Giving Thanks For Marines

Happy Thanksgiving Marines!
These are stories about love. A child given wish and young life celebrated. A couple married 75 years died together. A young Marine seeks future with woman he loves and proposes during football game. Marines welcomed into homes to have a family style Thanksgiving meal far from home.

Cherry Point family celebrates son’s birthday, life at Disney resort
Cpl. Unique B. Roberts II Marine Expeditionary Force

Ask any Marine what Nov. 10 means to them and you’re likely to hear a tale of a birth that took place in a Philadelphia tavern in 1775. One Cherry Point family had much more to celebrate this Nov. 10 than the inception of the Marine Corps.

"We treat every moment like it’s going to be the last moment because no one knows," said Cpl. Devon Morse, whose 3-year-old son, David, spent his birthday with his family at Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida, courtesy of the Make-A-Wish Foundation.

David, who shares his birthday with the Corps, was diagnosed with extra-ventricular neurocytoma, a rare form of cancerous brain tumor, in March. The rambunctious toddler with an infectious smile has since endured radiation therapy and two brain surgeries.

The Make-A-Wish Foundation held a party for David at the Trinity Presbyterian Church in Havelock, North Carolina, Nov. 2, to grant his wish and ensure he and his family got to spend the week at Walt Disney World.

2nd Marine Division Band to spread holiday joy The 2nd Marine Division Band perform an arrangement of the Nutcracker Suite during the Holiday Concert at the Base Theater aboard Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune, Dec. 15. The program featured a variety of traditional and modern Christmas and holiday music performed by the full concert band, jazz ensemble, party band and soloists.

Locals open homes to Marines for holidays
JDN News
By Adelina Colbert
Published: Sunday, November 23, 2014

Turkey, stuffing, pie — you name it and they will have it.

Thanksgiving Day, about 500 Camp Lejeune Marines will be able to enjoy warm, home-cooked dinners, watch football and enjoy other leisure activities as they spend the holiday in the homes of local residents.

Susan Goodrich, branch head for the Single Marine Program at Camp Lejeune and New River said the Marines for Thanksgiving program allows families in the region to host students from Camp Geiger, Camp Johnson and Courthouse Bay.

“Marines will be placed two to a family if not more,” Goodrich said. “(They) will not only have a wonderful Thanksgiving Day dinner, some of the Marines will be able to play golf. Some plan to have boating activities.”

Goodrich said the program, which started about seven years ago, has grown exponentially. When the program began, families from one community hosted Marines for the holidays.

“I now work with four major communities,” she said.

Chartered buses on the morning of Thanksgiving Day will take Marines to communities in Wilmington, Wallace and New Bern. There, Marines will be greeted by their host families and spend an average of about 10 to 12 hours with the family.
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Married 75 years, couple die together in Mount Holly wreck
Charlotte Observer
By Joe DePriest
Posted: Wednesday, Nov. 26, 2014

MOUNT HOLLY Married 75 years, Jim and Kate Frazier, both 94, were headed from a lunch date on Monday when their car ran off a road only a few miles from their Mount Holly home.

Both were killed.

On Thanksgiving, family members will remember a loving, hardworking couple who stuck close to their textile roots.

“They were happily married for 75 years, had lunch together that day and passed together,” Ronald Frazier said of his parents. “I take some comfort in that.”

Mount Holly police reported the vehicle that Jim Frazier was driving ran off the left side of East Charlotte Avenue at 1:53 p.m. and went down an embankment, landing in a creek. Kate Frazier was pronounced dead at the scene and Jim Frazier died later at CaroMont Regional Medical Center in Gastonia.

The couple were already married, and Jim had a job at Acme when he joined the Marines during World War II.

It would be a long separation for the couple.

When Jim Frazier landed on the Japanese-held island of Iwo Jima in February 1945, one of his brothers, Paul, was also with the invasion force.

That epic battle would deliver a devastating blow to the family.

An exploding mortar spewed shrapnel into Jim Frazier’s legs and chest. Recovering from serious injuries on a hospital ship, he didn’t know that his brother, also wounded in battle, had died on the same vessel. Paul was buried at sea.

Ronald Frazier said shrapnel from Iwo Jima remained in his father’s body.
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Marine's proposal accepted at Worcester football game
TELEGRAM and GAZETTE STAFF
By Bill Doyle
November 26, 2014

Marine Eric Kline leans in to kiss Alyha Pomales after she accepted his marriage proposal at half time during the game between North and South High School Wednesday. ((T and G Staff/CHRISTINE PETERSON))

WORCESTER — With snow falling, Eric Kline, a private first class in the U.S. Marine Corps, stood in his military uniform at the 50-yard line at Commerce Bank Field at Foley Stadium during halftime of the North High-South High football game Wednesday morning.

Public address announcer Jim O'Donoghue said that Pfc. Kline would be involved in a special ceremony on the field and asked that Pfc. Kline's girlfriend, North High senior Alyha Pomales, join him on the field.

The South High Community School cheerleaders gathered behind Pfc. Kline and the North and South players looked while as he got on one knee in the snow and proposed to Ms. Pomales as he slipped an engagement ring onto her finger. She immediately said yes while everyone on the field and in the stands cheered. Then Pfc. Kline stood up and hugged his fiancée. Then they held hands and raised them to the cheering fans.
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Injured vet, family find reasons to be thankful through hard times
THE WICHITA EAGLE
BY RICK PLUMLEE
11/26/2014

Members of the Blank family gather at their home on Sept. 21, the day Nathanial, front left, left for Army boot camp. The rest of the family are Karen, front center; Abbie, front right; Linden, back left; Jonathon, back center; and Matthew. COURTESY PHOTO

Would you still be thankful if your body had been cut nearly in half by war, wrecking your life’s plans?

Would you still be thankful if you saw your brother or son live in pain daily, struggling to do things as simple as opening a door?

You would if you were Jonathon Blank and his family.

“Of course,” Jonathon said. “My life isn’t over. There’s a possibility of anything happening tomorrow. And I love that, rather than there being nothing because I’m dead.”

Linden Blank said he’s thankful his brother didn’t die in Afghanistan. “I’m thankful to God every day that didn’t happen. I’m thankful for my own survival.”

Among other things, Thanksgiving is a day to remember why we should be thankful. That can be harder some Thanksgivings than others.

This is the Blanks’ fifth Thanksgiving since a hidden bomb exploded under Jonathon on Oct. 26, 2010, during his Marine recon unit’s final mission in Afghanistan. It blew off his legs and a hip, tore up his intestines and ripped apart his left elbow.
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