[robowombat]

I have some more to report on this. I have attempted to find out more about SSgt Meek as i am a Louisianian. One bit of information was that he was born in Arcadia, La., which is in Bienville Parish, the next parish west to Claiborn where the village of Lisbon is located. This is in far north part of the state in an area of rolling hills and steep ravines near the west end of the Monroe oil and gas field. If any Freepers from Ka-Mo know something about Captain White, who was an experienced and daring aviator that information would be appreciated. These are two small bits of the drama and sacrifice that was the lot of the generation that rendesvoused with destiny.

[forgotten man]

There were more than 400,000 Americans killed in World War II.
That is a lot of gold stars. I bet that more than 100,000 Americans were killed in the last six months of the war, from the start of the Battle of the Bulge until Okinawa was secured.

[Brad from Tennessee]

Our flag's unfurled to every breeze
From dawn to setting sun;
We have fought in every clime and place
Where we could take a gun;
In the snow of far-off Northern lands
And in sunny tropic scenes;
You will find us always on the job
The United States Marines.

—Marine Corps Hymn

[Shadowstrike]

Welcome home Brothers, welcome home.

[ken5050]

Good luck with your search. If you do succeed in finding more information, I trust you'll post it. With today's genealogical databases, it shouldn't be too hard to find out about his family history as well as an current living relations.

Our military does a superb job of recovering and identifying remains. However, the statistic that "the remains of more than 73,000 were never recovered or identified," is pretty misleading, in that it implies there exists the possibility of someday finding them. That's not the case. The overwhelming percentage of those where lost at sea, when either ships and/or planes went down, and recovery is not possible. We do know what happened to them. The more than 1,000 sailors and Marines who went down on the Arizona are actually included in that number, as the individual remains were never identified, or recovered, yet one could hardly call them "missing." I'd like to see a more realistic assessment.

[donmeaker]

It is my understanding that more Marines died in Vietnam than in WWII.

The Marines were very small, and their major influence was the doctrine of amphibious landings. Of 248 US amphibious landings in WWII, 48 were conducted by the Marines. 200 were conducted by the Army.