United States Air Force Archives - America's Cemetery ®

February 24, 2015 By Joseph Zentis

Angott, Allison

Hermitage, PA

U.S. Air Force, Desert Storm Era

In providing for its own needs, the United States military services play vital roles in fulfilling the needs of society at large. The Shenango Valley has a family practitioner because the United States Air Force enabled Dr. Allison Angott to get her medical degree.

“Without the Air Force,” she said, “I would have had to be a specialist to pay off the debts of medical school. I say to my patients I’m your tax dollars at work. I’m here as a physician because you helped me go to medical school. And I appreciate that.” [Read more…]

August 30, 2014 By Joseph Zentis

Dayton, Douglas

December 19, 2014 By Joseph Zentis

DeNoi, Tony

November 17, 2014 By Joseph Zentis

Garay, Steve & Nora

Hermitage, PA

Good breaks, great decisions

The course of everyone’s life is determined, to a greater or lesser extent, by a series of breaks. Bad breaks are inevitable, but not necessarily destructive if they are followed by good breaks – which often result directly from good decisions.

Steve Garay’s first bad break occurred in 1931, when he was one year old. His father, a Czechoslovakian immigrant named Mike Garay (formerly Garaj), passed away, leaving his mother, Mary Aleksa Garay, to raise Steve and his four older siblings. But a good decision turned that misfortune around when Steve was six. His mother married John Beres. [Read more…]

November 10, 2014 By Joseph Zentis

Hoffman, Ed & Mary

Hermitage, PA

Scout’s honor

“On my honor, I will do my best to do my duty to God and my country and to obey the Scout Law; to help other people at all times; and to keep myself physically strong, mentally awake and morally straight.”

If you were ever a Boy Scout, that promise should resonate in your mind as an oath you took a long time ago. Few ex-Boy Scouts forget it entirely. Unfortunately, many of us have let it slide way back into the blurry recesses of our minds. [Read more…]

November 7, 2014 By Joseph Zentis

Johnson, Glynn and Virginia

Glynn and Virginia Johnson, Farrell, PA

Farrell, PA

Here for a reason

Hard, bitter times often produce hard, bitter people. But other people manage somehow to emerge with a balanced perspective, a sense of humor, and a positive awareness of who they are – probably because of the influence of balanced, positive people in their lives during those difficult times.

Glynn and Virginia Johnson of Farrell, PA, grew up in Cheraw, SC, during the 1930s and 1940s. Those were indeed hard, bitter times for the African-American people living there. But the midst of all the strife, they saw great examples of how people should act and how they should treat one another. [Read more…]

October 30, 2014 By Joseph Zentis

Maxwell, John & Erla

John, Erla, and Jessie

Pittsburgh & Greenville, PA

Alive with the sound of music

In The Sound of Music, the hills were alive with the music, if you can call the towering Austrian Alps “hills.” Where Erla Cramer lived, in central Nebraska, there were no Alps, or even hills. But there was music to enliven the waves of grain and the fruited plain.

That’s where future soprano Erla Mae Cramer was born in 1923, in the small town of Giltner. And that’s where baritone John Maxwell won her heart with his singing. [Read more…]

October 15, 2014 By Joseph Zentis

Roscoe, Bill and Delores

Dee and Bill Roscoe’s wedding photo

Sharpsville, PA

A no-stress life

Toward the end of World War II, on April 8, 1945, Bill Roscoe of Sharpsville, PA, found himself in the kind of situation where people bargain with God. Like, “Lord, get me out of this and I promise to serve you the rest of my life.”

Bill had already made that commitment when he was much younger. So he made a another promise, one that is a far greater indication of deep faith: “Get me out of this and I promise you I will never worry again.” [Read more…]

August 30, 2014 By Joseph Zentis

Stovroff, Irwin

Irwin gave the commencement address at Florida Atlantic University, which bestowed on him an Honorary Doctorate degree.

October 2, 2014 By Joseph Zentis

Williams, Sara & Ludy

Sara and Ludy’s wedding photo

Hermitage, PA

Quiet lives, earthshaking events

When you’re driving down Main Street in any city or town in America, you probably don’t realize that you are driving within a few blocks of the homes of people whose lives have directly touched some of the most monumental events in the history of the world.

Take Sara Williams and her husband, the late Llewellyn “Ludy” Williams, for example. They both lived most of their lives in the Shenango Valley without any inkling that Ludy would be involved with one of the most earth-shaking events (literally) of all times. [Read more…]