Showing results for "ralph" in Military

Ralph was a self-made man who took the good examples set by his parents and grandparents, started with very little, cut his losses when necessary, endured the Great Depression without folding and turned a half section of Iowa farm land into a prosperous operation. In so doing he passed on his work ethic and sound judgement to his family and provided a good life for himself and his family. Serving his country when asked to do so may have saved him from getting mired in the Montana homesteading disaster.

On September 11, 2001, Doug Laux was a freshman in college, on the path to becoming a doctor. But with the fall of the Twin Towers came a turning point in his life. After graduating, he joined the Central Intelligence Agency, determined to get himself to Afghanistan and into the center of the action. Through persistence and hard work, he was fast-tracked to a clandestine operations position overseas. Dropped into a remote region of Afghanistan, he received his baptism by fire.

With the development of the B-29 “Superfortress” in summer 1944, strategic bombing, a central component of the Allied war effort against Germany, arrived in the Pacific theater. In 1945 Japan experienced the three most deadly bombing attacks of the war. The firebombing of Tokyo in March burned the city’s most densely populated sector, killed some 85,000 residents, and left more than one million homeless. The attack was part of a months-long campaign of incendiary bombing that destroyed almost two-thirds of Japan’s cities.

In 1934, at age 51, Elsa’s sheltered life in Mussolini’s Fascist Italy changes remarkably when she and her husband, Paul, purchase the Pensione Alexandria overlooking the Mediterranean in Naples. When war breaks out in Europe and Italy sides with Germany, Elsa and her family’s fears are quickly realized. The growing sense that the atrocities in German-occupied lands will soon occur in Italy forces them to sell their pensione and attempt a desperate journey to safety in America.

The Third Reich is rising. The creeping madness in the heart of Germany will soon stain the entire world. This is the chilling account of one family as they flee for their lives. Written by a second generation Holocaust survivor, this compelling, heart-wrenching story will touch every emotion.