Midlands Correspondent
The officer commanding a team of over 300 members of the Defence Forces who are heading to south Lebanon on the latest United Nations peacekeeping mission has insisted that all preparations necessary to combat the challenge of Covid-19 are being taken.
Over the last two weeks the troops of all ranks from across the country have been completing tactical training exercises at centres in the midlands and east.
Lieutenant Colonel Conor Bates said that a vaccination programme is under way in the camp. Two medical personnel will also be engaged in south Lebanon.
Lt Cl Bates is the officer commanding the 118th battalion. A member of 66th Cadet Class, he was commissioned in 1991 and posted to the 27th Infantry Battalion as a platoon commander. He has completed several tours of duty abroad and in Lebanon.
Robert Bob Brown has died aged 100
- Credit: ARCHANT
A war veteran, who narrowly avoided being caught up in a notorious Nazi massacre, has died aged 100.
Robert “Bob” Brown, of Norwich, has been described by his family as “generous, forgiving, and sociable”.
Mr Brown was born in Newton Flotman, south of the city, on July 15, 1920, where he spent his youth.
From the age of seven, he would sit and listen to his father talking about his time during the First World War. This eventually sparked his ambition to become a soldier.
However, at the age of 11 he had to wear glasses and thought his chances had been scuppered.
Coastal Review Online is featuring the research, findings and commentary of author Kevin Duffus
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First of three parts
It was not Shakespeare but Pythagoras who likely first imagined the world as a stage “whereon many play their parts.”
No more often am I reminded of this proverb than when I am traveling across the inlet between Hatteras and Ocracoke islands one of many grand stages of North Carolina’s maritime history.
The North Carolina Department of Transportation ferry Croatoan gets underway from Hatteras Island to Ocracoke. Photo: Mark Hibbs
The ferry I am on meanders its way along the narrow, serpentine channels, across boiling pools of wavelets and at times rolling on the incoming swells of the Atlantic as salt spray breaks over the bow. Before long, I spot the tell-tale behavior of excited tourists making the passage for their first time. They gingerly stagger about the pitching deck, taking selfies, feeding seagulls, or waving at passing fishing boats.
NanoStockk/iStock/Getty Images Plus
During the course of this “pandemic” and the self-inflicted crisis it has created, fewer words have received more of a workout than the word “hero.” Coming from a pre-9/11 generation, heroism has a certain meaning to me. This is what I think of when I think of heroism:
On Feb. 3, 1943, the U.S.A.T. Dorchester carrying 902 service men, merchant seamen and civilian workers was sunk in the cold Atlantic.
Through the pandemonium, according to those present, four Army chaplains brought hope in despair and light in darkness. Those chaplains were Lt. George L.
Fox, Methodist; Lt. Alexander D. Goode, Jewish; Lt. John P. Washington, Roman Catholic; and Lt. Clark V. Poling, Dutch Reformed.