For my dad, grandfather, and all our Veterans. May their service and sacrifice be honored.
Our veterans are now returning from Afghanistan and Iraq, and of course are greeted with initial joy. Then they face the search for work and the struggle with the horrors they have faced. They face a lack of adequate physical and mental health care. As to jobs, what are our veterans finding? An extraordinarily difficult job market with an unemployment rate for combat-age veterans at 17.5% in New York State, 13.3% nationally.
Dr. John Guzlowski reflects in November 11, 1918–The Day World War I Ended
I first heard of World War I when we came to America as Displaced Persons in 1951. We were refugees after World War II, and we moved into a basement apartment on Hamilton Street in Chicago.
Our landlord was a veteran of the First World War. He was a Polish American named Ponchek. He was also a drunk, but that wasn’t anything special. There were a lot of drunks around. What made Ponchek special was that he had a steel plate in his head. As a kid and a recent immigrant to America, he had been drafted and sent to France to stop the Germans who were trying to rip France apart and shove it into the Atlantic. He ended up in the trenches in France in late October fighting the Germans, and a bullet took off the top of his head. The doctors cut away what bone they could, cleaned out the wound, and screwed a steel plate into the skull bone.
This fascinated me when I was a kid. I wondered about that plate, and what it felt like. Did Ponchek always feel a weight pressing down on his head? Was it like wearing a steel hat? A steel helmet? And I wondered what they covered the plate with. Skin? And where did it come from? Was it his skin or someone else’s? I never could ask.
Like a lot of the veterans I knew, he was frightening. He wasn’t a guy you wanted to spend a lot of time talking to.
Veterans were men who limped. They dragged their legs behind them like Lon Chaney in the Mummy movie. They were men who had wooden legs that creaked when they walked past you and the other kids sitting on the stoop. These veterans had no arms or only one arm, or were missing fingers or hands, or ears.
My dad, a guy who lost his left eye when he was clubbed by a Nazi guard in a concentration camp, used to go to a bar where the owner had a black, shiny rubber hand. He lost his real hand during the Warsaw Uprising in 1944 when he shoved a homemade grenade into the steel treads of a German tank. The black rubber hand was like some kind of weird toy. Sometimes, it looked like a black fist, sometimes it looked like an eight ball.
Sometimes, a vet without arms or legs sat on the sidewalk in front of this bar. He had a cloth hat in front of him, and he was selling pencils. He’d sit there smiling, making chit chat with the guys walking in and out of the bar. You’d toss him a nickel, and you could take a pencil, but most guys didn’t. Who needs a pencil?…
A musical reflection – “Sargent Mackenzie”
Original Scottish Version
Lay me doon in the caul caul groon
Whaur afore monie mair huv gaun
Lay me doon in the caul caul groon
Whaur afore monie mair huv gaunWhen they come a wull staun ma groon
Staun ma groon al nae be afraidThoughts awe hame tak awa ma fear
Sweat an bluid hide ma veil awe tearsAins a year say a prayer faur me
Close yir een an remember meNair mair shall a see the sun
For a fell tae a Germans gunLay me doon in the caul caul groon
Whaur afore monie mair huv gaunLay me doon in the caul caul groon
Whaur afore monie mair huv gaunWhaur afore monie mair huv gaun
English Translation
Lay me down in the cold cold ground
Where before many more have gone
Lay me down in the cold cold ground
Where before many more have goneWhen they come I will stand my ground
Stand my ground I’ll not be afraidThoughts of home take away my fear
Sweat and blood hide my veil of tearsOnce a year say a prayer for me
Close your eyes and remember meNever more shall I see the sun
For I fell to a Germans gunLay me down in the cold cold ground
Where before many more have gone
Lay me down in the cold cold ground
Where before many more have goneWhere before many more have gone.
“Then the kingdom of heaven shall be compared to ten maidens who took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom. Five of them were foolish, and five were wise. For when the foolish took their lamps, they took no oil with them; but the wise took flasks of oil with their lamps. As the bridegroom was delayed, they all slumbered and slept. But at midnight there was a cry, `Behold, the bridegroom! Come out to meet him.’ Then all those maidens rose and trimmed their lamps. And the foolish said to the wise, `Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out.’ But the wise replied, `Perhaps there will not be enough for us and for you; go rather to the dealers and buy for yourselves.’ And while they went to buy, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went in with him to the marriage feast; and the door was shut. Afterward the other maidens came also, saying, `Lord, lord, open to us.’ But he replied, `Truly, I say to you, I do not know you.’ Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour. — Matthew 25:1-13
Maritime Station at 1 Polska Street in Gdynia was a port building commissioned in 1933. It served passenger traffic, including thousands of emigres who left Poland to resettle in distant lands. Because of the building’s strong relationship to the history of emigration, and its location at the hub of emigration routes, the building has been revitalized and now houses the Emigration Museum.
The Museum is seeking input for its Portrait Of An Emigrant Collection. This Collection of emigration stories will assist in recreating the history of Polish emigration through family albums, memoirs, and diaries. The collection seeks: Stories of emigrants; Recollections of departures, homesickness, home, family, and work; News of the new world, new people, new habits, and new motherlands; Reports of family life, children, education, learning a foreign language, us and them; Photos of farewells in the old country; Family stories about those who left and those who stayed; and The tales of relatives, acquaintances, and old friends.
Each of these is a start of a new history; the stories and illustrations that make up the collective portrait of the emigration epic. This history composed of individual fate –- ordinary, stormy, and sometimes dramatic is compelling. The Museum is compiling the collection of emigration from the stories of individuals and their archival photos.
Contact the Museum or Mr. Aleksander Gosk by E-mail for more information.
Flight # 16 out of Newark Makes Safe Belly Landing at Warsaw Chopin Airport
LOT Polish Airlines, Captain and Crew Hailed as Heroes
By Raymond Rolak
WARSAW — Flying from Newark’s Liberty Airport with 231 passengers and crew on board, a LOT Airlines Boeing 767 made an emergency landing at Warsaw’s Frederic Chopin International Airport. This happened Tuesday afternoon after trouble was reported with the landing gear. Captain Tadeusz Wrona along with the flight attendants was hailed heroes, as no reported injuries occurred in the emergency evacuation. Passengers were seen fleeing from the airplane after it came to a stop in the foam.
The skill of the captain was heralded as sensational as he struggled to keep the nose up. “All safety procedures worked perfectly fine and, thanks to this, nobody was injured,” said Leszek Chorzewski, spokesman for the Polish air carrier LOT.
LOT Flight # 16 could not extend its landing gears at 3,000 feet while approaching runway 33 and Wrona requested clearance for an emergency landing. Visual verification by fighter aircraft showed none of the gear struts (three) were down.
The pilot knew four hours out that he would not have hydraulics for landing. Many on board had thought the problem had been corrected because Captain Wrona handled the descent and landing so smoothly. They thought that the plane had landed on its wheels.
There was no visible fire but rescue personnel dosed the plane with water and foam as a precautionary measure. Passengers were evacuated from the plane, which had circled and dumped fuel before the wheels up landing. Later it was determined that the plane had experienced a central hydraulic system failure. “They circled the 767 above the airport for about one hour before descending without lowering the wheels,” said Przemyslaw Przybylski, a spokesman for the Warsaw Chopin airport.
Live Polish television footage showed the plane landing on its belly. The runway had been covered with flame retardant foam and some sparks were seen as the aircraft met the runway. Formerly called Warsaw-Okecie International Airport, it remained closed for all other flights until Thursday morning.
He had said a small fire occurred and throughout the ordeal he remained confident he could keep everyone safe.
“I was praying for the pilot not to lose control because we started to make circles over the airport. It was terrible,” passenger Teresa Kowalik told the assembled reporters at the airport. “We owe everything to the pilot. He really did a great job.”
LOT airlines president, Marcin Pirog, told reporters that Captain Wrona and co-pilot Jerzy Szwartz carried out a “perfect emergency landing,” which prevented anyone from being injured. There were 11 crew total and 220 passengers.
“It is the first time a LOT plane had to land without the landing gear out,” Pirog said, adding that such landings do not always end well. Flights which had been scheduled to land in Warsaw had been diverted to Lodz, Gdansk and Krakow.
“When I stopped on the runway, I still was not sure that everyone was safe because smoke and some burning from friction appeared on the ground,”’ Wrona told news media at a press conference Wednesday morning. “I felt huge relief when the lead purser reported that the plane was safely evacuated. They did a wonderful job.”
“Talk of heroes is an exaggeration,” Wrona added at the press conference. “I’m convinced that any pilot would have done the same as I did.”
Wrona tried to extend the landing gear numerous times after an on-board computer indicated a hydraulic fault. He had flown the same plane some 500 times and had “never had any difficulty” with the wheels, he said.
Pirog said that Wrona was one of LOT’s most experienced pilots and had been flying Boeings for 20 years. He is also skilled in flying gliders, and it was suggested that may have helped him make such a successful emergency landing. LOT handles about 400 flights and transports 25,000 passengers daily through Warsaw.
A grateful passenger, Tadeusz Karasinski said, “Everyone remained calm and practiced emergency landing positions after being notified by the flight attendants that we would crash land some 35 minutes ahead of time. “There was no hysteria,” he added.
The belly landing was reminiscent of the January 15, 2009 “Miracle on the Hudson” ditching of U.S. Air Flight # 15409 with Captain Chesley Sullenberger. ‘Sully’ was also an experienced glider pilot. The entire crew of Flight 1549 was later awarded the Master’s Medal of the Guild of Air Pilots and Air Navigators. The award citation read, “This emergency ditching and evacuation, with the loss of no lives, is a heroic and unique aviation achievement.” …From the City of London, England.
“All the television video will make for a great safety training aid,” Bruce Heiss, a retired DTW Northwest Airlines pilot added. “Incidents of total landing gear failure involving modern airliners are extremely rare, given the number of backup systems that should kick in when a particular component fails,” he continued. “At the very least, the gear doors should open so the wheels descend by gravity or free fall,” he concluded.
Jacek Urbanski, Jacek Urbanczk, and Marc Moraniec contributed.
Eternal rest grant unto them O Lord and may the perpetual light shine upon them.
May they rest in peace. Amen.
Wieczny odpoczynek racz im dać Panie, A światłość wiekuista niechaj im świeci.
Niech odpoczywają w pokoju. Amen.
After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude which no man could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits upon the throne, and to the Lamb!” And all the angels stood round the throne and round the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, saying, “Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God for ever and ever! Amen.”
Then one of the elders addressed me, saying, “Who are these, clothed in white robes, and whence have they come?” I said to him, “Sir, you know.” And he said to me, “These are they who have come out of the great tribulation; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Therefore are they before the throne of God, and serve him day and night within his temple; and he who sits upon the throne will shelter them with his presence. They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; the sun shall not strike them, nor any scorching heat. For the Lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of living water; and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.” Revelation 7:9-17