 USS Yorktown sunk by the Japanese 1942 |
Roger Spooner, the farmer who appeared today on news shows backing up Shirley Sherrod’s story, and who was accused by Andrew Breitbart of being a liar and a “plant,” is not just a lifelong friend of Sherrod; he’s also a veteran of the Battle of Midway.
It’s been more than 67 years since Roger Spooner stood on the deck of the U.S.S. Yorktown, watching an air parade of kamikaze pilots dive into the carrier while he loaded 54-pound shells to fire at circling Japanese planes in a frantic attempt to keep the ship from sinking at the Battle of Midway.
While 165 men on the Yorktown died that day, 85 survived. Some of them remember portions of that day in June. Others remember most of what happened.
“I remember all of it,” Spooner said.
Spooner can almost smell the sea water mixed with oil when he talks about the day the Yorktown was sunk. Spooner and many of his mates spent about 10 hours bobbing up and down in the Pacific in nothing more than their skivvies and a life jacket…
That’s a long time to be alone with your thoughts.
“I thought about Iron City,” said Spooner, who joined the Navy in late October, 1941. Two weeks later, Pearl Harbor was bombed and Spooner was thrust straight into the war with no time to go home. “I didn’t think I was ever going to get back.”
I thought this might be the case the first time I saw Roger Spooner and his wife Eloise on TV. Not too many folks get to walk around with that Yorktown hat.
Not too many left.
Vilsack – Won’tsack
Whats the point here?
The Swift Boat Liars were all veterans too.
Human beings, just like the rest of us.
My dad was on TWO ships torpedoed in WWII. USS Wasp CV-7 and Independence CVL-22. CVL-22 later hit with a couple of atomic bombs in USA testing.
Lost dad in 2005. Great man. Never raised his voice. Miss him.
So, there are two problems with this story, and of course I was not there.
1. There were no kamakaze’s at the battle of Midway.
2. Everything I’ve read, or heard makes it sound as though the crew were transfered to the escorts very quickly. So, even though it’s possible he was in the water for 10 hours, when they abondoned ship, it doesn’t agree.
As Richard noted, the Kamikaze were not deployed until 1945. The story above is wrong in its description of the Battle of Midway.
Where did this description originate from? It is written in quotes, but I cannot find the source. It’s being reproduced on numerous blogs without any citation.
Nice photo associated with this elderly veteran and great person sharing an an extraordinary experience with ungrateful sheeple.
Compare his story to that of Bill O’really who was caught lying in saying he “served in Vietnam” on his sheeple show. Turns out he was some reporter.
As I said yesterday the lies are now flying so thick and fast digging out the truth…
I did watch the original video clip that was posted and read the text with it but all I got from those was that she deemed him a southern raciest apparently because he was a middle aged white farmer and sent him to somebody she thought he could relate too for help. She didn’t shaft him.
What ever her personal prejudice she politely did her job and you don’t fire people for personal prejudices as long as they treat the clients with respect and do their jobs.
The only real message I’m getting is that Politically Correct people scare me because they are willing to hang you first and check the facts later if they even bother to do it.
#7 Posting in the correct blog post story FAIL
Richard is right, but the guy is legit as you can find older stories about him in unrelated matters. At 86 he still drives a Peterbilt with “CV-5” on the hood . . . the ID of the Yorktown.
I would LOVE to be present to watch the Breitbart weasel call Mr Spooner a liar to his face. I suspect weasel might learn something about the Great generation that he doesn’t appear to know.
@#7 “What ever her personal prejudice she politely did her job” – quote the Shirley herself “I did NOT give him full force of what I could do”. Not doing her job, taking personal, racist bias and not fully helping him BECAUSE he was white, nothing else. So, check the facts first. From her own mouth.
“she deemed him a southern raciest apparently because he was a middle aged white farmer” – What right did she have as public servant to deem anyone anything? Any right to draw any conclusions from his race, gender and age? She was there to provide full help to anyone qualified. Regardless of race, gender,… Violating that is Federal offense. Violating that is criminal. Facts. From her own mouth. He could have been racist himself. Yet no Federal Servant is allowed to take that in any account ever while providing services to the public.
“sent him to somebody she thought he could relate too for help” – Again her own words: “his own kind will take care of him”. Imagine street protests if white public servant said to black customer needing help “your own kind will take care of you”? Imagine prosecutions and media flames. Marches led by Rev’n Al and Jackson… And she is laughing after that. I don’t buy a word she is saying now. Her attitude speaks volumes. Racist and Marxist volumes.
Back to the story above: who the farmer in question is and how was he helped in the end or not is irrelevant. This is Red Herring story to deflect attention from racist and Marxist public servants installed by Obama regime.
Andrew Breitbart is a racist just like most teabaggers who are just the Klan in better clothes.
“While 165 men on the Yorktown died that day, 85 survived.”
Soooooo there were only 250 crew on the Yorktown? Mmmmmmm Small efficient aircraft carrier. LOL Someone got their numbers screwed up or meant to say something else. That sentence doesn’t make a bit of sense.
#12,
So somehow being for fiscal responsibility means you are racist? Interesting logic. Are you so mad that Breitbart found evidence of racism on your side but is no evidence for racism in the TEA party?
The more you throw around the words racist or sheeple, the more it shows you to be one. And others on your side who have been doing it for years for political gain are finally getting their due. First it was Bill Clinton and Harry Reid who had their racist comments exposed. (After all, President Obama is just a light skinned black with no negro dialect who would have been getting us coffee a few years ago, right?) Now the National Association for the Advancement of Chicago Politics has been shown to not be the perfect little defenders of equality they pretend to be. None of these things would have been that big of deal in and of themselves, and could have been explained away. But combined with their years of branding people as racist, now they look both racist and hypocritical.
Oddly I think there has been one documented case of someone tied to the tea party being raciest. This hasn’t kept the NAACP and the progressives from stridently repeating the charge and of course there were the leaked emails that show that smearing people with the charge is considered to be ethically acceptable by some lame media types.
The only person I know who attended the Washington March was taken by her father who is of rather recent Mexican extraction and they fit right in. She was a great student and the fact that I went to school with her grandmother gave a sort of link.
All you have to do is read a few tea party protest signs to figure out that the vast majority of the tea party movement is made up of people who wish the Ku Klux Klan was still around.
#16
Clearly you can’t read. Sure, the Tea Party folks are raaaaacist simply because you are intellectually lazy. You clearly aren’t capable of articulating an argument against someone you disagree with. You have to assault their character, thus “defeating” their argument. Ad hominem much douchebag?
The Tea Party isn’t racist, but their “leadership” allows to exist within it right-wing racist elements that distort and misrepresent the truth.
Breitbart is just another lazy twit that doesn’t want a real job. Install a conservative government and he’ll be right back with a “new” website lam-blasting them.
smartalix==why is what you admit the Tea Party allows your definition of a racist? What element do you find necessary but missing? I hope you don’t require an express statement to that goal when ACTIONS are well known to be better indicators of reality than silence.
#12 Mr Ed. sez “Andrew Breitbart is a racist just like most teabaggers who are just the Klan in better clothes.”
You’re wrong! Haven’t you seen those fox news clips of them? I haven’t seen so many short-short jean cut-offs since Daisy Duke. That would have been ok but they were being worn by pot-bellied toothless gentlemen wearing confederate flag shirts with the sleeves ripped off.
Whoops, my post #20 bad typo should add the word NOT: “why is what you admit the Tea Party allows NOT your definition of a racist?”
Sorry.
I hope it turns out this guy was indeed on the Yorktown, and that his story is accurate. Because that would suck if he was a storyteller who tries to impress others.
smartalix is 100% correct, the people who run the tea party have not discouraged that racist element in any obvious way. Just look back to Tancredo’s speech to the tea bagger convention…his implied racism and comments about reviving old policies designed to eliminate black votes received huge applause.
And he wasn’t the only speaker with the same problem…so cut the “there’s no racism in the TEA party” crap, it’s everywhere and all over the place.
It was not uncommon for Japanese pilots that planes were hit and damaged, or were wounded, to fly into a ship. This is completely different from Kamikaze, it was Bushido. I do agree with others that being a survival of a battle doesn’t grant you a life pass. You’ll find prisons well populated with veterans.
If I was Mr Spooner I would demand an apology. Not just for what happened 24 years ago, but this year. Sherrod outed him as a racist in front of the naacp. She mocked him, saying he talked “a longggg time” and thought he was superior. His secret that he almost lost his farm is now out in the open and probably hurt his pride. Sherrod goes on to still refer to whites as being an “own kind”.
Sherrod din’t get over her racism. She’s proud of it as displayed by her current gestures. And when you are a public servant the client is ALWAYS superior to you and your job demands you listen in detail no matter how “longgggg” he’s talking so you will know how to help.
326–PBC whatever: Somehow I think if you were Mr Spooner, you would have died on the Yorktown.
Andrew Breitbart stepped into a steaming pile with this one, he’d best take a vacation.
He made the pile himself.
Did Breitbart complain she was a plant, or was he responding to criticisms from the media, and asking them back did YOU verify your story 100% before you went on air?
Mike…Breitbart doesn’t care. He saw the tea party taking deserved criticism and did something to change the top story of the week. He really doesn’t care who he hurts, that’s the kind of guy is.