Jima, Volcano Islands, 23 February 1945. Quick to volunteer his services when our tanks were maneuvering vainly to open a lane for the infantry through the network of reinforced concrete pillboxes, buried mines, and black volcanic sands, Cpl. Williams daringly went forward alone to attempt the reduction of devastating machine-gun fire from the unyielding positions. Covered only by four riflemen, he fought desperately for four hours under terrific enemy small-arms fire and repeatedly returned to his own lines to prepare demolition charges and obtain serviced flamethrowers, struggling back, frequently to the rear of hostile emplacements, to wipe out one position after another. On one occasion, he daringly mounted a pillbox to insert the nozzle of his flamethrower through the air vent, killing the occupants, and silencing the gun; on another he grimly charged enemy riflemen who attempted to stop him with bayonets and destroyed them with a burst of flame from his weapon. His unyielding determination and extraordinary heroism in the face of ruthless enemy resistance were directly instrumental in neutralizing one of the most fanatically defended Japanese strongpoints encountered by his regiment and aided vitally in enabling his company to reach its objective. Cpl. Williams’ aggressive fighting spirit and valiant devotion to duty throughout this fiercely contested action sustain and enhance the highest traditions of the U.S. Naval Service.

According to the paper of record, he was “the last survivor among the 472 servicemen who were awarded the Medal of Honor for extraordinary bravery in World War II and the oldest living recipient of the medal”.

(Alternative link.)

Lawrence’s tribute from 2019.

Margaret Keane, the painter of big-eyed children.

In 1970, on a trip to San Francisco, Ms. Keane told a reporter that her former husband had painted none of the big-eyed waifs, and offered to prove it with a demonstration of their respective painting abilities in Union Square. The media splash drew crowds. Ms. Keane arrived with paints and easel. But Mr. Keane did not show up, and he continued to play the part of the successful artist.
In 1986, Ms. Keane raised another dramatic “paint-off” challenge — this time in a Honolulu court, where she had brought a defamation suit against Mr. Keane for falsely claiming that he had painted her work. Her lawyers argued that a painting demonstration was the only way to settle the case. A judge agreed.
In less than an hour, Ms. Keane executed a big-eyed urchin. Mr. Keane, who represented himself in the case, said he had a sore shoulder and could not lift his arm to paint.

Posted in Art, Heroism, History, Obits | 2 Comments »

Historical note, suitable for use in schools.

Friday, June 17th, 2022

I am still on the road, reuniting with one of my tribes and having more fun than I am legally allowed to have.

But I didn’t want to let today’s anniversary pass, even if I don’t have time to do a full detailed post.

Today is the 50th anniversary of the Watergate break in.

Alfred Baldwin, on “spotter” duty at the Howard Johnson’s hotel across the street, was distracted watching the film Attack of the Puppet People on TV and failed to observe the arrival of the police car in front of the Watergate building.

Lawrence, we should add that to the list.

As a shiftless and lazy blogger who is on the road, I’m going to point to this Reason essay by Glenn Garvin, which I rather liked. Garvin’s one of the better crop of their current writers.

Posted in History, Nixon | Comments Closed

Obit watch: June 9, 2022.

Thursday, June 9th, 2022

Two interesting obits from the NYT for somewhat obscure people:

Jim Murphy. He specialized in history books for kids.

“I really love doing research,” he said. “I look at it as a kind of detective work. I would prefer to research forever and ever. The hard part is doing the writing.”

I’m a little old to be his target audience, but the books on yellow fever and the “blue baby” operation sound right up my alley.

Oris Buckner. He was a homicide detective with the New Orleans Police Department in the 1980s – the only black homicide detective at the time.

Then things went to hell. Briefly (the obit goes into more details) other homicide detectives beat witnesses to the killing of a police officer until they implicated two men, then killed both men, along with the girlfriend of one.

Mr. Buckner testified against the other officers. The local grand jury refused to indict them, but seven officers were eventually charged with federal civil rights violations. Three were convicted and sentenced to five years.

Mr. Buckner suffered for his decision to come forward. He was ostracized by his colleagues. He received death threats. He was demoted from homicide detective to traffic cop. Though he was finally promoted to sergeant in 1995, his career was effectively over.

Posted in Books, Cops, History, Law, Obits | Comments Closed

A little late…

Tuesday, May 31st, 2022

…for Memorial Day, and I don’t know how old this story is. (It just came across Hacker News, for what that’s worth.)

From Hodinkee, a story about a Rolex watch. The serial number dates it to 1947.

But there’s more to the story than it being an old watch. It spent 52 years buried in an unmarked grave…because it belonged to a CIA pilot that was killed in action.

The method for recovering the agent in question was not only difficult, but it was also dangerous. This was one of the first implementations of the so-called “All American Pick Up.” It was a technique that Downey and Fecteau had only recently trained for, and this was their first time trying it in the field. The agent on the ground would retrieve some dropped equipment: a harness, a pair of poles, and a length of line. He would then set up the poles, string the line between them, and attach the harness. The C-47 would then come in low and slow, trailing a grappling hook. The hook would snag the line, lifting the harnessed operative off the ground and into the air behind the airplane, where he’d be winched on board.

(Previously.)

Posted in Geek, History, Planes | 4 Comments »

Angelo J. Liteky.

Monday, May 30th, 2022

Those who have been following my entries for Memorial Day and Veteran’s Day may have figured out there’s a theme going on here.

I went back and forth on whether I wanted to include this entry or not. In the end, I felt like: a person who receives the Medal of Honor, no matter what they do with their life later on, deserves praise and credit for heroism.

I can’t find a lot of information about Mr. Liteky’s early life, his ordination, or his joining the military online. But he did join the Army and served as a chaplain (with the rank of captain) with the 199th Infantry Brigade of the 12th Infantry Regiment.

He was out with the troops on December 6, 1967 when they came under fire from what’s described as a “numerically superior enemy force”. From his Medal of Honor citation:

Chaplain Liteky distinguished himself by exceptional heroism while serving with Company A, 4th Battalion, 12th Infantry, 199th Light Infantry Brigade. He was participating in a search and destroy operation when Company A came under intense fire from a battalion size enemy force. Momentarily stunned from the immediate encounter that ensued, the men hugged the ground for cover. Observing 2 wounded men, Chaplain Liteky moved to within 15 meters of an enemy machine gun position to reach them, placing himself between the enemy and the wounded men. When there was a brief respite in the fighting, he managed to drag them to the relative safety of the landing zone. Inspired by his courageous actions, the company rallied and began placing a heavy volume of fire upon the enemy’s positions. In a magnificent display of courage and leadership, Chaplain Liteky began moving upright through the enemy fire, administering last rites to the dying and evacuating the wounded. Noticing another trapped and seriously wounded man, Chaplain Liteky crawled to his aid. Realizing that the wounded man was too heavy to carry, he rolled on his back, placed the man on his chest and through sheer determination and fortitude crawled back to the landing zone using his elbows and heels to push himself along. pausing for breath momentarily, he returned to the action and came upon a man entangled in the dense, thorny underbrush. Once more intense enemy fire was directed at him, but Chaplain Liteky stood his ground and calmly broke the vines and carried the man to the landing zone for evacuation. On several occasions when the landing zone was under small arms and rocket fire, Chaplain Liteky stood up in the face of hostile fire and personally directed the medivac helicopters into and out of the area. With the wounded safely evacuated, Chaplain Liteky returned to the perimeter, constantly encouraging and inspiring the men. Upon the unit’s relief on the morning of 7 December 1967, it was discovered that despite painful wounds in the neck and foot, Chaplain Liteky had personally carried over 20 men to the landing zone for evacuation during the savage fighting. Through his indomitable inspiration and heroic actions, Chaplain Liteky saved the lives of a number of his comrades and enabled the company to repulse the enemy. Chaplain Liteky’s actions reflect great credit upon himself and were in keeping with the highest traditions of the U.S. Army.

At some point, he changed his name to Charles James Liteky. In 1975, he left the priesthood. In 1983, he married: his wife was a former nun.

He went on to become a peace activist (out of respect for his views, I am not using his military rank), and, on July 29, 1986, he renounced his Medal of Honor. According to his Wikipedia entry, he placed “it in an envelope addressed to then-President Ronald Reagan near the Vietnam Veterans Memorial on the National Mall in Washington, D.C.” He is the only recipient of the Medal of Honor who renounced the award. He went on to participate in protests against US intervention in Central America and the invasion of Iraq.

He died on January 20, 2017, at the age of 85.

There is a website devoted to Charles Liteky which discusses his life (and quotes from his Medal of Honor citation). Mr. Liteky also wrote a book, Renunciation: My Pilgrimage from Catholic Military Chaplain, Vietnam Hawk, and Medal of Honor Recipient to Civilian Warrior for Peace.

Posted in Heroism, History | Comments Closed

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