The problem was, it was a LARGE photo. I didn't check the html size when I hit send. This repost is larger than post 1; but the one Admin removed was LAAAARRRGGEE ;)
Posted on 05/06/2005 6:42:48 PM PDT by AZHua87
WASHINGTON (Army News Service, May 5, 2005) -- Debbie Lehman Prohaska wanted to do something to honor her father, who had been Pfc. Harry Lehman when he was severely injured by a landmine during Operation Market Garden in 1944.
“Dad came to me with these patches from uniforms, and said ‘I want you to make a quilt,’” she said. “Mom had quilted – I didn’t know how to quilt, but I told him I’d work it out.”
Her father had given her the shoulder patches from several different units that saw action in World War II. He asked her to make a quilt honoring the Battle of the Bulge.
She decided she needed more patches to complete the quilt.
“I started contacting the Battle of the Bulge veterans organizations,” she said. “These people would send me their uniform patches – some of them had been laying around in ring boxes for 60 years – and I’d add them to the quilt. I got a lot of great stories from these guys who would say ‘Tell your Dad…” and tell me things that had happened to them during the war.”
The quilt was “about 90 percent finished” when Prohaska’s father passed away in February of this year.
“I had to learn to sew and quilt, and I had to research World War II and the Battle of the Bulge to complete Dad’s request,” Prohaska said.
Prohaska said the quilt, which she has named the “Quilt of Love,” is a work in progress, as more and more veterans provide her with additional information.
“I found out this one unit badge was worn so that it is diamond-shaped, not square like I’d guessed, so I’m going to have to reattach it,” she said.
Not everything on the quilt is from World War II. An Air Force patch is included, at her father’s request, because he said the “Air Force” provided such great assistance to his unit during the war, even though it was the Army Air Corps until 1948, after the war’s end.
The quilt also includes qualification badges and some unit badges from Vietnam, simply because veterans sent them to Prohaska.
Among details on the quilt are two panels containing original art work by Hank Stairs, an artist who served with the 30th Infantry Division during the Battle of the Bulge. One depicts an incident Stairs witnessed, in which Nazi soldiers disguised in American uniforms and driving American jeeps were repulsed from a bridge at Stavelot, Belgium. The second is a memorial to World War II artist Bill Mauldin, which shows Mauldin’s famous Soldiers “Willy and Joe” standing over Mauldin’s grave.
On May 4, Prohaska was scheduled to meet a group of World War II veterans at the National World War II Memorial in Washington. Although she eventually met the group, the quilt attracted attention from many of the memorial’s visitors.
“That’s my unit patch, right there, the 87th Infantry,” said Talley Kelley, a Battle of the Bulge veteran. “I was with D Company, the machine gun company. The war ended on my birthday when I was in a shell hole in Czechoslovakia.”
Kelley said only 11 members of his company are still alive. “We keep in touch. I don’t think people realize now just how young we were back then.”
He said the quilt was a great honor to veterans of the battle.
Paul Shambaugh served with naval construction battalion “Seabees” on Eniwetok atoll and Guam during World War II.
“I’ve never seen anything like this. It’s just a wonderful thing,” he said of the quilt.
Spc. Jennifer Hutt of the 902nd Military Intelligence Group was also impressed by Prohaska’s effort.
“I think it’s a tremendous honor to the people who served in that generation,” Hutt said. “I’m very impressed by her pride in her father’s service.”
Prohaska said the quilt has a lot to do before she can display it in her home.
“I’ve already displayed it at the Pentagon, and I think it’s going to be put up at Walter Reed (Army Medical Center) next week.
I wiped your #3. That should do it.
The problem was, it was a LARGE photo. I didn't check the html size when I hit send. This repost is larger than post 1; but the one Admin removed was LAAAARRRGGEE ;)
Thank you :)
I liked the x large pic, I couldn't make out the quilt very well until you posted it.
Yep! Found that out putting #1 together. Glad I checked preview.
All I'm getting is the red "X" even with clicking "show picture".....am on dial up, if that makes a difference.
I am sorry. Click this link to see it larger: http://www4.army.mil/ocpa/uploads/large/OCPA-2005-05-05-131217.jpg
You don't like red Xs? ;)
Click the main story link:
http://www4.army.mil/ocpa/print.php?story_id_key=7290
Photo is there.
Foxhole ping
Oh my, what a wonderful story. Thanks so much for the ping.
So,.... how many kleenex did you need before you finished it?
Thanks for the ping!! Great story.
Remove me from this ping list as someone (unknown) posted a huge photo that ruined my ping formating and even though someone changed this it still fouls up my ping formatting.
Thanks for the ping!
My uncle lost his arm at the Battle of the Bulge. Quite a story here, although, like most of them, he never spoke of it.
Thanks for the ping.
Think this is for you. I searched my ping lists and HuntsvilleTxVeteran wasn't on any of them.
read later
Yes, that was me.
Sorry HuntsvilleTXVet.
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