A soldier’s story. It’s over. The soldier is home.
But there is more.
The story of World War II hero Roy Coulson Harms’ long road home to burial in the family funeral plot last weekend in his beloved hometown of Grafton, Wis., has a final chapter.
A mystery has been solved.
They say a picture is worth 1,000 words, and it very often is just that.
The body of U.S. Army Air Corps pilot Harms, a highly decorated war hero killed in a 1943 WWII air raid in Europe, remained unidentified for decades until the miracle of DNA provided the ticket back home via a military escort to Grafton.
Lt. Harms would never return home, but, like an unsolved mystery at the end of a novel, he left behind a note dropped from his B-24 Liberator war plane while making a slight detour over his hometown en route to war and subsequent death.
What was in the note?
In a letter written in 2002 by an old Harms’ friend LeRoy Pollen, who has since died, Pollen recalled witnessing Harms’ special hometown farewell the day he left for war.
The pilot, on his final flight overseas to England, circled back over Grafton and dropped a packet of cloth containing a bullet that wound up hidden in a nearby haystack, according to Pollen: “He was flying so low, it felt like he was going to fly right over our house.”
It was ostensibly Harms’ way of bidding farewell to the home of his parents, who never saw their only son again.
“Ironically, the battle that cost him his life was a huge low-level [to the ground] mission,” said his Chicago attorney-cousin William Roy Coulson. “We all wondered later if he was practicing when he flew over Grafton.”
Just recently, Bill Coulson sent me a picture of the note that his cousin tossed onto the fields of Grafton on the final leg of his life.
“It was dropped over Grafton by Roy Harms’ B-24 Liberator airplane in 1943 on the way to England and then Benghazi, Libya,” he said. “It was donated to the American Legion Post.”
The note read:
“Dear Folks:
“This is off the record(s) — but “greetings from the Crew.”
The now-weathered paper, which contained the personal signatures of all nine members of the B-24 crew, was signed simply: “Love, Roy.”
It was found in a multicolored piece of material, folded in half, then folded four more times.
It would have been a “top secret” detour ... and this hero’s final farewell made me cry.
Getting Trumped again
Former President Donald John Trump is a patriot.
At least, that’s what he calls his followers.
It’s showtime, folks! A few days ago, Trump took control of a CNN “town hall” meeting in New Hampshire and let it rip!
When it was over, Trump had served 70 minutes of pablum to his followers, 70 minutes of putdown to opponents, 70 minutes of entertainment … ostensibly unleashing his Pied Piper persona to expunge the rats chewing up his MAGA dream.
It certainly didn’t make any difference CNN’s interviewer Kaitlin Collins was wearing a dazzling “Suffragette” white suit when he called her “nasty.”
This was Trump in all his red-state glory.
The legendary Pied Piper used his flute to pipe rats out of town, then did ditto to children of the villagers who didn’t pay up for rat disposal.
It’s no secret innocent kids are being slaughtered by a MAGA amount of guns, uncontrolled in Trump’s Second Amendment world, where he supports arming teachers instead.
Beware of Pied Pipers.
They don’t always use the magic of a flute.
This guy uses a Bugle.
A Murtaugh murder memo
It’s no secret former attorney Alex Murtaugh, who killed his wife and his son as deftly as you’d swat a South Carolina fly, was getting mushy letters in prison right up to his guilty verdict.
It always happens.
A few of the notes to Murtaugh that gave Sneed pause:
“I don’t care what you’ve done … can you please respond.”
“Turns out I know someone who knows your family well. He’s a mass chicken poultry farmer with 15 chicken houses.”
“Maybe if we become pen pals I can visit you one day. I was compared to Jessica Biel yesterday.”
Sneedlings
Saturday birthdays: actor Robert Pattinson, 37, retired basketball player Dennis Rodman, 62, and singing legend Stevie Wonder, 73. Sunday birthdays: football standout Rob Gronkowski, 34, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, 39, and actress Cate Blanchett, 54.
