enhanced_deficit
11-23-2014, 07:39 PM
Why it too so long to publicly honor these fallen troops?
Liberty sailor honored despite bitterness over attack
Kyle Munson, The Des Moines Register November 11, 2014
http://www.gannett-cdn.com/-mm-/e107b7f8d8666b3eafc195410e40c5f71b135e99/c=40-0-1148-1477&r=537&c=0-0-534-712/local/-/media/DesMoines/2014/11/11/converse-jerry-naval-photo.jpg
DES MOINES — Jerry Converse will be publicly honored Tuesday (http://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/2014/11/11/proper-tribute-veterans-day/18837305/), more than 47 years after he was killed aboard the USS Liberty alongside 33 of his fellow sailors, with 174 more of them wounded.
He got caught up in one of the most controversial attacks in American history. The furor has come at the expense of paying proper tribute to those who died in service to their country.
In time for this Veterans Day, however, Converse's name has been added to Iowa State University's Gold Star Hall in the Memorial Union, which honors former students who have died in military service in a war zone.
He was an electrical engineering major from Boone — a savvy 6-foot-6-inch-tall student with a good singing voice and golf swing who resisted playing basketball. He later became a cryptologic technician (CT) aboard the USS Liberty. The lightly armored ship on June 8, 1967, was riddled from above with rockets, machine guns and napalm and torpedoed from below in international waters off the coast of Egypt in the Mediterranean Sea, nowhere near Vietnam, where another war was raging at the time.
Converse was just three days shy of his 24th birthday.
http://www.gannett-cdn.com/-mm-/e88abc1c1bd77d3107220b90ea36cba0e39413e2/c=0-42-510-722&r=183&c=0-0-180-238/local/-/media/DesMoines/2014/11/11/shr-5plixhirfow1k70m9fmtoriginal.jpg Officers and crew of the USS Liberty survey damage to the ship suffered during a June 8 attack in the Mediterranean. (Photo: Copyright 2002 The Times Shreveport )
Jewish groups, meanwhile, occasionally have objected to attempts to honor the USS Liberty because such events become all-too-convenient bait for anti-Semites. Sen. John McCain has been harangued at public events because his father was a Navy admiral at the time of the attack whom protesters implicate in an alleged cover-up.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/11/11/liberty-sailor-to-be-honored-with-fellow-casualties/18837893/
Liberty sailor honored despite bitterness over attack
Kyle Munson, The Des Moines Register November 11, 2014
http://www.gannett-cdn.com/-mm-/e107b7f8d8666b3eafc195410e40c5f71b135e99/c=40-0-1148-1477&r=537&c=0-0-534-712/local/-/media/DesMoines/2014/11/11/converse-jerry-naval-photo.jpg
DES MOINES — Jerry Converse will be publicly honored Tuesday (http://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/2014/11/11/proper-tribute-veterans-day/18837305/), more than 47 years after he was killed aboard the USS Liberty alongside 33 of his fellow sailors, with 174 more of them wounded.
He got caught up in one of the most controversial attacks in American history. The furor has come at the expense of paying proper tribute to those who died in service to their country.
In time for this Veterans Day, however, Converse's name has been added to Iowa State University's Gold Star Hall in the Memorial Union, which honors former students who have died in military service in a war zone.
He was an electrical engineering major from Boone — a savvy 6-foot-6-inch-tall student with a good singing voice and golf swing who resisted playing basketball. He later became a cryptologic technician (CT) aboard the USS Liberty. The lightly armored ship on June 8, 1967, was riddled from above with rockets, machine guns and napalm and torpedoed from below in international waters off the coast of Egypt in the Mediterranean Sea, nowhere near Vietnam, where another war was raging at the time.
Converse was just three days shy of his 24th birthday.
http://www.gannett-cdn.com/-mm-/e88abc1c1bd77d3107220b90ea36cba0e39413e2/c=0-42-510-722&r=183&c=0-0-180-238/local/-/media/DesMoines/2014/11/11/shr-5plixhirfow1k70m9fmtoriginal.jpg Officers and crew of the USS Liberty survey damage to the ship suffered during a June 8 attack in the Mediterranean. (Photo: Copyright 2002 The Times Shreveport )
Jewish groups, meanwhile, occasionally have objected to attempts to honor the USS Liberty because such events become all-too-convenient bait for anti-Semites. Sen. John McCain has been harangued at public events because his father was a Navy admiral at the time of the attack whom protesters implicate in an alleged cover-up.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/11/11/liberty-sailor-to-be-honored-with-fellow-casualties/18837893/