Rao bulletin 15 June 2016 html edition this bulletin contains the following articles



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Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump distributes a check to Puppy Jake during a campaign event at the Adler Theater, Saturday, Jan. 30, 2016 in Davenport, Iowa.


  • 22 Kill -- $200,000

  • Achilles International -- $200,000

  • American Hero Adventures -- $100,000

  • Americans for Equal Living -- $100,000

  • America's Vet Dogs -- $75,000

  • AMVETS -- $75,000

  • Armed Services YMCA -- $75,000

  • Bob Woodruff Family Foundation Inc. -- $75,000

  • Central Iowa Shelter and Services -- $100,000

  • Connected Warriors Inc. -- $75,000

  • Disabled American Veterans' Charitable Service Trust -- $115,000

  • Fisher House Foundation -- $115,000

  • Folds of Honor Foundation -- $200,000

  • Foundation for American Veterans -- $75,000

  • Freedom Alliance -- $75,000

  • Green Beret Foundation -- $350,000

  • Hire heroes USA -- $75,000

  • Homes for our Troops -- $50,000

  • Honoring America's Warriors -- $100,000

  • Hope for the Warriors -- $65,000

  • Intrepid Fallen Heroes Fund -- $175,000

  • K-9s for Warriors -- $50,000

  • Liberty House -- $100,000

  • Marine Corps Law Enforcement Foundation -- $1,100,000

  • Navy Seal Foundation -- $465,000

  • Navy Marine Corps Relief Society -- $75,000

  • New England Wounded Veterans Inc. -- $75,000

  • Operation Homefront -- $65,000

  • Partners for Patriots -- $100,000

  • Project for Patriots -- $100,000

  • Puppy Jake Foundation -- $100,000

  • Racing for Heros Inc. -- $200,000

  • Support Siouxland Soldiers -- $100,000

  • Task Force Dagger Foundation -- $50,000

  • The Mission Continues -- $75,000

  • The National Military Family Association Inc. -- $75,000

  • Veterans Airlift Command -- $100,000

  • Veterans Count -- $25,000

  • Veterans in Command Inc. -- $150,000

  • Vietnam Veterans Workshop Inc. -- $75,000

  • Warriors for Freedom Foundation -- $50,000

Trump’s charitable giving had been put in the spotlight after media reports questioned whether the business mogul was following through on his promised fundraising for veterans groups. Trump said he didn't release the names of the veterans organizations sooner because he wanted to respect their privacy. He insisted that the money for a number of these groups was delivered some time ago and said the process of vetting the many organizations delayed the process in some cases.


According to Sam Kille, the Bob Woodruff Foundation’s communications manager, the Donald J. Trump Foundation first contacted them 24 MAY, and a day later a $75,000 check showed up at the office. "We received a check for $75,000 last Wednesday," Kille told The Hill. "We were told a day before a check would be coming." Kille said the donation was a surprise because the Woodruff Foundation did not have a past relationship with Trump or his foundation. When someone from the Trump Foundation called to notify the group of the incoming money, Kille said, the caller didn’t specify an amount. "We were pleasantly surprised when we opened the envelope," Kille said. "We had no idea how much it was going to be."
The Woodruff Foundation was co-founded in 2006 by ABC News journalist Bob Woodruff and his family after he was seriously wounded while covering the Iraq War. Kille said no demands were made in return for the donation and that the foundation has never received any donations from any organization affiliated with Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. He said the foundation weighed whether or not to accept a check but reasoned that the money was not from Trump himself, but from his foundation and donors across the country. "The funds do go to veterans," Kille said. "We're very grateful for the generosity."
The Woodruff Foundation is at least the second organization that received a donation from Trump's foundation last week. Sue Boulhosa, executive director of the Marine Corps-Law Enforcement Foundation (MC-LEF), said Trump sent a $1 million from his personal bank account. "We received a $1 million check from his personal account," Boulhosa said in a telephone interview 31 MAY. "The check is dated May 24." She said the group also received $100,000 in March from the Trump Foundation. The combined $1.1 million was by far the largest of the 41 donations Trump announced Tuesday. The MC-LEF currently provides a $30,000 scholarship account for every child who loses a parent serving in the United State Marine Corps or any Federal Law Enforcement Agency. They report 98.4 cents of every donated dollar goes to their mission.
One of the charities that Donald Trump selected to receive a $75,000 donation is a group with a rating of "F" from CharityWatch, and has been criticized in the past for spending less than half of its incoming donations on programs that help veterans. The Foundation for American Veterans, based in Michigan on which The Better Business Bureau issued an "alert" about the in January, citing "a pattern and high volume of complaints and customer reviews" that alleged customers received "a high volume of what they consider to be harassing phone calls" from the group's solicitors. The BBB said the group had blamed the problem on its telemarketer. An examination of the group's tax filings shows that the foundation spent just $2.4 million of its total $8 million budget on helping veterans directly in 2014. The group spent the rest of the money in 2014 on fundraising and management expenses, with $3.5 million paid out to professional fundraising companies. Another $2 million went toward salaries and general expenses, including billing and collection services. [Source: Military Times & The Hill | Leo Shane & Kristina Wong | May 31, 2016 ++]
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Vet Brains Sought ► Battle Related Disorders Study
Brain scientists in Washington state are asking the families of armed services members to consider one last contribution. Researchers at the University of Washington and the local Veterans Affairs health care system have begun collecting the donated brains of service members to examine for possible dementia and other disorders linked to repeated blast injury and head trauma. The program, the Pacific Northwest Brain Donor Network, is aimed at understanding the impact of mild traumatic brain injury on active-duty military members and veterans. "We are going to study these brains to the full extent that we are capable," said Dr. C. Dirk Keene, who leads the neuropathology core at UW Medicine. "They are so rare, so valuable and just so precious, and can give us so much information about what these exposures mean."
Keene and his colleagues, including Dr. Elaine Peskind, who co-directs the Mental Illness Research, Education and Clinical Centers at the Puget Sound Veterans Administration hospital, will look for signs that service members with mTBI also may have developed disorders including Alzheimer's disease or CTE (chronic traumatic encephalopathy). CTE has received wide attention recently after a large number of former American football players were diagnosed with the neurological disorder. Like football players, troops who suffer repeated concussions or other head trauma may develop the debilitating condition, which is diagnosed only after death. But, so far, little research has confirmed any military connection. "What's been published previously is on the brains of five Iraq veterans," Peskind said. "Another paper will be published soon with another five veterans. There's just nothing out there."
Since the program started in March, researchers have acquired three brains. They include donations from one military veteran, a middle-age man who was not exposed to blast injury, and a military contractor, a woman, also middle-age, who worked in a war zone. The donations also include the brain of Cody Duran, 30, of Lakewood, who died 5 APR from an unknown cause, said his mother, Victoria Padron. "I donated everything," she said. "Whatever they could use, they could have." Padron's son wasn't a veteran, but his young brain will serve as a control, an example of normal tissue against which scientists will measure changes. For every brain from a veteran that researchers acquire, they'll also need the brain of someone who didn't serve, Keene said. Researchers expect to receive one brain a month for the study.
The brains will be stored at UW's brain bank, which already holds about 2,000 brains donated to study dementias and other diseases of aging. Although there are at least eight brain banks across the U.S., none is focused on studying military injuries, Keene said. One reason is that many brain banks focus on collecting samples from people with fatal disorders, such as Alzheimer's disease. Participants in those studies know their fate and agree in advance to donate their brains after death. "The approach we have to take for our service veterans is very different, because they are young people and we don't expect them to die soon," Peskind said. For Padron, the request to donate her son's brain within days of his death was a "bizarre question," she said. But she quickly agreed because it was what her son, a father of three young children, would have wanted. "That's how Cody was, a super-generous person," she said. "By giving his eyes, his eyes will continue living. By giving his brain to science, learning will continue." Information from the study will be open to other researchers, Keene said.
The pilot study was paid for in part by a $30,000 grant from the federal Alzheimer's Disease Research Centers obtained by Dr. Desiree Marshall, an assistant medical examiner at the King County Medical Examiner's Office who has also been working with Peskind. Combining the study of military injuries with dementias and other disorders makes sense, Marshall said. It will be interesting to see whether the brains of veterans have signs of chronic traumatic encephalopathy, including a newly defined marker, a particular brain lesion caused by abnormal accumulations of proteins called tau. Tau proteins are considered a prime cause of Alzheimer's disease. The goal now is to increase the number of brains collected and to find more funding, either through philanthropy or grants, the researchers said. "It's so limited, the amount of information we have now," Marshall said. "Each brain, each case, is going to be so important." [Source: The Seattle Times | Jonel Aleccia | May 29, 2016 ++]
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AJROTC ► 250 Recently-Retired Soldiers Needed to Fill Vacancies
The Army Junior Reserve Officer Training Command (AJROTC) program instills the values of citizenship, service and personal responsibility in high school students through education and mentoring. At least one retired Army officer and noncommissioned officer (NCO) are assigned to each unit. AJROTC instructors are retired military members who continue to wear the Army uniform with their retired grade during the performance of their duties. Instructors are required to maintain Army uniform wear and grooming standards while serving as instructors. Officers (captain to colonel) and NCOs (staff sergeant to command sergeant major) with the following prerequisites may apply:

  • Bachelor’s degree (officer – required; NCO – preferred)

  • Retired with at least 20 years of active duty

  • Retired less than 3 years ago

  • Meet Army/AJROTC height/weight/body fat standards (30% male/36% female)

AJROTC instructors receive, as a minimum, an amount of pay equal to the difference between their retired and active duty pay, which includes base pay plus allowances for quarters, subsistence, and clothing (NCOs only). Schools must pay the minimum but may pay more subject to negotiations between the instructor and the school. The Army reimburses the school for one-half of the minimum. Each active duty pay raise will result in increased AJROTC pay. AJROTC instructors are not on active duty or inactive duty for training. Only their pay is computed as though they were on active duty. Their net pay may be different because allowances are not taxable on active duty, but AJROTC instructors’ allowances are considered part of their gross pay and are taxable. Retired status does not change.



  • To learn more visit: http://www.usarmyjrotc.com/employment/faq

  • For a current list of vacancies visit: http://www.usarmyjrotc.com/employment/jrotc-vacancy-list

[Source: Army Echoes | Lt. Col. Adam Grim, Employment Director, Soldier for Life Office | Jun-Sept 2016 ++]


*********************************
Flag Etiquette Update 02 ► TWC Fires Vet for Half Masting Flag
A Marine veteran's attempt to remember his fallen comrades has reportedly cost him his job. Allen Thornwell, who identifies himself as a former sergeant on his Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/ajthornwell, was fired by Time Warner Cable on 31 MAY after lowering his workplace's American flag to half-staff in honor of Memorial Day, according to the Charlotte Observer. Thornwell, of Charlotte, North Carolina, told the paper that he lowered the flag in honor of those who had given the ultimate sacrifice. He also said he was inspired by the memory of his late best friend, a fellow Marine who committed suicide after returning from an overseas deployment.
image result for elder
Thornwell was picking up a new security badge at his company's service center on Memorial Day when he noticed the flag there was flying at full-staff. "Without a word to anyone, Thornwell says he marched, Marine-style, to the pole, lowered the flag to a midway point, came to full attention, then about-faced and walked away," the story states. He said it didn't cross his mind to ask his company for permission first, according to the Observer. Corporate security later told him that touching the flagpole was against company policy, he said, and the flag was later raised to full-staff.
The next day, he found out that his contract had been canceled when a manager told him that the company was disturbed by Thornwell’s “passion for the flag and (his) political affiliation,” the Observer reported. A Time Warner official confirmed to the paper that his contract had been canceled, but declined further comment. Thornwell took to social media after the incident, posting a video to Facebook — which has since been removed — in which he named Time Warner as the company that fired him. As the newspaper noted (and said Thornwell acknowledged), though, the timing of Thornwell's flag-lowering — 2:30 p.m. — was actually inconsistent with the U.S. Flag Code, which states that the flag should be flown at full-mast after noon on Memorial Day, thereby complicating the situation. According to his LinkedIn page, Thornwell served as a data chief and tactical network specialist in the Marine Corps. [Source: Military Times | Jennifer-Leigh Oprihory | June 6, 2016 ++]
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Vet Fraud & Abuse ► 01 thru 15 JUN 2016
Seattle WA — A federal employee in Seattle helped expose a fraud in which an Army veteran lied his way to a Purple Heart and hundreds of thousands of dollars in government benefits. Her reward? The agency Cristina Jackson works for repeatedly tried to punish her for what it said were violations of the man's privacy, according to an AP review of hundreds of pages of personnel and investigative records. U.S. Commerce Department officials proposed suspending her for at least a month — even as they reached one of two settlements with the veteran. Darryl Lee Wright was paid for skipped work and legal fees he incurred complaining about a hostile work environment. They tried to downgrade Jackson's annual rating, then proposed a shorter suspension.
Jackson says she has racked up $20,000 in legal bills fighting the discipline. The Commerce Department, which did not respond to requests for comment, has refused to reimburse her. "To this day I don't understand it," Jackson, 55, said. "What does 'vindication' even mean when the agency I work for doesn't see it that way?" Wright, 48, pleaded guilty to federal charges in February, more than six years after Jackson told her bosses that he had submitted fake National Guard orders to be paid for a week of missed work. He's due to be sentenced in August. Through his lawyer he declined an interview request. "Cristina Jackson's willingness to come forward was critical to uncovering the truth," Assistant U.S. Attorney David Reese Jennings said. "But for her actions, law enforcement would not have had what they needed to uncover the fraud."
in this photo taken may 12, 2016, commerce department employee c.j. jackson poses for a photo in front of the henry m. jackson federal building where she works, in seattle. jackson, a federal employee who helped expose a fraud in which an army veteran lied his way to a purple heart and hundreds of thousands of dollars in government benefits, was punished for supposedly violating the man\'s privacy. jackson says she\'s spent $20,000 on legal fees to fight off the discipline.

C.J. Jackson poses 12 ay 2016 for a photo in front of the Henry M. Jackson Federal

Building where she works, in Seattle

Wright joined the Economic Development Administration, a job-promoting agency within the Commerce Department, in 2008. His absences quickly mounted, and he announced he was dealing with PTSD stemming from service in Iraq. Jackson, the office's administrative director, oversaw his attendance records. Late in 2009, Wright asked to convert missed work into paid leave for "emergency" National Guard duty. The orders he provided were unsigned or didn't have his name. Jackson, who previously worked in administrative roles with the Navy and Army reserve, asked for more documentation. He told her to check with the Washington National Guard. With permission from her boss, that's what she did. The Guard determined Wright "purposely falsified Washington Military Department orders to defraud his civilian employer," according to a December 2009 investigation report.


The Commerce Department began planning to fire Wright, according to a memo written by Jackson's immediate boss. But Wright went on the offensive. In 2010 he accused Jackson of violating the Privacy Act by informing the National Guard about his PTSD, the records show. The federal law governs disclosure of personal information kept by federal agencies. Officials quickly reached the first settlement with Wright. They agreed to allow him to convert up to 240 hours of missed work to sick leave, paid $5,500 for his legal fees, and even required Jackson and others in the office to take a class about PTSD and other combat injuries. After Jackson learned about that settlement, she filed a complaint with the Commerce Department's inspector general, who in 2011 recommended Wright be disciplined "based on the gravity of his misconduct." Those findings made their way to federal prosecutors.
In a 2014 indictment, they alleged an audacious scam stemming from a single lie: that Wright was injured in Kirkuk, Iraq, on Aug. 30, 2005. Wright, then a first lieutenant with the Idaho National Guard, was near a battalion headquarters building when two rockets landed about 100 yards away, he and others in his unit wrote. Their reports referenced no casualties. "As far as anyone on our team getting hurt, no, that didn't happen," then-Capt. Mark Moeckli said last month. But in 2010, Wright successfully applied for a Purple Heart. In his paperwork, he claimed he "was violently thrown and knocked unconscious from the percussion of the rockets' impact." Wright also claimed Social Security disability benefits, insisting he was frequently bedridden. Social Security paid his sister to be his live-in caregiver, though she performed no such service. By May 2013, the siblings were bringing in benefits totaling $10,000 per month, prosecutors said.
Meanwhile, Wright was employed by the Commerce Department until 2012, coaching high school basketball in the Seattle suburb of Woodinville, and serving on the planning commission in Snoqualmie, the city east of Seattle. Jackson's direct boss, A. Leonard Smith, defended her. In 2011, when he learned a human resources investigator proposed suspending Jackson for at least a month, he wrote a blistering memo, calling the investigation of her "severely deficient." He noted that the Privacy Act typically does not bar the release of information gleaned outside agency files and that Wright had spoken freely about his purported medical condition. "It is an egregious mistake to penalize an employee who has done nothing in this case other than what is expected of her position," Smith wrote.
The 30-day suspension was never imposed. "They were false charges with regard to C.J., if you want my opinion," said Bettye Atkinson, Wright's former supervisor, who retired after 40 years at the Commerce Department. "A lot of this was handled out of the D.C. office and they didn't listen to us in the regional office." The department did eventually propose firing Wright. In response, his attorney blamed Wright's actions on war injuries and recommended in 2012 the department allow him to pursue a disability retirement instead. A settlement that year resulted in his departure from the agency. But Jackson's troubles continued. Even after receiving Smith's memo, Thomas Guevara, the Economic Development Administration's deputy assistant secretary for regional affairs, docked her annual rating for 2011 and in early 2012 proposed suspending her for two days . Guevara declined to answer questions from the AP. Jackson's lawyer, Saphronia Young, helped have Jackson's excellent annual rating re-instated, but the proposed two-day suspension has not been withdrawn, Young said. "She went from being this highly regarded, stellar employee with an unblemished record to being treated like dirt," Young said. "It's just not fair." [Source: The Associated Press | Gene Johnson | June 6, 2016 ++]
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WWII Vets 110Paul Dallas
For a dead man, the scratchy voice on the other end of a long-distance phone line sure sounded insistent. Weak, nearly skeleton-thin and "yellow as corn bread" from the effects of jaundice, Paul Dallas's voice was wavering on the phone from a hospital ward in New York to Decatur, Mississippi. The fellow at the other end was in no mood for what was surely a cruel prank. "He kept saying, 'Who is this? What are you trying to pull?'" Dallas said. "He kept saying I was missing in the war, likely dead by now. "I said, 'Get my twin sister on the line. Get Pauline. She'll know the truth of things." A few minutes later, Paul Dallas was back from the dead. And one of the countless stories of the men who fought and were captured in the Allied invasion of Europe had a happy ending.
the long way home: ex-pow recalls hardships of surviving world war ii

Ex-POW Paul Davis at age 91 recalls hardships of surviving World War II
Of the estimated 16 million Americans who served in the armed forces during World War II, roughly 675,000 were injured in battle and 120,000 were captured as prisoners of war. The number who were injured, captured and made it home is unknown, but few could come home with the tale that Paul Dallas lived. From fighting through France, to staring down a Tiger tank to a forced march across half of central Europe, the long-time Fayetteville resident made it home - barely. "The Lord was looking out for me," Dallas, who is 91, says softly from his home in west Fayetteville. His wife of 42 years, Doris, settles back in her chair on the opposite side of the room and nods slightly. It's a long story, but she doesn't mind hearing it again.
Dallas is looking out the window into a warm, steamy afternoon. It was a lot like this when Dallas, then a recent class of 1943 graduate from House School in Neshoba County, Mississippi, received a telegram of greetings from the president of the United States. "I didn't know he knew me," Dallas jokes, quickly explaining that the letter was a draft notification. He had 30 days to report to Camp Shelby, Mississippi. "One day I was looking at tall rows of corn stalks," he says. "The next, I was one of 100,000 soldiers at Camp Shelby, standing in khaki rows." After summers of farm work, basic training was a breeze for Dallas. He was also a decent marksman from years of hunting. And folks seemed to like the gangly youngster with the deep Southern drawl. Soon he joined several thousand other soldiers on their first train ride - halfway across the country to Fort Meade, Maryland. "Along the way, we were passing through South Carolina," he recalls. "I looked out the window and remarked about what fine collards folks in South Carolina were growing. "A friend laughed and said those weren't collards. That was tobacco. I had never seen it in the field before."
His first train ride became his first boat ride, sardined with 2,700 other soldiers bound for Europe. Dallas spent months in Italy, training for an amphibious landing. His division, the 45th Infantry, would land in southern France in August, taking pressure off of forces arriving in Normandy. "It was quiet, really quiet when we landed," Dallas recalls. "The Germans had took off. But they left some snipers behind, and they would pick off officers. "I was standing next to our squad leader, when this little puff of smoke came from a church steeple. He just fell over at my feet. The next day our platoon leader, a first lieutenant, found me and said, 'Dallas, you're the new squad leader.'" During the fall of 1944, the squad had near-daily skirmishes with enemy infantry, but continued to drive toward Germany. "We crawled through mud and mine fields," Dallas says. "A lot of men were killed. The rest of us were lucky." Just after Thanksgiving, the squad's luck ran out.
Company F had been ordered to take three small towns near the German border. They had all three wrapped up by lunchtime and started looking at a fourth, Muhlhausen. As they paused for an anticipated artillery barrage, they discovered why the other towns had fallen so quickly. "As we were sitting there looking down on this pretty little town, we heard a rumbling. It looked like 100 Tiger tanks rolling toward us. The Germans had regrouped and were coming hard. "I'd been in the infantry long enough to know that shooting an M-1 rifle at a tank was like throwing peas at a wall. We started digging in, hoping the tanks wouldn't squash us as they arrived." One tank rolled toward Dallas and his squad. It paused, pointed its 88 mm cannon at the group and fired. "It was a dud," Dallas says. "It shot into the mud, but didn't go off." A second shot wasn't a dud. It exploded near the men, showering them with a deafening blast of mud and debris.
The tank advanced to about 50 feet away, but didn't fire again. "Instead a German officer with a burp gun popped out of the top of the tank," Dallas says. "I had my rifle pointed at him, but he had a burp gun pointed at me. "He said in English, 'If you pull the trigger, you are dead.' I looked around at all the German guns pointed at us and decided not to pull the trigger." Twenty-eight men who survived the attack were loaded onto German trucks and taken to interrogation. In time, many of the men, including Dallas, were driven by truck and cattle cars to a small POW compound in what is now eastern Germany. Prisoners were marched out each morning to cut 100-pound blocks of ice from a frozen pond. Meals, for lack of a better word, were cold coffee in the morning and a small cup of soup seasoned with grass and rock-hard black bread in the evening. In the spring, as the ice melted, work shifted to digging out sewer lines of a nearby town. The crews would dig, then hide from Russian bombers intent on destroying an ammunition plant near the town. It was probably in those ditches that Dallas contracted the illnesses that nearly killed him.
In the spring of 1945, advancing Russians troops "liberated" the soldiers, beginning a forced march across central Europe. Though the POWs were less than a two days march from American troops to the west, the Russian troops ordered the POWs to march north into Poland. They sent armed guards to make sure the POWs did so. "We were liberated, but we were still prisoners," Dallas says. He said the POWs feared they were being marched to Siberian salt mines. After weeks of walking across Poland, the group arrived at a Soviet facility. They were deloused, had their first showers since the previous November and got the news that they were finally to be herded back toward American forces - by truck, rather than walking. On the way, the caravan was stopped in a small town by people dancing in the street. "We didn't know what was going on," Dallas says. "It was May 8, the day the war in Europe ended."
They also learned why they were marched away from American forces. They were to be part of a convoluted prisoner swap, Americans for Eastern Europeans. On May 20, 1945, Dallas crossed the Elbe River bridge back into American hands. At the American repatriation compound, known as Camp Lucky Strike, liberated POWs received medical care and were given clearance to be shipped home. Rather than a ticket home, Dallas was told he'd need to come back the next day for additional tests. "That didn't sit well with me," he says. "I had gone through a lot, and I was ready to go home. "I went outside to cool off and met another fellow - from Meridian, Mississippi, of all places. I said we had a lot to talk about ... and then I just fell over." Months of malnutrition and illness caught up with Dallas. He woke up three weeks later in a French hospital in excruciating pain. He lapsed into another two-week coma. Upon awakening, Dallas was told he was suffering from hepatitis, jaundice, double pneumonia and spinal meningitis. "The upshot was that I ought to be dead," Dallas says. "I guess the Lord wasn't done with me yet."
He finally recovered enough to be placed on a hospital ship and sent to the United States. "My 21st birthday, July 2, 1945, was spent flat on my back out in the middle of the Atlantic," he says with a laugh. He was still weak, recovering in Harlem General Hospital in New York City, when one of the nurses brought a phone to his bed so he could call home. "I said, 'Ma'am, our farm is way out in the country,'" Dallas recalls. "'There's no phone out there.'" "Then I thought of my sister Pauline and that she might be in school at East Central Junior College." The nurse dialed through to the school. School President L.O. Todd picked up. "To say he was skeptical would be modest," Dallas recalls. "He thought I was pulling his leg. I kept saying 'It's me! It's me! I'm here!' "But when I mentioned my twin sister Pauline, he stopped cold. He said 'Good gracious, Paul Dallas, it really is you! Pauline isn't here, but Winifred (his younger sister) is. I'll have someone run and fetch her.' "Winifred's voice was the sweetest thing I ever heard. We had ourselves a good crying spell on the long-distance telephone."
Todd offered to drive his sister "right then and there back to the farm to share the news." It turned out by the time they arrived, the family was at nearby Antioch Baptist Church at a revival. "It was quite a story she had to tell them," Dallas says. In August, he was moved by train to a hospital in Georgia, where he had to learn to walk again. He was hoping to make it home for Thanksgiving, nearly one year to the day he had been taken prisoner. As it was, Dallas was given a disability discharge and walked into his home on Dec. 1, 1945.
In time, Dallas graduated from Mississippi State University and moved to Raeford selling Bibles in 1953. He later because a salesman for Dickinson Buick in downtown Fayetteville, and opened a sales office for the Public Works Commission in 1960. In 1990, after successful careers with the PWC and Lumbee River Electric Membership Cooperative, Dallas retired. In 1980, he helped organized Fayetteville's chapter of the American Ex-Prisoners of War. He now travels with his wife, Doris, around the country supporting former POW issues. As the group's national commander, he's been invited to the White House three times - four if you include the time he and a buddy sneaked in during the summer of 1944. "I don't think I could do that now," he says with a laugh. "I'm a little bit slower." Dallas still tears up at times when he thinks about the friends he lost, and those who helped pull him through. "It was a long, hard struggle, but I never lost my faith," he says. "I knew I would get home." For more info on Paul refer to http://www.axpow.org/dallaspaul.htm. [Source: Fayetteville Observer | Chick Jacobs | June 5, 2016 ++]
fred dallas with wife


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