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U.S. vet from WWII is honored in Europe, showered with gratitude at age 99
U.S. vet from WWII is honored in Europe, showered with gratitude at age 99

Washington Post

time3 days ago

  • General
  • Washington Post

U.S. vet from WWII is honored in Europe, showered with gratitude at age 99

Harry Humason's right arm became so fatigued from waving at the adoring crowd that the 99-year-old used his left arm to support it. Humason sat in the passenger seat of a truck, wearing a U.S. Army jacket and a hat that listed his World War II regiment and division. As the truck inched past a synagogue, apartments and stores in Pilsen, Czech Republic, roughly 50,000 people cheered, threw lilacs from balconies and waved Czech and U.S. flags. Humason was treated like a hero this month when he visited the Czech Republic, returning to a place he helped liberate from Nazi Germany during World War II. He pulled thousands of dollars from his emergency fund to realize his dream trip, visiting Europe for the first time since 1945 and receiving recognition for his service there. His daughter, Linda Humason, created a GoFundMe for the trip, but only a handful of people had contributed by the time the pair flew to Europe. That changed after the festivities in Pilsen. Humason was shocked that hundreds of grateful Czech citizens donated money to thank him for his contributions to their country. The GoFundMe reached nearly $30,000, largely in small donations, so Humason wouldn't have to pay a cent for his travels. 'I went over with the idea that it was a trip of a lifetime for me,' Humason told The Washington Post. 'And I soon discovered from the Czech people that really I was a token representative of all the veterans that had fought in World War II to liberate Europe and Czechoslovakia, and I took that very seriously.' 'I was just so moved by the people there,' he added. 'It was just amazing.' Humason, who grew up in Alhambra, California, volunteered to join the Army in December 1943 as a teenager. He became a private first class under Gen. George S. Patton Jr., carrying a Browning automatic rifle. He was in combat for more than four months in Europe near the end of World War II, helping liberate Frankfurt, Germany, before his division was sent to a Czechoslovakia mountain range in May 1945. Humason said he walked about 50 miles through woods, small towns and a swamp for a few days carrying playing cards that his division used to decide who would pick up tasks like digging a latrine or being on night patrol. They reached the Teplá Vltava river, where Humason saw trouble: German bunkers, an 8.8 centimeter flak gun and machine guns on the other side. He heard gunfire from Russian liberators fighting German soldiers. 'If we had to cross that river,' Humason said, 'I might not be here.' Before they crossed, they were relieved to receive word that they should stay on the hillside. A white plane would be flying above them, carrying the German delegation that would sign a ceasefire to end the conflict. Humason said he and his division captured German soldiers who surrendered and held them at a hunting lodge with a large, fenced courtyard. After the war, Humason received a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering from the University of California at Berkeley and began building missiles and rockets at a Naval Ordnance Test Station in Pasadena, California. He met his late wife, Jean, in college and started a family. He never expected to return to Europe. That changed in October. Jiri Kluc, a Czech historian who interviews World War II veterans and Holocaust survivors, saw photos on Facebook of Humason from a recent Puget Sound Honor Flight, a nonprofit that flies Washington state veterans to D.C. Kluc noticed a red diamond on the front of Humason's green helmet, a symbol of the division that liberated Czechoslovakia, before it split into the Czech Republic and Slovakia in 1993. Kluc, 28, emailed Humason to invite him to Pilsen's liberation festival in May. Linda Humason created a GoFundMe in December, asking for help buying flights, transportation in Europe, hotels, travel insurance, meals, tickets for public attractions and pet sitting for her two dogs and cat. 'I wanted to make sure he made this trip because it was going to be a once-in-a-lifetime shot, I thought,' said Linda, 56. 'And I didn't care what it took to get him there.' So despite only raising $2,605 by the end of April, they flew to Europe. After visiting relatives in Amsterdam for a few days, Humason and Linda arrived in Pilsen, a city in west Czech Republic, on May 1 for four days of liberation celebrations. Veterans' family members, including Patton's grandson, George Patton Waters, were there, but Humason said he was the only U.S. veteran. Some Czechs wore makeshift U.S. uniforms and set up tents for a reproduction of the U.S. Army's encampment and a reenactment of the May 1945 liberation convoy through the city. Humason tried to attend every event, even if they were honoring divisions he wasn't a part of. Humason participated in the convoy and delivered a speech in the city's Republic Square in front of about 5,000 people, where he said 'no one wins, everyone loses' in war. After a few days in Pilsen, city officials arranged a 50-mile drive to Prague for Humason and Linda, and Kluc shared a link to Linda's GoFundMe on Instagram. To Kluc's surprise, Czechs helped donate $20,000, Linda's fundraising goal, within a few days. Humason said he was relieved he could reimburse the money he spent from his savings. And his recognition was far from over. Humason attended a concert at the Municipal House, where a symphony orchestra played famous songs from World War II movies. Before performing the theme song from the 1970 movie 'Patton,' the conductor walked off stage and toward Humason to introduce him to the crowd. Hundreds gave him a standing ovation for about a minute. After the concert, spectators approached him for photos and autographs. Kluc's father, Aleš, drove Humason and Linda about 80 miles south to the Teplá Vltava river, where the country had established a diamond-shaped monument in honor of Humason's division. Vegetation covered the German bunkers that Humason saw across the river decades earlier. Humason and Linda then flew to Frankfurt, where Humason was amazed to see the city clean and lively with modern buildings. When Humason was there in the spring of 1945, rubble filled the sides of the streets from demolished buildings and other structures. Before they flew home May 13, Linda bought another suitcase to fill with about 39 pounds' worth of gifts that Humason had received. He took home a small granite pillar that had broken off from Pilsen's Thank You America Memorial. He received dozens of challenge coins and badges, including one from the U.S. Embassy that showed a U.S. flag and a Czech flag intertwined and Pilsen police patches that officers ripped off their uniforms to give him. He received World War II books, even though he can't read the ones written in Czech. The Embassy is mailing him a U.S. flag that flew there May 6, the 80th anniversary of U.S. troops liberating Pilsen. Linda said she and her father spent about $24,000 on the trip, but with the extra money she received on GoFundMe, she said she'll donate to her county's veterans assistance center. She's saving some money so she and her dad can begin planning another trip to Pilsen.

Another Reading of Lebanon's ‘Liberation Day'
Another Reading of Lebanon's ‘Liberation Day'

Asharq Al-Awsat

time4 days ago

  • General
  • Asharq Al-Awsat

Another Reading of Lebanon's ‘Liberation Day'

Were the Lebanese really liberated on the 25th of May twenty-five years ago? The official answer has not changed: yes. The commemoration of this occasion and its elevation into a national holiday, 'Resistance and Liberation Day' was born of this answer. The residents of the region that had been occupied returned to their towns and villages after the Israeli army's withdrawal, and the state and its institutions reestablished a nominal presence there. However, looking at our current state of affairs, one would be baffled to learn that we had been liberated 25 years ago only to find ourselves today in this miserable situation, confronted by another occupation and destruction that has driven people from the same homes they had returned to. Furthermore, holidays are supposed to reflect a degree of stability and sustainability that stem from natural factors, a collective story, a historical event, or a long-standing tradition... Even more astonishingly, however, the same party credited with our 'liberation' in 2000, Hezbollah, has summoned occupation again. Not only are five points along the border controlled by the Israeli army; severe constraints and burdens have also been imposed on Lebanese sovereignty and decision-making - burdens that could continue to weigh us down for years to come. There is, then, some duplicity involved in applying the term 'liberation' in our case. It belongs to the same genre of deception that the party has spoon-fed the Lebanese over the years, like 'the era of defeats is over' and 'Israel is weaker than a spider's web.' And now that we are in a situation that allows for scrutinizing assumptions that had once been off limits, acts of forgery must be exposed in all of their forms. Given the immense suffering that the 'support war' has caused in Lebanon, there is an urgent need to question the largely adulterated mainstream historical narrative of resistance and liberation. Thus, correcting this account of the past has become a necessary requisite for leading sensible, honest lives in the present, and by extension, for correcting what reality means. Before confronting the overarching lie, however, we must first contend with three falsehoods that have branched out of it: First: Israel's initial occupation of Lebanon - in 1978 and 1982, before Hezbollah's emergence - came out of nowhere, born of the enemy's essentially evil nature and nothing else. As for the notion that it may have been a reaction to the actions of an armed resistance movement (Palestinian at the time), it should be muted or swept under the rug. Second: Hezbollah's resistance was developed from scratch. Mind you, other factions (both communists and non-communists) had preceded it and were eventually liquidated by it. Third: liberation, like resistance, was deliberately prevented from being a unifying national project. In 2005, for instance, some of Hezbollah's opponents proposed a compromise that recognized both liberations: from Israel in 2000 and from Syria that year. The idea was to build a shared national narrative that all Lebanese could embrace, but the suggestion was met with nothing but rejection and suspicion, to saying nothing of thanking 'Assad's Syria.' As for what happened in the year 2000 specifically, the real story is, once again, far more complex than the narrative that has prevailed. Under the Labor government headed by Prime Minister Ehud Barak, Israel announced as soon as 1999 its intention to withdraw unilaterally. In response to this statement, Lebanese media outlets affiliated with Damascus and Hezbollah began speaking of a 'withdrawal conspiracy' - terminology echoed by Lebanese politicians aligned with the Syrian-Iranian axis. When Israel actually withdrew a year later, the issue of retrieving the Shebaa Farms - territory Israel had occupied from Syria in 1967 - was suddenly brought back to the fore, becoming a pretext to justify Hezbollah's maintenance of its arms. To strengthen the credibility of this defense, Damascus conveniently ignored the fact that Shebaa was Syrian territory, albeit without ever formally recognizing the territorial claims of the Lebanese. And, in tandem with keeping the conflict alive through the Shebaa Farms, the resistance's role in leading us to liberation was inflated; it was presented not as a mere means to an end but an existential need. Without, in any way, belittling the sacrifices of the party nor the hardship that its community was made to suffer, the fact remains that its resistance was not crucial to liberation. In fact, its most consequential achievement was giving the Israeli peace camp an additional argument to underpin its advocacy of withdrawal from all occupied territories. Over the span of 18 years (1982–2000), Israel suffered 800 casualties as a result of resistance operations in total - fewer than 45 deaths a year. At the time, many pointed out that more Israelis were dying in road traffic accidents annually. The fact is that the party's version of history is neither revisionist nor negationist. The reason is simple: there had been no prior narrative of occupation, liberation, and resistance that the party was compelled to 'correct.' The party and its orbit were the only authors of this narrative that begins with them alone. They thereby consolidated a warped history and an adulterated consciousness. Both aimed to further local and regional agendas, and that was before this distortion and manipulation morphed into a 'historical horizon' that was written with water.

Hugh Jackman's ex Deborra-Lee Furness feels 'liberated' after breakup
Hugh Jackman's ex Deborra-Lee Furness feels 'liberated' after breakup

CNA

time4 days ago

  • Entertainment
  • CNA

Hugh Jackman's ex Deborra-Lee Furness feels 'liberated' after breakup

Deborra-Lee Furness has found "liberation and freedom" following her split from Hugh Jackman. The 69-year-old actress said she gained so much "knowledge and wisdom" after overcoming the heartbreak from her breakup with the Hollywood star. Furness, who announced her separation from Jackman back in September 2023, told The Daily Mail: "My heart and compassion goes out to everyone who has traversed the traumatic journey of betrayal. It's a profound wound that cuts deep. However, I believe in a higher power and that God/the universe, whatever you relate to as your guidance, is always working for us. "This belief has helped me navigate the breakdown of an almost three-decade marriage. I have gained much knowledge and wisdom through this experience. Even when we are presented with apparent adversity, it is leading us to our greatest good, our true purpose. "It can hurt, but in the long run, returning to yourself and living within your own integrity, values and boundaries is liberation and freedom." Nonetheless, Furness added that she also learnt some important "lessons" from her relationship with Jackman. She said: "We are all on our individual journeys and I believe that the relationships in our lives are not random. "We are drawn to people, we invite them in, in order to learn our lessons and to recognise and heal the broken parts of ourselves...I remain grateful." Furness and Jackman share two children: Oscar, 24, and Ava, 19.

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