February 19: A date personal to me

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February 19th is a very personal anniversary for me. It's the day our boys landed on Iwo Jima's volcanic soil. Three year ago I visited Iwo Jima. I walked on the beaches, looked out on Mt. Suribachi, and stood with veterans who had lost arms, legs, and their closest friends. That trip changed my life.

I've just spent the last several days with 14 veterans of this iconic battle in our history, listening as they shared tales and tears from 73 years ago. It was more than just a get together of old war vets swapping stories. It was an intentional time set aside to remember. To remember the 7,000 American lives lost on the island and to recall to mind the most defining moment in their lives.

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Always Kiss Goodnight: A Story for Valentine's Day

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With Valentine's Day coming up, I thought I'd share a sweet story with you.

The article below was written by the American-Statesman a few years ago about a simply darling couple, the Kanters. When I first read this article, I knew I must make their acquaintance, so I invited them to our first WWII Veterans Dinner in 2014. Very happily for us, they accepted the invitation, and the girls and I immediately fell in love with the both of them. Mr. Kanter was completely charming (and very handsome!) and Mrs. Kanter was fabulously spunky. Walking up to an Army veteran at our dinner she declared, "If you see a good looking man in a black sports coat, watch out. He is Navy all the way." When the veteran made a comment about the Army's superiority, she deftly defended her husband and the Navy. Sadly, Mrs. Kanter passed away not too long after the dinner. To know her was an absolute delight. 

With that brief background, here is the article:

Mr. Kanter at our 2014 Veterans Dinner.

Always Kiss Goodnight

Helen Anders

American-Statesman Thursday, Feb. 21, 2013 

It was Halloween night 1944, and a new student at the University of Texas, Irene Wolfson, had a date to a Longhorns football game. Told a blue norther was coming in, but not knowing quite what that was because she’d just arrived from Florida, Irene dressed smartly in a one-button suit with a yellow angora sweater.

“I go out to get in the car,” Irene recalls, “and driving is this sailor with coal-black hair and a fantastic smile.” That, however, was not Irene’s date, although her date was also in the car. The sailor, Marvin Kanter, on shore leave from the Navy, had a date of his own. Still, during the evening when it became clear that Irene had under-dressed for the norther, he lent her his pea coat. The next day, Marvin left to catch a ship out of San Francisco.

“All the way to California, I was picking yellow angora off my pea coat,” he says. His memory of Irene stuck with him just like the angora, and when he was back in Austin — two years later, after World War II had ended — he tracked her down for a date. Then he went home to Missouri and she to Florida, but they corresponded. Irene’s mother saw his picture in her daughter’s room and instantly disapproved.

“He has a weak chin,” she tsked. Undeterred, Irene proposed to Marvin when they got together one weekend in 1947.

“What are your future plans?” Marvin asked Irene, who quickly answered: “I plan to marry you and settle down.” In 1949, they did just that, opting to move to Austin, where Irene quickly landed a job with a fabric store and Marvin worked for a pharmaceuticals wholesaler.

“I don’t think anyone expected the marriage to last,” Irene muses. But here they are, 64 years later. Irene wound up teaching school, then becoming an administrator, serving as assistant principal of Anderson High School for 20 years. Marvin took a job with the Texas Railroad Commission and spent 34 years of weekends officiating at football games, many of them attended by Irene and their daughter, Shelly.

“Remember that time we put hotdog wrappers on our feet to keep warm?” Shelly remembers, and both her parents laugh.

Mr. and Mrs. Kanter at our 2014 Veterans Dinner.

Mr. and Mrs. Kanter at our 2014 Veterans Dinner.

Now retired, Marvin and Irene take a swim in their pool at exactly 4 p.m. every day (unless it’s too cold) and follow that up with a 5 p.m. cocktail hour. They may be out of the business world, but they’re far from idle. They work from time to time as extras in movies shooting in Austin — in fact, they enjoyed a decent amount of screen time behind Sandra Bullock in a restaurant scene in “Miss Congeniality” — and they travel relentlessly, heading out for a tour of interior Alaska just four weeks after Irene had hip surgery. Talking about all this, they grin at each other like newlyweds.

“We have a lot of fun together,” Irene says.

“We laugh a lot, and we try to stay young,” Marvin says. “And whether the day has gone smooth or rough, at the end of the day, we kiss each other.”

“Sometimes it’s hard when you’ve had a fuss,” Irene says, “but we do.”

http://www.statesman.com/lifestyles/always-kiss-good-night/3rPiyfI7ktv4v9tooYr2RN/

Happy Changes for Operation Meatball

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Dear Friends, 

We are thrilled to announce a significant change with Operation Meatball. 

In order to further our outreach to the veterans and advance our work to meet the urgent need, we have expanded Operation Meatball and formed a 501(c)3 non-profit organization as of December 7, 2017.

The last three years

In June of 2014, Jubilee, Faith, and I created Operation Meatball as our effort to honor WWII veterans. Over the last three and a half years, we have hosted USO style events for our local veterans, made house visits to those unable to travel and kept up a weekly correspondence with out of staters, recorded 3 cds of 1940’s music to give to the vets, worked with Honor Flight hubs around the country, and greeted thousands of veterans at the WWII Memorial. We attended dozens of military reunions and WWII events from California to Washington, D.C., meeting and interviewing veterans. In sum, we have traveled 250,000 miles, collected thousands of stories, and met countless wonderful veterans of WWII. 

Our mission remains the same: to honor World War II veterans while we have them with us. 

The plan for 2018

With funding, we will be able to broaden the work we have been doing over the last several years so that we can quickly reach the rapidly dwindling number of WWII veterans, and capture this fast fading moment in history for our children and yours. The plans so far for 2018 include 18 military reunions and WWII events, interviews with veterans in North Carolina, Iowa, Illinois, Pennsylvania, and Ohio, 2 Super Saturdays at the WWII Memorial, 2 USO style concerts, and continuing our house visits and correspondence.

Now we need your help

We lost 33 veterans alone in 2017, with whom we had a special connection. The urgency is heightened as we hear of sickness, hospice care, and loss even in these first few weeks of the new year. Just a few days ago, I read the incredible obituary of a precious veteran I have known for two and a half years and saw regularly, but simply never had the resources to record his story in an interview. He was not one of the “famous” ones who has a household name, but his story was inspiring and even movie worthy. I admit I cried bitterly at the loss. All we have now is a newspaper summary. 

Would you support us? Your tax-deductible contribution to Operation Meatball will allow us to chronicle irreplaceable stories, to toast these worthy ones in their twilight days, and to ensure that their scars and feats will always be remembered. 

Warm Regards,

Liberty Phillips

President & Founder of Operation Meatball