Some of the 660 American flags on display are seen on the church lawn of St. Peter's Reformed Church, Friday, Aug. 30, 2019, in Zelienople, Pa. A church spokesperson said they put the flags and a banner up on Thursday for the Labor Day weekend to illustrate the number of veterans that commit suicide a year. The church web site indicates they hold monthly meetings for an American Foundation for Suicide Prevention support group.
AP Photo/Keith Srakocic
AP Photo/Keith Srakocic
Some of the 660 American flags on display are seen on the church lawn of St. Peter's Reformed Church, Friday, Aug. 30, 2019, in Zelienople, Pa. A church spokesperson said they put the flags and a banner up on Thursday for the Labor Day weekend to illustrate the number of veterans that commit suicide a year. The church web site indicates they hold monthly meetings for an American Foundation for Suicide Prevention support group.
AP Photo/Keith Srakocic
Some of the 660 American flags on display are seen on the church lawn of St. Peter’s Reformed Church, Friday, Aug. 30, 2019, in Zelienople, Pa. A church spokesperson said they put the flags and a banner up on Thursday for the Labor Day weekend to illustrate the number of veterans that commit suicide a year. The church web site indicates they hold monthly meetings for an American Foundation for Suicide Prevention support group. (AP Photo/Keith Srakocic)
President Dwight D. Eisenhower was in the White House when Armistice Day was changed to Veteran’s Day. In his 1954 proclamation, he wrote: “I … call upon all of our citizens to observe Thursday, November 11, 1954, as Veterans Day. On that day, let us solemnly remember the sacrifices of all those who fought so valiantly … to preserve our heritage of freedom, and let us reconsecrate ourselves to the task of promoting an enduring peace so that their efforts shall not have been in vain.”
In his 2019 proclamation, President Donald Trump wrote: “Today, we pledge always to fight for those who have fought for us, our veterans, who represent the best of America. They deserve our prayers, our unending support, and our eternal gratitude.”
Several newspapers across the state dedicated space on Sunday’s front page to the stories of veterans. In southwestern Pennsylvania, the Tribune-Review tells the story of 95-year-old Frank Emanuel, an Army veteran who described being wounded while serving in Italy during World War II. Decades after the injury, white spots showed up on an X-ray. A doctor feared cancer. Turns out, it was just tiny shrapnel fragments still inside Emanuel, writes Jeff Himler.
The Tribune-Review story notes that “a little more than 389,000 of the 16 million Americans who served in World War II are still alive.”
The York Daily Record tells the story of Specialist Four John Wesley Dahr, killed in Vietnam, three days before his 21st birthday. “It took years, but through the efforts of the family and friends and veterans’ advocates, Dahr was honored in October when the Borough of Dillsburg erected a monument to him on the town square, a simple stone and a flagpole marking his service, his heroism and his sacrifice,” reporter Mike Argento writes.
LNP’s Earle Cornelius describes how Harold Billow survived the Malmedy massacre during World War II’s Battle of the Bulge. “As soon as the machine gun started firing, I went face down in the snow,” Billow said.
This year, state Sen. Mike Regan, R-Cumberland/York, has organized several roundtable discussions focused on the number of veterans who take their own lives. “The veteran suicide rate is nearly double that of the general population,” Regan said during a discussion in southwestern Pennsylvania.
York County commissioners, from left to right, Chris Reilly, Susan Byrnes and Doug Hoke, meet on Nov. 6, 2019. Some polling places had long lines on Election Day as the county rolled out new voting machines. (Ed Mahon / PA Post)
York County, which had long lines and other problems as it rolled out new paper-ballot voting machines, will have a public debriefing 10 a.m. Thursday with its vendor, Dominion Voting Systems. The York Dispatch’s Logan Hullinger has the details. The county’s elections director, Nikki Suchanic, plans to step down, but she said it’s for personal reasons — not because of Election Day problems, the York Daily Record’s Teresa Boeckel reports.
Mark Scolforo of The Associated Press looks at high risk dams in Pennsylvania and the danger they pose. It is part of a more than two-year investigation by the AP, which “identified 1,688 dams nationwide that are rated as high-hazard and are deemed to be in poor or unsatisfactory condition.” Scolforo’s story goes all the way back to the 1889 Johnstown flood, which killed 2,200 people and was blamed on poor maintenance of the South Fork Dam on the Little Conemaugh River.
One consequence of low unemployment: A shortage of school bus drivers, The Philadelphia Inquirer’s Maddie Hanna reports. “Typically in this industry, if the economy is in the toilet, we have enough drivers,” a transportation manager told Hanna.
Before last week’s election, I wrote an edition of The Context focusing on-reform minded district attorney candidates. To follow up: In Allegheny County, District Attorney Stephen Zappala fended off a challenge from his left, as WESA’s An-Li Herring reports. In Delaware County, challenger Jack Stollsteimer won as part of a big night for Democrats there. Stollsteimer was backed by billionaire George Soros, who helped Larry Krasner win the district attorney’s office in Philly in 2017.
