Dust, Steel, and Redemption

Charles Bradley Sullivan was born on February 12th, 1920, in Fort Logan, Colorado. He grew up in Wyandotte, Kansas, with his father, mother, and two sisters.[1] Charles’ father, Charles E. Sullivan, was born in Providence, Rhode Island, in 1888.

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Julianna Beckert
From Kansas Fields to Vietnam Fronts

Samuel Fred Thompson Jr. was born on April 16th, 1929, in Fall River, Kansas.[1] Fall River is a city in Greenwood County, Kansas. Its namesake comes from the river it’s situated on, and the area has very humid summers and generally mild to cool winters.

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Julianna Beckert
From Farm Life to Service Life

Born on April 16, 1894, in DeKalb, Illinois, Clarence Herbert Peterson was the son of a Danish immigrant and an Illinoisan.[1] Records show that in 1900, he had 3 siblings, an older brother, Evans, born in 1891, a younger sister Irene, born in 1896, and a younger brother Raymond, born in 1899.

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Julianna Beckert
From the Sea to the Mountains: A DU Hero

Born in Georgetown, Indiana, on January 26, 1926, Elmer Lee Hamby, son of Agnes and Elmer Hamby, spent the majority of his childhood on his family's sugar beet, alfalfa, and cantaloupe farm in Rocky Ford, CO, accompanied by his younger sister Mary and his older sister Ione.[1]

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Julianna Beckert
Dedicated to Publishing the Truth

Frederick A. Praeger was born in 1915, into a Jewish family as the only child of Max Mayer Praeger, an Austrian publisher and newspaper managing director, and Manya Praeger.[1] Growing up in Austria, he studied law and political science at the University of Vienna from 1933 to 1938 and also spent time at the Sorbonne in Paris in 1934.

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Julianna Beckert
Disciplined to Serve

Earl Wilford Thompson was born in 1946 in St. George, Washington County, Utah.[1] He was the son of Joseph Claude Thompson (1917–1982) and Helen Thompson (Leavitt) (1921–2011). The Thompson family were active participants in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. St. George, a Mormon church, in the late 1940s and 1950s.

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Julianna Beckert
From Worcester to Northern China: The Journey of a Marine

Peter John Zamaites was born on October 19, 1911, in Worcester, Massachusetts, to parents George Zamaitis and Lucy Jankauskas.[1]From 1929 to 1931, Zamaites enlisted in the Marines and served as a Private for the 308th Company of the US Naval Reserve Armory in Worcester, the 307th Company in Los Angeles, California, and Company “L” of the Seventh Reserve Regiment in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

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Julianna Beckert