Sunday, March 22, 2015

In Honor of the Memory of the Oldest Living Female Veteran...

...I fired off an email to Fox News to demand that they correct the linked article to show that Lucy Coffey was not twice awarded the medal they claimed she had won during her service to this nation. It is truly a disgrace, in what it says about the people of our country and their attitude toward the military, when the oldest female veteran of U.S. Forces passes and a news article about her says:

"During her service she was stationed around the Pacific and earned two Bronx stars." (source)

For that I give FoxNews.com a Bronx cheer. Not only did the reporter get it wrong but somehow an editor (or three) missed it too. I would think that she had deserved at least the bit of respect it would have taken for someone to have actually read the article to have proofed it and realized that she had won two Bronze Stars, not Bronx Stars. In fact, she won more than two Bronze Stars as seen in a quote from an article about her trip to Washington, DC last year:

"She earned two Bronze Stars (for support services in the Philippines and what is now Dutch New Guinea), a WAC Service Medal, a Good Conduct Medal and a World War II Victory Medal"
(source).

Most women stayed at home during WWII and did their part in the war effort in much safer ways than did Miss Coffey. It is obvious that she was a true patriot in that she enlisted in the Women's Army Corps, in 1943 at about age 37. That enlistment was not easy for her either, it only came about after she was denied enlistment attempts several times before that successful one (source). She was tenacious too - she fought to get into the army to serve our country and then she fought to live a long life and, as can be seen by the second linked article, she achieved her goal of making a trip to Washington, DC to visit the nation's capital before she died. She was 108 at her passing.

Anyway, lest we forget her, take a moment and bow your head in silent prayer or reflection and give her and her service to us a few moments solemn thought.

All the best,
Glenn B

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