The Accidental Journalist, Part 21 — War Remains, The Long Journey Home

The Story Behind the StoryAfter I had written three articles on the recovery of war remains from the Korean War I was curious about what happened to those remains once they left Korea and went to Hawaii for identification?
That’s when I came up with the idea for an article about the Central Identification Laboratory Hawaii [...]

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The Accidental Journalist, Part 20 — Departure Ceremony for Korean War Remains

The Story Behind the Story
 
Some of the more sobering and somber articles I wrote on a Korean War Commemorative event or Korean War-related topic were those I wrote about the ceremonies for the repatriation of remains thought to be those of U.S. service members killed during the conflict.
 
Since the end of the conflict in 1953 [...]

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Why are all these babies looking at me?

They know.
 
I can tell by the way they are looking at me; I can see it in their little wide, twinkling eyes and the grins upon their tiny toothless mouths.
 
They know.
 
There must be something telepathically going on here because they know; something in their looks, their smiles, their grins, the twinkle in their eyes.
 
Babies know [...]

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What’s in a Name? Rock Band Name Origins, Part 8 — Sam the Sham and The Pharaohs to Sweet

Part 1, 10cc to Creedence Clearwater Revival
Part 2, Deep Purple to The Grateful Dead
Part 3, Heart to Judas Priest
Part 4, Kansas to Mott the Hoople
Part 5, Nazareth to Ozzy Osbourne
Part 6, Paper Lace to Quiet Riot
Part 7, Radiohead to Rush
Back in the early 80s I was roadying for a band from the Illinois Valley called [...]

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The Accidental Journalist, Part 19 — An Unexpected Journey

The Story Behind the Story
 
This is actually a “story behind the story” of another story.
 
In addition to attending some of the major Korean War Commemorative Events in the summer and autumn of 2000, I was still writing weekly book reviews on books about the Korean War.
 
And once again it was a book that had [...]

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Michael Phelps is Korean

Of all the stories to come out of the Beijing Olympics one of the more bizarre ones claims that Michael Phelps is Korean.
 
Supposedly, this is just one of a number of stories being posted on a Chinese portal to show how Koreans distort history for their own advantage (now, who says that revisionist history is [...]

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Invaders from Mars

Other than having a fan letter published in Archie Comics in the summer of 1969 and winning the top prize of $5.00, I think when I really knew that I wanted to be a writer, or at least entertained the notion of becoming a writer was in Mrs. Gandolfi’s eighth grade English class.
 
I also believe, [...]

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Life’s ups and downs living overseas

“I’ve got the Won to Dollar exchange rate blues…”Even though I have been living and working overseas since 1989, it’s never really been a “walk in the woods.”
Sure, you go through periods when life seems easy and you find yourself in the zone—a comfort zone, as it were—when language, culture, and even diet all sort [...]

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Shop Class with the Mazzutti Brothers and Mr. V.

Most of my memories of grade school in Oglesby, Illinois are a jumbled, muddled assortment of highs and lows and adolescent angst—par for the course for any elementary student—but of these memories there’s one that still sticks most clearly in my mind: shop class.
 
In seventh and eighth grade the powers that be, in this case [...]

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Where’s Papa?

How does one convince a four-year-old boy, who never knew his biological father that his new “papa” will soon arrive and not to worry?
 
That was sort of the dilemma my fiancée On faced this morning when she, along with Bia and her younger sister took a songthaew (pronounced song-taw – it’s a pick-up truck that [...]

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