Contact Info  Website: http://www.blumslanding.org

Contact Info

 Website: http://www.blumslanding.org

Location: P.O. Box 871292

Canton, MI
Our Mission: Blum's Landing is being built for those people who defend our freedom in the war on terror. It is not a rehab center, but a place for our military personnel and their immediate family to come for a short vacation Free of Charge.

Blum's Landing will be a place for military personnel who have endured physical and/or mental wounds from serving in the war on terror. The Landing will be a bed and breakfast for military personnel and their families to relax, to recoup, and to re-energize from the stress of their current rehab and duties.

History

Terry and Jan Blumberg are building Blum's Landing in loving memory of their son Sgt. Tevor A. Blumberg known to his fellow soldiers as "Blum". Trevor was killed Sept. 14, 2003 in Fallujah, Iraq. He also served in Korea and Afghanistan prior to deploying to Iraq with the 82nd. Airborne Division.

The second was to take care of his guys, which has proven more difficult. After many prayers and meditation, the concept for Blum's Landing was born. Trevor loved the outdoors; especially the woods, lakes, and rivers of northern Michigan. He often spoke about bringing his fellow soldiers to Michigan for fishing and camping trips. This love for nature and his dedication and loyalty to his friends inspired the idea for Blum's Landing.
Donations

Many service personnel have sacrificed much to ensure our comfort and safety, 24 hours a day ,365 days a year. Help us provide them with a place that will show our appreciation for sacrifices.

The Blumberg's have formed a non-profit foundation (EIN 26-2363640) to ensure that Blum's Landing is completed and maintained for many years to come. Blum's Landing has filed for 501-C-3 status; so your donation will be tax deductible. Your donation will allow us to give back to those who have sacifficed so much on our behalf. Donations can be received in the form of materials, cash, or helping hands with our gracious thanks.

You may donate on line or by mail : Blum's Landing

Blum's Landing provides activities throughout the various seasons. The streams, rivers, and lakes offer excellent fishing opportunities for the beginner or the seasoned fisherman. Terry is always willing to give a fly-fishing or a fly-tying lesson. He is also willing to guide you to the "good" spots on Orchard Lake. If you are more interested in a quiet and scenic afternoon, the various rivers offer a relaxing and peaceful canoeing, kayaking or tubing adventure. The beaches of Lake Huron also are great for swimming, long walks, or just enjoying the beautiful sunsets.

For those of you who wish to explore the Michigan wilderness, Black Mountain Recreational Area provides year-round hiking, snowmobiling, snowshoeing, and cross-country skiing. In the fall, you can experience the beauty of the Michigan autumn colors. The area abounds with wildlife, from black squirrels, deer, beaver, and elk and you may even get the opportunity to see our resident eagle soaring through the skies.

Local attractions include the historic city of Mackinaw. Mackinaw Island is home for the world famous Grand Hotel. The Grand holds the record for the "longest porch in the world".

Spc. Donald Laverne Wheeler was affectionately known as "DJ" to his family, which included three sisters and eight brothers. In the military, he picked up the nickname "Sunshine." "They called him Sunshine at Fort Hood in Texas because he was so tall he stood out from everyone else and he was always smiling," said one of his sisters, Andrea Barrett. Wheeler, 22, of Concord, Mich., died Oct. 13 in an attack in Tikrit. His mother, Mary Cay Wheeler, said he decided to enlist after the Sept. 11 attacks. He loved the Army but at the same time he missed his family, she said. They had a photo of Wheeler blown up to near life size and brought it to his sister's wedding reception because he couldn't attend. "I shall always remember him, a big kid who gave everything he had on that dusty day," said Lt. Jason Price at a memorial service in Tikrit. "It's difficult to say goodbye."

WHEELER, DONALD L. JR. S.P.C. "DJ"— A true American hero was taken to his heavenly home Monday, October 13, 2003 while serving his country in Tikrit, Iraq, aged 22 years. He was born July 15, 1981 to Don and Mary Kay Wheeler. S.P.C. Donald Laverne Wheeler Jr. "DJ" was the fourth of 12 children. Proud and loving siblings include Burt, Trevor, Andrea (Jake) Barrett, Phyllis, Thomas, Quentin, Paul, Bernadette, Spencer, Dominic and Patrick. DJ was a member of the 4th Infantry Division, 1st Battalion, 1-22nd Infantry Regiment Company stationed in Fort Hood, Texas. He chose Fort Hood because his grandfather, Henry C. Thorrez was stationed there before his service in World War II and he looked up to him dearly. Surviving grandparents are Henry and Phyllis Thorrez of Concord and Herb and Jean Wheeler of Concord. Herb was also a World War II veteran and his brother, DJ's namesake, was killed in the Korean War aged 22. DJ was a 1999 graduate of Lumen Christi Catholic High School where he enjoyed playing football. After graduating DJ worked as a machine operator at Concord Manufacturing Company, the factory owned by his family. Other hobbies enjoyed by DJ were basketball, snowmobiling, paint balling, go-carting, listening to loud music in his truck, being with friends, family and enjoying life. DJ is the beloved nephew of Jim (Rachel) Wheeler of Concord, Bruce Wheeler of Concord, John (Sue) Wheeler of Union City, TN, Sandy (Lyle) Rice of Litchfield, Cindy (Don) Burroughs of Hanover, Lori (Ron) Rice of Allan, MI, Camiel (Anne Marie) Thorrez of Concord, Theresa (Walt) Stevens of Concord, Jeff (Cheryl) Thorrez of Concord. Also surviving are best friend and cousin, Wes Stevens; goddaughter and niece, Caylee Barrett; special friend, Jerry Lynn Derbyshire "Bear" and many loving cousins. Preceded in death by his aunts, Diana, Candace and Sandra Thorrez and his cousin, Luke Thorrez. Those close to DJ take solace in his strong faith in Jesus and can't express how proud of him they are. DJ is at the WATSON FUNERAL CHAPEL where prayers will be held Tuesday, 10:00 a.m. Mass of Christian Burial to follow at QUEEN OF THE MIRACULOUS MEDAL CHURCH, 11:00 a.m. Interment Maple Grove Cemetery, Concord. The Reverend Thomas Nenneau officiating.

Visitation Sunday 2 to 7 p.m., Monday 1 to 4 and 6 to 9 p.m. Rosary Service Monday, 6:00 p.m. www.MLive.com/obits

J.L. Watson Funeral Chapel 2590 Spring Arbor Road Locally owned since 1930

As a child, Paul J. Johnson would disappear for hours to play Army around his Calumet, Mich., neighborhood. As a man, he became a respected and decorated soldier. "He said, 'I've got some responsibilities. I need to be back with my men,'" the Rev. David Holloway of Fayettville, N.C., recalled Johnson saying a year ago after service in Afghanistan. "He wanted to get the job done because it was his calling." Staff Sgt. Johnson, 29, was killed Oct. 20 in a roadside ambush 40 miles west of Baghdad. Known as P.J., Johnson joined the Army in 1993, two years after graduating from Calumet High School. He earned more than 30 awards and decorations, including two Bronze Stars, two NATO medals, three humanitarian service medals, two National Defense Service medals, three good conduct medals, French and Russian parachutist badges and a Purple Heart. He is survived by his wife, Mary "Missy" Johnson, and 4-year-old son Bryan.

Fort Bragg soldier remembered as ‘epitome’ of a paratrooper

Associated Press

FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. — Staff Sgt. Paul J. Johnson, killed Monday when Iraqi fighters ambushed his patrol in Iraq, was remembered as a top-notch soldier by his colleagues at Fort Bragg.

“From what I hear, he is the epitome of what an 82nd paratrooper should be,” Master Sgt. Pam Smith said Tuesday.

Johnson, of Calumet, Mich., was killed while heading into Fallujah to patrol about 12:30 p.m. A roadside bomb exploded near the Humvee he was riding in, Pentagon officials said. He was 29.

The ambush was in the same area where an ammunition truck broke down Sunday and was attacked.

Six other paratroopers were wounded in Monday’s ambush. The soldiers were taken to the 28th Combat Support Hospital in Baghdad. The Department of Defense did not release the soldiers’ names or their conditions.

Johnson was a squad leader in Alpha Company, 1st Battalion, 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment.

He is survived by a wife and a son. His wife declined to be interviewed Tuesday.

Johnson joined the Army in January 1993 and was assigned to the 82nd Airborne Division in February 1999. Before deploying to Iraq, he took part in Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan with the 82nd.

His awards include a bronze star and a combat infantry badge. He was a senior rated jumpmaster.

Neighbors said he was a family man, and could often be seen playing with his son.

“He was an all-around good guy,” said neighbor James Parrish.

Parrish said that before Johnson left for Iraq, they spoke about how dangerous it was there.

“It hits close to home because it is someone I know,” Parrish said.

Thirteen paratroopers from the 82nd, including Johnson, have been killed in Iraq, all of them since May 1 when President Bush declared the end of major combat operations.

Johnson is the third paratrooper from the 3rd Brigade Combat Team to be killed. The team is made up of two battalions from the 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment and one battalion from the 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment.

Chief Warrant Officer Philip A. Johnson was a committed military man who jumped to the Army after the Marine Corps. The helicopter pilot attended the University of South Alabama in Mobile for three years before joining the Marines. After four years in the Marines, Johnson served in the Army for six years.

“He was very committed. He was doing what he wanted to do, and he felt he was doing the right thing,” said his father, Philip A. Johnson Sr.

Johnson, 31, was born in Davenport, Iowa, and grew up in Chicago before his family moved to Mobile in 1985. He was among nine soldiers killed Jan. 8 in a Black Hawk crash in Iraq. Johnson’s wife, Melissa Johnson, 28, is in the Air Force and lives in Colorado Springs, Colo.

— Associated Press

“Born Paratrooper” Ranger Paul Johnson’s Story

Army Ranger Paul Johnson This is the second of three articles about the three Monroe County soldier-sons whose banners are displayed at the Monroe County Courthouse, along Cherohala Skyway near the Tellico Plains’ visitors center, and in downtown Sweetwater at the railroad depot. The soldiers - Ryan Haupt, Paul Johnson, and Joey Hunt - were killed in action in Iraq, leaving behind families, friends, and fellow servicemen. The articles have been prepared with the assistance of the mens’ mothers, who are the county’s “American Gold Star Mothers.” This article is the story of Army Staff Sergeant Paul J. Johnson whose mother, Patricia Black of Tellico Plains, provided the information. “He was a born paratrooper,” Patricia says from her cool breezy front porch on Payne Road. “By the time he was five years old, P.J. wanted to jump out of airplanes. He wanted more than anything to be a paratrooper.” Paul Joseph Johnson, Pat’s son, was born in Michigan on November 4, 1973. His home was in the Upper Peninsula, and when he was 16 years old he was talking to a recruiter about the Army’s delayed entry program. Pat said P.J. had joined the Calumet High School’s ROTC with plans to become a paratrooper. “He began private jump training at 15,” she says, “and he made his first jump on his 16th birthday.” But the jump almost didn’t happen, Pat said, due to an engine fire on the jump plane. “So a second plane took him up,” she says. “He came out of the plane and deployed his chute. His instructor spoke to him (by radio) and told him to perform a movement, and he dives and he starts swinging back and forth as he drops. The instructor said something else and aightened right up and dropped on down and landed dead-center on the circle target he was supposed to hit. It was a perfect jump his very first time.” The instructor suggested a second jump, an offer lined, Pat said, because he didn’t have enough money for another plane trip. “So his instructor said that because it was birthday this jump would be on him, as a birthday present. And off P.J. goes again.” In that jump, Pat said Paul was told by the instructor to pull his guide ropes again in a certain way. “And he did and began to move in a circle, around and around,” Pat says, drawing the motion in pantomime with her hand, “and then the instructor says something else and ts circling, lines right up, and hits the target again, right in the middle. He made two perfect landings on his first two jumps. I’ll never forget it.” Following high school graduation, Paul left for Fort took his basic training, and applied for jump school, to which he was admitted. He was 17 years old. “He became platoon leader there,” Pat says. “Because he knew so much about jumping already. His teachers were amazed at his knowledge and his abilities.” Paul was assigned to Fort Bragg and remained there for over 11 years. Pat said that he was accepted to Ranger school just short of his 20th birthday and underwent its harsh and rigid training. After three months, his weight went from 158 pounds to 128, so intense was the training. “The school was tough,” Pat says, “and he lost so much weight.” Afterward, from 1993 to 1995, Paul deployed out to South America, Panama, and Haiti. In 2001 and 2002, he served in Bosnia and Sarajevo with General David , who became very close to Paul during the year. “They would eat together and do things in their free time,” Pat says. It was , Pat said, who insisted that Paul return to the United States in May 2002 when his sister Suzanne graduated as the first female commander of the ROTC at Michigan State University. “The general sent me so he could pin her second lieutenant bars on her,” Pat says. “Together, he on one side of Suzanne and me on the other, we placed the bars on her uniform.” Paul then went back to Sarajevo and rejoined . In February 2003, Paul was selected to represent the 82nd Airborne in ceremonies at ground zero in New York City. He was the sole soldier from Bragg to carry the distinction and became a minor celebrity when he appeared on several news shows, including John Gibson’s on Fox. Six months later, Paul was deployed to Iraq. He arrived in Kuwait a week after he received his orders and became stationed in Baghdad by the end of the month. Approximately seven weeks after that, on October 20, 2003, Paul died in an explosion in Fallujah. “He was on patrol,” Pat says. “His unit was delivering school supplies to was helping with certain areas where the infrastructure wasn’t good. The soldiers approached a bridge near a market stand that had been closed. Beyond, there was a house and a man standing outside who motioned to d spoke to him in the Iraqi language.” Here Pat stops and explains that Paul was proficient in picking up foreign languages. He had learned to speak to the Iraqis quickly, grasping certain words and phrases simply by listening. “So he says something to the man and the man speaks back, and ns to his men and tells them to wait and he starts walking toward the man and the house. Suddenly, halfway between the stand and the house an oil drum explodes. It was later found to be remote-controlled and it spewed kerosene and shrapnel and P.J. was killed instantly.” Pat said that her son was burned over 80 percent of his body. “But he did not suffer,” she says. “There was no pain. It happened so quickly. I am thankful, so thankful, that he didn’t have to suffer.” His men later got the man who motioned to Paul, Pat said with a bit of a smile. “They got him, they did it for he says. “He died 50 years to the day his grandfather died, who was killed in a similar explosion at work. He had his grandfather’s Zippo lighter on him when he died, too. It came back to us when the Army sent his personal effects.” Odd that he would have the lighter, a device that never worked again after the grandfather’s death. Pat said Paul tried over and over to make the lighter operative but never could. He carried it, anyway, she said. And it survived two explosions though, a half century apart. With brothers and sisters, Paul left a young son in Fayetteville, North Carolina. “Little Bryan was four years old a month before d,” Pat says. “P.J. was married six years to Missy before the explosion.” Paul left an older sister, Heidi, an older brother, Boyd, and another older sister, Michaela, and Russell, who was also an older brother. Only Suzanne was younger. “P.J. always said he wouldn’t live to see 30,” Pat says. “He died two weeks before his 30th birthday.” As the conversation with Pat begins to wind down, she goes inside her home and returns with a framed set of various “jump wings.” “These in Sarajevo,” she says, holding the encased set with pride. “These are British, and here’s the French and Belgium wings. Those are Australian and these are Russian. He jumped with all these soldiers.” Paul preferred and wore the uniquely-shaped Russian wings on his dress uniform, Pat said. “You can wear one and he opted for this one,” she says, handing over a second Russian wing, a parachute- shaped pin of striking beauty. “He talked a lot of the Vietnam War, too,” Pat says. “He seemed fascinated by it. When he was 11 and 12, he would ride his bike into town - it was maybe ten to 12 miles away - and he would sit and talk with the Vietnam veterans. He loved those guys.” Pat said Paul collected Vietnam-era military issue and had a full service uniform, including a field pack and other items, from the 1960s and 70s. “But despite everything else, he was such a jokester,” Pat says. “You could never get mad at him. He was funny and would always make you laugh.” Pat said her son was a “career” soldier who never wanted anything else but to be in the army and jump out of planes. “He was the ultimate soldier,” she says, looking far away, “so respected, so loved. He was a born paratrooper”.

Spc. Artimus Brassfield struggled to make it through school, but always kept his focus on two main ambitions: to play basketball and join the military. "He made it through high school," said Brassfield's father, Cary, of Flint, Mich. "He got himself together." Brassfield, 22, who was based at Fort Hood, died Oct. 24 in a mortar attack as he played basketball at his Iraq military base. "He was just a sitting duck," Cary Brassfield said, but added that his son "died doing what he loved. He loved basketball, and he loved the Army." Born in Mississippi, Brassfield grew up in Dayton, Ohio, and moved to Flint to live with his father when he was 14. He joined the Army in March 2001 after his high school graduation, and married his wife, Andrea, the following August. He is also survived by a brother.

Artimus Brassfield (right) and his immediate commander, Staff Sgt. William Annussek (left), pose with an unidentified friend on their tank in Iraq.

Cary Brassfield with photos of Artimus.

Andrea Brassfield at her husband's grave.

Artimus and Andrea at his graduation from basic training.

Cary Brassfield: "He made me very proud that I was his father."

Andrea and Artimus Brassfield in happier times.

Andrea Brassfield at her parents' home in Flint.

Birth:	Mar. 28, 1981 Meridian Lauderdale County Mississippi, USA
Death:	Oct. 24, 2003, Iraq
Army Spc. Brassfield was assigned to B Company, 1st Battalion, 66th Armored Regiment, 4th Infantry Division, Fort Hood, Texas, as a tank driver. Brassfield died of wounds received when a mortar struck nearby while he was playing basketball at a military base at Samaria, Iraq. An explosion had sent soldiers running for cover, but a second shelling ended Artimus' life before he could reach the nearest building. Artimus grew up in Dayton, Ohio, until he moved to Flint to live with his father when he was 14. He was named after Artimus Gordon from the 1960s television show "Wild, Wild West”. He joined the Army in March 2001 after graduating from Flint's Central High School. He was "happy-go-lucky" and popular and was part of the Kappa League social fraternity in Flint. Artimus struggled in school and failed the military entrance test twice before finally succeeding in enlisting but always kept his focus on two main ambitions: to play basketball and join the military. He made it through high school and got himself together. Five months after joining the Army, he married his wife, Andrea, in August 2001. He posthumously received a purple heart and bronze star for his service in the conflict in Iraq. Artimus died doing what he loved; he loved basketball, and he loved the Army. (bio by: Brenda Normandin)
Burial: River Rest Cemetery Flint Genesee County Michigan, USA