Seven decades ago, Petty Officer 1st Class George Mendonsa and his date were among the hordes in Times Square celebrating Japan’s surrender and the end of World War II when Mendonsa grabbed what he thought was a nurse (she was a dental assistant), leaned her back and kissed her in a fit of emotion. Life magazine photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt captured the moment, and as they say, the rest is history. The iconic photo came to represent the relief and excitement over the war’s end, but Eisenstaedt never got his subjects’ names. On the photo’s 40th anniversary, Life asked the nurse and…
Browsing: sailor
A Washington-based sailor who made a run in late July at the Guinness world record for pullups held by a Navy SEAL ended up in the hospital, but says he plans to make another attempt once he recovers. Air Traffic Controller 2nd Class (AW) Mike McCastle made it to 3,202 pullups on July 26, just 828 shy of the record, before health concerns forced him to head to the emergency room. He lasted 19 1/2 of the allotted 24 hours, but still raised almost $10,000 for the Wounded Warrior Project. As of July 31, he said, he had collected $9,600,…
When Seaman Apprentice Dylan Ruffer told his fiancee he wanted to marry her the moment he set eyes on her after a nine-month deployment, she decided to make it happen. Madison Meinhardt, 19, sent an email to Reno-Tahoe International Airport, asking if it might be possible to get married in the terminal. “I’ve been here for 10 years, and I have brought home troops and fallen soldiers,” airport spokesman Brian Kulpin told Navy Times, “so this is an absolute honor, to do a wedding for somebody returning from being on a ship in the Mediterranean off the coast of Syria.”…
