This is how the arrogant Pentagon brass treats the sailors; Military Families belongings being auctioned off in Portsmouth Va. as being “unclaimed” by Bay Area Movers and Gene Daniels’s Auctions

while the men and women of the armed forces serve the nation, the Pentagon looses their belongings and then allows their contractors to sell off their stuff at auction

Bernie Fowler’s war was in South Pacific on USS Engstrom

Former Senator Bernie Fowler, now of Prince Fredrick, attended basic training at the Great Lakes naval base and went on to basic engineering school. After that, he was shipped to Viejo, California where he came aboard the destroyer escort ship USS Engstrom DE-50. On this relatively small support ship, Fowler would spend his near two-year tour during the war.

The diesel-electric powered Engstrom traveled across the Pacific to Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, where the men geared up for what became, for Fowler, a run to numerous island bases in the Pacific Ocean, where some of the most horrific battles of the Pacific side of World War II were fought.

The primary operations aboard the Engstrom, and similar destroyer escorts, were to provide protective escorts for fleets near these islands. They also conducted anti-submarine warfare “sub chasing” and “picket runs” around island bases to look out for enemy submarines, ships or aircraft.

New and historic US & Canadian warships will be open to the public for Fleet Week in Baltimore; Ships Will be Berthed in Fells Point, Inner Harbor and North Locust Point

Historic Ships in Baltimore represents one of the most impressive collections of military vessels in the world. Located within easy walking distance of each other, US Sloop-of-War CONSTELLATION, US Submarine TORSK, US Coast Guard Cutter TANEY, and Lightship 116 CHESAPEAKE exhibit life at sea from the mid-19th century to the mid-1980’s.

UPDATE: Alan Brylawski died in Florida – This interview with Alan Brylawski recalls the tough days of the war in Europe and horrors of Buchenwald

Alan Brylawski, 85, says funny things happen at war, though some horrors still haunt him.
“I am an optimist and humorist. I don’t take life too seriously,” the World War II veteran said.
War has been part of human culture since man got out of the cave, Brylawski says. “It’s senseless, there are no winners. We slaughter people. Everybody loses.” He said the kind of horror one man perpetrates on another during war is inconceivable, adding once the enemy is demonized everything becomes okay.
“It is either you do it or they are going to do it to you. So self-preservation says you do it first,” he said. “When you see bullets pass you, there’s no question you are under fire. At that point the enemy becomes a demon, devoid of humanity.”