Proud Sailors
The movie Proud tells the story of the men of the USS Mason, the only black sailors to take a warship into battle in World War II. One of those men was honored at the U.S. Navy Memorial.

The National Naval Officers Association (NNOA) and the U.S. Navy Memorial joined for a special ceremony in fall 2005 at the memorial to recognize Lorenzo DuFau, a World War II Navy veteran whose life story is told in the movie Proud, starring the late Ossie Davis. The movie, directed by Mary Pat Kelly, tells the true story of the men of the USS Mason, the only black sailors to take a warship into battle in World War II.
 
Although known as “Eleanor’s Folly,” the Mason served with distinction during World War II. During the worst North Atlantic storm of the century, the Mason was serving as escort to a convoy of merchant ships bound for England. During the storm, the larger ships had to fall back or they would sink their smaller counterparts. The Mason was chosen to escort the ships the rest of the way there and then turned to help the convoy.

Iwo Jima Makeover

The 45-year-old U.S. Marine Corps War Memorial and Park, known as the Iwo Jima Memorial, in Arlington, Va., is getting a facelift. HSU Development Co. of Rockville, Md., working with the U.S. Marine Corps, the U.S. Park Service, and Arlington County, will conduct a yearlong $2.9 million project to restore the memorial for the more than 1 million visitors who tour the site each year. One of the most challenging parts will be to replicate the black aggregate concrete symbolizing the black sands of Iwo Jima.

Airlift to Safety

An Air Force chaplain’s assistant was posthumously recognized in a Brewer, Maine, ceremony last fall for his participation in a Korean War airlift that saved nearly 1,000 orphans. Staff Sgt. Merle Y. Strang played a key part in evacuating orphans from war-torn Seoul, South Korea, to the safer Cheju-do Island. It was a role Air Force Chief of Chaplains Maj. Gen. Charles C. Baldwin honored with the presentation of the Bronze Star to Sergeant Strang’s brother, the Rev. Homer Strang.

In 1950, Sergeant Strang was a chaplain’s assistant to Lt. Col. R.L. Blaisdell, who was chaplain of the 5th Air Force in South Korea. As enemy forces advanced into the city of Seoul, the two airmen worked to usher nearly 1,000 South Korean orphans, ranging in age from 6 months to 11 years, into twin-engine American transport planes that evacuated them to safety.