re: Pictures from days gone by....

Hanger deck USS Lexington 1941.

'Monsieur Verlinde of the 2nd Lancers - one of the surviving Grande Armée veterans in uniform on the anniversary of Napoleon's death, Paris, 1858

American Sergeant John Parks. Photographed on December 10, 1944 after several days in his tank at the front. Parks, who was 24 years old, fell in combat a few days after this photograph was taken. Sergeant John H. Parks, 37th Tank Battalion, 4th Armored Division. KIA on 23 December 1944 during a German attack. He and the rest of his tank crew were killed but their bodies were never recovered. His name is inscribed at the Luxembourg American Cemetery at Hamm, Luxembourg.

Though he died long before I was born and I never met him, this man is my brother.

Side note: my maternal grandfather was a tanker in the 4th Armor Div.