Farewell to Old Soldiers - 2021

Sir Brian Urquhart, who helped establish the United Nations, dies aged 101 (Guardian)

Urquhart joined the army following the outbreak of the second world war, rising to the rank of major and participated in planning the airborne aspect of Operation Overlord...

John Mears “Jack” Shytle, 91, of Boones Neck Community near Holden Beach, passed away Thursday, Jan. 7, 2021. Jack was born and raised in Wilmington... He joined the U.S. Navy and proudly served aboard the USS Pursuit AGS 17.

(Port City Daily)

Caught my eye only because it mentions Sudan - "Jack was a Mason and Shriner for many years and served as... the drum major for his beloved Sudan Drum and Bugle Corps for over 30 years." I've often wondered how small town US organisations like the Shriners appropriated the name of Sudan, and haven't been able to find out on Google.

According to a story in the Guardian, Brian Sicknick, the police officer who was murdered by the mob which attacked the US Capitol on 6th January, was a military veteran. I believe one of the mob who was shot and killed, a woman named Ashli Babbitt, was also a military veteran.

Theodore Lumpkin Jr, Tuskegee Airman, dies from coronavirus (Guardian)

Theodore Lumpkin Jr, one of the famed Tuskegee Airmen of the second world war, has died from complications of the coronavirus, days before his 101st birthday. The Tuskegee Airmen were the first black pilots in the segregated US military and among the most respected fighter pilots of the second world war.

Woman believed to be last remaining widow of US civil war soldier dies (Guardian)

Helen Viola Jackson was just 17 when she married James Bolin, a 93-year-old veteran, in Missouri in 1936...

RAF 'Spitfire woman' Eleanor Wadsworth dies aged 103 (Guardian)

A trailblazing pilot who was one of the last surviving women to have taken on the task of transporting aircraft to the frontlines of the second world war has died at the age of 103. Nottingham-born Eleanor Wadsworth, who served as one of the RAF’s “Spitfire women” during the conflict, died in December in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk after a short illness. She was one of about 165 women who flew without instruments, flying instructions or radios. Operating out of White Waltham in Berkshire, the Air Transport Auxiliary (ATA) programme trained female pilots to fly numerous types of aircraft and played a crucial part in ensuring the RAF was able to fight.

Wadsworth joined the ATA in 1943... her favourite machine was the Spitfire, which she flew more than 130 times and described as a beautiful aircraft that was great to handle... “like many of the women pilots, she was incredibly humble about her contribution to the war effort”...

About 165 female and 1,153 male pilots flew planes from factories to the frontlines during the war. It was incredibly dangerous work, with the pilot’s only map strapped with elastic to their calf. Fifteen women died in action...

Walter Bernstein: blacklisted Hollywood screenwriter dies at 101 (Guardian)

A second world war correspondent for the military.

Captain Sir Tom Moore dies at 100 after testing positive for Covid (Guardian)

Captain Sir Tom Moore, the second world war veteran who raised almost £39m for NHS charities during the first coronavirus lockdown in spring 2020, has died aged 100 after testing positive for coronavirus... Moore’s fundraising efforts during the first national lockdown in April last year raised £38.9m for NHS charities after his pledge to walk 100 laps of his garden before his 100th birthday captured the imagination of fans from around the world...

joined the army. In 1940, he was selected for officer training and rose to the rank of captain, later being posted to the ninth battalion of the Duke of Wellington’s Regiment in India. He served and fought in the Arakan in western Burma, since renamed Rakhine State, and went with his regiment to Sumatra after the Japanese surrender. After the war, he returned to the UK and worked as an instructor at the Armoured Fighting Vehicle School in Bovington, Dorset...

George Shultz, Ronald Reagan’s longtime secretary of state, dies at 100 (Guardian)

From 1942 to 1945, Shultz was on active duty in the U.S. Marine Corps. He was an artillery officer, attaining the rank of captain. He was detached to the U.S. Army 81st Infantry Division during the Battle of Angaur (Battle of Peleliu)

(Wikipedia)

Larry Flynt, publisher of Hustler magazine, dies aged 78 (Guardian)

he ran away from home and, despite being only 15 years old, joined the United States Army using a counterfeit birth certificate... honorably discharged... he enlisted in the United States Navy in July 1960. He became a radar operator on USS Enterprise. He was the operator on duty when the ship was assigned to recover John Glenn's space capsule... He was honorably discharged in July 1964...

(Wikipedia))

Murray Walker, the voice of Formula One, dies aged 97 (Guardian)

he was conscripted into the British army, aged 18. He soon graduated from Sandhurst’s Royal Military College and went on to command a Sherman tank in the Battle of the Reichswald in the second world war. He reached the rank of captain but left the army in the years following the war...

Zeev Aram obituary (BBC)

national service in the {then} new Israeli navy

Monty Meth obituary (Guardian)

Monty Meth, who has died aged 95, was both a reporter on the Daily Worker newspaper and, later, the industrial editor of the Daily Mail... second world war service in the Navy...

G Gordon Liddy, mastermind of Watergate burglary, dies aged 90 (Guardian)

Liddy joined the United States Army, serving for two years as an artillery officer during the Korean War. (Wikipedia)

Prince Philip has died aged 99, Buckingham Palace announces (BBC)

After leaving Gordonstoun in early 1939, Philip completed a term as a cadet at the Royal Naval College, Dartmouth, then repatriated to Greece, living with his mother in Athens for a month in mid-1939. At the behest of the Greek king, George II (his first-cousin), he returned to Britain in September to resume training for the Royal Navy. He graduated from Dartmouth the next year as the best cadet in his course. During the Second World War, he continued to serve in the British forces, while two of his brothers-in-law, Prince Christoph of Hesse and Berthold, Margrave of Baden, fought on the opposing German side. Philip was appointed as a midshipman in January 1940. He spent four months on the battleship HMS Ramillies, protecting convoys of the Australian Expeditionary Force in the Indian Ocean, followed by shorter postings on HMS Kent, on HMS Shropshire, and in Ceylon. After the invasion of Greece by Italy in October 1940, he was transferred from the Indian Ocean to the battleship HMS Valiant in the Mediterranean Fleet.

On 1 February 1941, Philip was commissioned as a sub-lieutenant after a series of courses at Portsmouth, in which he gained the top grade in four out of five sections of the qualifying examination. Among other engagements, he was involved in the battle of Crete, and was mentioned in dispatches for his service during the battle of Cape Matapan, in which he controlled the battleship's searchlights. He was also awarded the Greek War Cross. In June 1942, he was appointed to the V and W-class destroyer and flotilla leader HMS Wallace, which was involved in convoy escort tasks on the east coast of Britain, as well as the Allied invasion of Sicily.

Promotion to lieutenant followed on 16 July 1942. In October of the same year, he became first lieutenant of HMS Wallace, at 21 years old one of the youngest first lieutenants in the Royal Navy. During the invasion of Sicily, in July 1943, as second in command of Wallace, he saved his ship from a night bomber attack. He devised a plan to launch a raft with smoke floats that successfully distracted the bombers, allowing the ship to slip away unnoticed. In 1944, he moved on to the new destroyer, HMS Whelp, where he saw service with the British Pacific Fleet in the 27th Destroyer Flotilla. He was present in Tokyo Bay when the instrument of Japanese surrender was signed. Philip returned to the United Kingdom on the Whelp in January 1946, and was posted as an instructor at HMS Royal Arthur, the Petty Officers' School in Corsham, Wiltshire...

After his honeymoon at the Mountbatten family home, Broadlands, Philip returned to the navy at first in a desk job at the Admiralty, and later on a staff course at the Naval Staff College, Greenwich. From 1949, he was stationed in Malta (residing at Villa Guardamangia) after being posted as the first lieutenant of the destroyer HMS Chequers, the lead ship of the 1st Destroyer Flotilla in the Mediterranean Fleet. On 16 July 1950, he was promoted to lieutenant commander and given command of the frigate HMS Magpie. On 30 June 1952, Philip was promoted to commander, though his active naval career had ended in July 1951...

(Wikipedia)

Edited to add: Prince Philip: The Royal Navy years (BBC video)

Edited again to add: Prince Philip: The War Years - Duke Of Edinburgh On Serving In WW2 • FULL 1995 INTERVIEW (YouTube video)

Ramsey Clark, attorney general who represented Saddam Hussein, dies at 93 (Guardian)

At the age of 17 joined the United States Marine Corps, seeing action in Western Europe in the final months of World War II; he served until 1946. (Wikipedia)

Ray Lambert, Heroic actions at Normandy: 6 June 1944

https://www.legacy.com/news/celebrity-deaths/ray-lambert-1920-2021-wwii-hero-on-...

Walter Mondale, former US vice-president and celebrated liberal, dies aged 93 (Guardian)

Mondale enlisted in the United States Army in 1951. He served at Fort Knox during the Korean War, attained the rank of corporal and was discharged in 1953 (Wikipedia).

Chad's President Idriss Déby dies after clashes with rebels (BBC)

Chad's President Idriss Déby has died of his injuries following clashes with rebels in the north of the country at the weekend, the army has said... An army officer by training, he came to power in 1990 through an armed uprising... He had gone to the front line, several hundred kilometres north of the capital, N'Djamena, at the weekend to visit troops battling rebels...

Idriss Déby was known as that rare thing - a true warrior president. The former rebel and trained pilot was the opposite of an armchair general...

Michael Collins, Apollo 11 astronaut, dies aged 90 (Guardian)

He was also a test pilot and major general in the U.S. Air Force Reserves. Collins graduated from the United States Military Academy with the Class of 1952. He joined the United States Air Force, and flew F-86 Sabre fighters at Chambley-Bussières Air Base, France. He was accepted into the U.S. Air Force Experimental Flight Test Pilot School at Edwards Air Force Base in 1960, also graduating from the Aerospace Research Pilot School (Class III)

(Wikipedia)

Max Mosley, privacy campaigner and outspoken FIA president, dies aged 81 (Guardian)

From 1961 to 1964, Mosley was a member of the Territorial Army, Parachute Regiment (44th Independent Parachute Brigade Group) (Wikipedia).

Remembering Ken Garland (1929-2021)

Ken Garland – the designer, educator, writer and activist – has died at the age of 92... He graduated in 1947, undertook his military service...

OJ Simpson's lawyer F Lee Bailey dies aged 87 (BBC)

He studied at Harvard University but dropped out in 1952 to join the United States Navy and later transferred to the Marine Corps. He was commissioned as an officer and, following flight training, received his Naval Aviator wings in 1954. He served as a jet fighter pilot, and then began to serve as a squadron legal officer...

(Wikipedia)

Eric Carle (June 25, 1929 – May 23, 2021) was an American-German author, designer and illustrator of children's books...

Carle was sent to the small town of Schwenningen to escape the bombings of Stuttgart. When he was 15, the German government conscripted boys of that age to dig trenches on the Siegfried Line...

He was drafted into the U.S. Army during the Korean War and stationed in Germany... with the 2nd Armoured Division...

(Wikipedia)

‘Hero of Auschwitz’ David Dushman, last surviving liberator of death camp, dies aged 98 (Guardian)

David Dushman, the last surviving soldier who took part in the liberation of the Nazi death camp at Auschwitz in 1945, has died at the age of 98... Dushman, a Red Army soldier who later became an international fencer, used his T-34 Soviet tank to mow down the electric fence of Auschwitz in Nazi-occupied Poland on 27 January, 1945, helping to set prisoners in the death camp free...

Donald Rumsfeld, former US defense secretary, dies aged 88 (Guardian)

Donald Rumsfeld, a two-time US defense secretary who was a key architect of America’s bitterly divisive wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, has died at the age of 88...

History unlikely to forgive Donald Rumsfeld’s Iraq warmongering (Guardian)

Donald Rumsfeld’s name will forever be associated with the biggest military fiasco in US history, the 2003 invasion of Iraq in pursuit of non-existent weapons of mass destruction, alongside the widespread use of torture that has dogged America’s reputation ever since.

It is not just the poor decisions he made as defence secretary for which Rumsfeld will be remembered, but also his efforts to cover up inconvenient facts that did not align with his version of reality. Documents surfaced after the invasion that showed that Rumsfeld was quite aware of the gaping holes in the intelligence about Iraqi WMD, but he consistently presented the claims to the public as if they were cast-iron certainties. He also played down the growing insurgency against the US-led occupation after Saddam Hussein’s fall, dismissing the collapse of law and order in Baghdad with the insouciant phrase “stuff happens”, which would go on to haunt him for the rest of his life. His reluctance to take heed of warnings that did not fit in with his world-view, alienated the generals and the military rank and file. His insistence there was no serious threat in Iraq contributed to the fact that the US military was driving around in lightly-armoured Humvees a year after the invasion.

In November 2006, the Army Times took the unusual step of calling for his resignation. “Rumsfeld has lost credibility with the uniformed leadership, with the troops, with Congress and with the public at large,” an editorial said. “His strategy has failed, and his ability to lead is compromised. And although the blame for our failures in Iraq rests with the secretary, it will be the troops who bear its brunt”...

From Wikipedia:

Rumsfeld served in the United States Navy from 1954 to 1957, as a naval aviator and flight instructor. His initial training was in the North American SNJ Texan basic trainer after which he transitioned to the T-28 advanced trainer. In 1957, he transferred to the Naval Reserve and continued his naval service in flying and administrative assignments as a drilling reservist. On July 1, 1958, he was assigned to Anti-submarine Squadron 662 at Naval Air Station Anacostia, District of Columbia, as a selective reservist. Rumsfeld was designated aircraft commander of Anti-submarine Squadron 731 on October 1, 1960, at Naval Air Station Grosse Ile, Michigan, where he flew the S2F Tracker. He transferred to the Individual Ready Reserve when he became Secretary of Defense in 1975 and retired with the rank of captain in 1989.

Philip Parnell Bowcock, 28th April 1927 – 4th June 2021

having narrowly missed serving during the war, he was obliged to complete national service and was commissioned as an officer in the 15/19 King’s Royal Hussars. His regiment was stationed in Khartoum, and this taste of travel and the charm of the Arabic speaking world sparked his interest in working for the British government overseas...

He also had the distinction of having served as a British colonial officer in Sudan from 1951 until around the time Sudan gained independence in 1956. I had the privilege of meeting him a couple of years ago to listen to some of his stories of that beautiful country, and to bring him up to date with some of the current developments there. I believe there are now only two former British colonial officers who served in Sudan still surviving.

Bay of Pigs veteran among victims of Miami condo collapse (Guardian)

a Cuban exile who took part in the calamitous Bay of Pigs invasion 60 years ago. Juan Mora, one of more than 90 people whose deaths have now been officially recorded in the collapse of Champlain Towers South, was a member of Brigade 2506, which played a key role in the abortive effort to overthrow Cuba’s revolutionary leader, Fidel Castro. Mora was trained in guerrilla warfare in the Guatemalan jungle, then dispatched in April 1961 as part of a 1,400-strong paramilitary force whose mission was to land at night on the southern coast of Cuba and from there put an end to the Soviet-backed revolutionary government. The cold war plan, conceived and paid for by the CIA under Dwight Eisenhower and set in train by his successor, John F Kennedy, went disastrously wrong. Kennedy withdrew air support from the invading paramilitary forces, who were overpowered by the Cuban army in just three humiliating days... Mora was a radio operator... They soon realized something had gone wrong when massive support promised by the CIA failed to materialize. Having run out of water, food and ammunition, they were captured by Cuban forces and taken to a military fort in Havana, where they spent 20 months before being returned to Florida in exchange for $53m... Despite the failed invasion, Mora remained proud of his participation and was an active member of the Bay of Pigs Veterans Association...

Peter R de Vries: Dutch crime reporter dies after shooting (BBC)

From 1976 to 1977, he was conscripted into the Royal Netherlands Army, where he achieved the rank of sergeant (Wikipedia)

Former England cricket captain Ted Dexter dies aged 86 (Guardian)

He did his national service as a second lieutenant in the 11th Hussars during the Malayan Emergency in 1953–55 and was awarded the Malaya Campaign Medal (Wikipedia).

Ed Asner: Lou Grant and Up actor dies aged 91 (BBC)

He was drafted in the military and served with the U.S. Army Signal Corps from 1951 to 1953 (Wikipedia).

Mikis Theodorakis, Zorba composer and political maverick, dies aged 96 (Guardian)

He went to Athens in 1943, and became a member of a Reserve Unit of ELAS, and led a troop in the fight against the British and the Greek right in the Dekemvriana (Wikipedia).

French film great Jean-Paul Belmondo dies at 88 (BBC)

As part of his compulsory military service, he served in Algeria as a private for six months (Wikipedia).

John Watkins dies aged 98 ten days after contracting Covid-19 (ESPN Cricinfo)

He served in the Second World War in Italy, at first as a trainee Spitfire pilot until it was discovered that he was colour-blind, after which he was transferred to air traffic control (Wikipedia).

Abdelaziz Bouteflika, Algeria’s longest-serving president, dies aged 84 (Guardian)

In 1956, Bouteflika went to the village of Ouled Amer near Tlemcen and subsequently joined—at the age of 19—the National Liberation Army, which was a military branch of the National Liberation Front. He received his military education at the École des Cadres in Dar El Kebdani, Morocco. In 1957–1958, he was designated a controller of Wilaya V, making reports on the conditions at the Moroccan border and in west Algeria... In 1960, he was assigned to leading the Malian Front in the Algerian south and became known for his nom de guerre of Abdelkader al-Mali, which has survived until today. In 1962, at the arrival of independence, he aligned with Boumédienne and the border armies in support of Ahmed Ben Bella against the Provisional Government of the Algerian Republic...

(Wikipedia)

Melvin Van Peebles, groundbreaking playwright and director, dies at age 89 (Guardian)

In 1954, Melvin joined the Air Force, serving for three and a half years (Wikipedia).

Theoneste Bagosora, architect of Rwanda genocide, dies aged 80 (Guardian)

The former army colonel, who was sentenced to life in prison for crimes against humanity, died in hospital in Mali...

Tributes paid after ex-head of Royal Marines is found dead (Guardian)

Boris Johnson led tributes from across the military to the former head of the Royal Marines who was found dead on Saturday at the age of 54. The prime minister said he was “very saddened” to learn of the sudden death of Maj Gen Matthew Holmes, who had led the Marines until his replacement in a reorganisation early this year. Holmes had been commandant general of the marines from 2019 until April this year and had previously served in Northern Ireland, Kosovo, Iraq and Afghanistan during a career of more than 30 years in the armed forces...

Raymond Odierno, US general who led allied forces in Iraq, dies aged 67 (Guardian)

Raymond Odierno, a US general who commanded American and coalition forces in Iraq at the height of the war and capped a 39-year career by serving as chief of staff of the army, has died, his family said on Saturday. He was 67. “The general died after a brave battle with cancer; his death was not related to Covid,” a statement said... Odierno graduated from the US Military Academy at West Point, New York in 1976, with a commission in field artillery...

Hubert Germain, last of elite group of French resistance fighters, dies (Guardian)

Hubert Germain, the last of France’s officially designated heroes of the resistance, has died aged 101. He was the only surviving member of the 1,038-strong Order of the Liberation, France’s highest bravery order, handpicked by the country’s wartime hero, Gen Charles De Gaulle...

The son of a general in France’s colonial army, he walked out of an entrance exam at France’s Naval College shortly after France fell to the Germans in the summer of 1940. “I am going to war,” he told the shocked examiner. Standing 1.90 metres tall (6ft 3in), he boarded a ship carrying Polish soldiers to England, where he arrived on 24 June 1940...

As a member of the French Free Forces and the Foreign Legion, he fought in key north African battles at Bir-Hakeim in Libya, El Alamein in Egypt and in the fierce battles in Tunisia with the Afrika Korps led by German general Erwin Rommel. He then participated in the decisive French-led landing on the country’s Mediterranean beaches in August 1944, setting foot on home soil for the first time in four years... He then helped liberate the key southern port of Toulon, the Rhone Valley and Lyon in central France, before slugging it out with the retreating Germans in the Vosges mountains and Alsace in the east. He was in the southern Alps when Germany surrendered. After the war Germain was named aide de camp to Gen Pierre Koenig, the commander of the French forces occupying Germany, before being demobilised in 1946...

Colin Powell, former US secretary of state, dies at 84 of Covid complications (Guardian)

a retired four-star general who served as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the early 1990s... He rose to occupy the top military position in the US government as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff between 1989 and 1993. In that role he presided over military crises including the invasion of Panama in 1989 and the first Gulf war in 1990-91...

Mort Sahl: Legendary comedian and satirist dies at age 94 (BBC)

When the U.S. entered World War II after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Sahl, then fourteen, joined the school's Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC). He won a medal for marksmanship and an American Legion "Americanism award".  Wanting to express his patriotism, he wore his ROTC uniform to school and in public and, when he turned fifteen, he dropped out of high school to join the U.S. Army by lying about his age.  His mother tracked him down and brought him back home two weeks later after she revealed his true age. Upon graduating from high school, his father tried to get him into West Point and had received his Congressman's help. But Sahl had by then already enlisted in the United States Air Force. He was later stationed in Alaska with the 93rd Air Depot Group... Sahl was discharged in 1947...

(Wikipedia)

Ron Flowers obituary (Guardian)

England and Wolverhampton footballer, died aged 87.

He served in the RAF and became an Aircraftman Second Class (Wikipedia).

David Lacey, former Guardian football correspondent, dies aged 83 (Guardian)

national service in the RAF...

Beverly ‘Ben’ Skardon, Class of ’38, decorated WWII veteran, passes away at 104 (Clemson News)

he served in World War II as the commander of Company A of the 92nd Infantry Regiment PA (Philippine Army), a battalion of Filipino Army recruits on the Bataan Peninsula in the Philippines. He led his troops through some of the fiercest fighting of the conflict, earning the Combat Infantryman Badge, two Silver Stars, a Bronze Star with “V” device, and a Purple Heart during the first four months of the war. On April 9, 1942, he became a prisoner of war when American troops were forced to surrender to the Japanese. He then endured one of the most notorious war crimes in history: The Bataan Death March. Skardon survived the march and more than three years as a POW, despite becoming deathly ill... As WWII came to an end, Skardon also survived the sinking of two unmarked Japanese transport ships carrying him and other POWs to mainland Japan. Russian units finally freed him in August 1945. He went on to serve in Korea from 1951-52 and retired from the Army at the rank of colonel in 1962...

Last Catholic Monk Who Survived Massacre at Algerian Monastery Dies Aged 97 (ACI Africa)

Enlisted at the age of eighteen in the Wehrmacht and escaped being sent to the Russian front thanks to a false diagnosis of tuberculosis during the military medical examination. (Wikipedia)

John Bartlett 1927 – 2021 (New Civil Engineer)

He was an officer cadet in the Royal Engineers and held a regular army commission, being promoted to Second Lieutenant on 20 June 1947. Bartlett returned to the British Army on 30 November 1978, being commissioned a Major in the Engineer and Railway Staff Corps, an unpaid voluntary unit providing engineering and logistics expertise. (Wikipedia)

Not sure whether working for MI6 during World War II makes you an "old soldier" or not (Wikipedia), but worth a mention anyway.

Eileen Ash: World's oldest Test cricketer dies at age of 110 (BBC)

Eileen Ash, the world's oldest former Test cricketer, has died aged 110. The bowler made her England debut in 1937, played seven Tests either side of World War Two and retired in 1949...

Peter Cundall, born Manchester, England, 1 April 1927 - died Tasmania, Australia, 5 December 2021, aged 94.

Peter Cundall joined the British Army at the end of the Second World War and served with the Parachute Regiment in post war Europe and the Middle East. He enlisted in the Australian Army in order to emigrate, and served with the 3rd Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment, in Korea 1951-1952.

Later in life he joined the Australian Broadcasting Commission and became a much loved long serving host of "Gardening Australia", a popular weekly programme on ABC Televison, retiring in 2008.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Cundall

https://www.nbcchicago.com/news/national-international/edward-shames-last-band-o....

The Chief of Defence Staff of the Indian Armed Forces, General Bipin Rawat, has died in helicopter accident in the Indian State of Tamil Nadu, southern India:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-12-08/india-military-helicopter-crashes-with-ch...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bipin_Rawat

Richard Marcinko: Seal Team Six founder dies at 81 (BBC)

Richard Marcinko, who has died at the age of 81, made his mark on the US military as founding commander of Seal Team Six, one of America's elite special forces units which would later carry out a deadly raid against Osama Bin Laden. A Vietnam War veteran, he led the group for its first three years, and was awarded more than 30 medals and citations during his career with the US Navy. His direct and abrasive leadership style brought great success but often caused conflict with superiors. Some accused him of encouraging a reckless, "bad boy" culture at Seal Team Six. Off the battlefield, Marcinko faced legal battles and was briefly jailed for defrauding the US government...

Golden Girls star Betty White dies aged 99 (Guardian)

When World War II broke out, she put her career on hold and volunteered for the American Women's Voluntary Services. Her assignment included the transportation of military supplies through California. She also participated in events for troops before they were deployed overseas

(Wikipedia)