What's Going on in my personal life:



I'm out of school, working at a 20-screen movie theater selling tickets, and just got back from my brother's wedding. Everything's going fine.



Lately I've been learning about deceased distant relatives that fought (and for many of them died) in WWII. My Great-Great Uncle, Granville McCoy Spencer, apparently served in the 350th Infantry Regiment of the 88th "Blue Devils" Infantry Division in Italy. He was awarded the Bronze Star and Purple Heart. My Grandmother Coffman told me that she had three cousins that were killed in WWII - I'm hoping to make memorial pages for all them on here someday.



The McLaughlins sent me a nice letter containing congratulations on my graduation from high school and photos of Mr. McLaughlin from WWII. One of them [SEE ABOVE] shows McLaughlin with Belgain civilians in Antwerp shortly after the city was liberated in early September 1944. McLaughlin is the Canadian soldier to the far left.



Irish Vet of the Spanish Civil War Passes Away:



Michael O'Riordan, Spanish Civil War vet and Chairman of the Communist Party of Ireland, passed away in Dublin at the age of 88 last month. O'Riordan was born in Cork in 1917 and eventually joined the Fianna and Irish Republican Army before joining the Communist Party in 1935.  



In 1936, he joined the XVth International Brigade and was wounded at Ebro.  After returning to Ireland in 1939, he war interned at the Curragh camp until 1943. After WWII, he became an activist trade unionist and ran five times in general elections as an independent. In 1979, he published an account of the Irish IB vets called the "Connolly Column"



Only one more Irish veteran who fought Franco is still living. Last year I tried to get into contact with O'Riordan but was told his health was failing.



WWII in the news:



Italy's Parliament just recently elected a WWII-Allied veteran, Giorgio Napolitano, to be the next president of the nation. Napolitano, 80, served and fought in the Italian Partisan resistance during WWII and is an ex-communist.



I also saw on CNN how a criminal tried to steal a purse from an elderly woman (I believe it was in New York City). The elderly woman fought back, saved her purse from being stolen, and scarred the thug away. Later it turns out that she learned those moves from WWII - when she fought Nazis in the streets of her mother country, Romania.