It’s over. He’s home.
The last leg of a hero’s long road home from a long-ago war has ended.
The remains of Army Air Corps pilot Roy Coulson Harms, who was killed in a 1943 World War II air raid in Europe, remained unidentified for decades — until the miracle of DNA provided the ticket back to his beloved hometown of Grafton, Wis.
On April 28, the remains of the highly decorated war hero were brought home by a military escort that turned over his body to Mueller Funeral Homes in Grafton, a town to which he bid a final farewell by circling his B-24 Liberator over it on his final flight overseas to England.
The following is a memo provided by a relative who observed Harms’ final flight home from Lincoln, Neb., to the Grafton airport.
“Last night at the airport was truly an event I will never forget.
“It was so bright behind me with all the flashing fire and law enforcement lights I could not look at it.
“My camera wouldn’t even work.
“The Army had an officer assigned to remain with Roy from Nebraska until he was relieved of his escort duties in Grafton.
“In Grafton, a group outside the funeral home was equally impressive. It was 11 o’clock p.m., and there were even high school kids with flags on their trucks that were lining the street.
“I will always remember and think of last night as Roy’s actual return home.”
Lt. Harms was being buried in the family plot, in accordance with the wishes of his parents, who died long before he was found. That also was the result of a promise made by the U.S. military to his sister Laura, 90, who died shortly after her DNA was used to finally identify his body.
“Thank God, my uncle is finally home,” said Chicago attorney William Roy Coulson, his namesake.
Royal bric-a-brac
The glitter and glamor coronation of King Charles III is offset by news that the king’s royal clothing weighs 37 pounds and that a fun box of “Coronation” breakfast flakes bearing his majesty’s face has become a mega-popular royal souvenir.
I still have my fussy Lady Sarah Ferguson, the Duchess of York, powder compact wedding souvenir, purchased when covering her wedding to Prince Andrew in 1986.
It resides near my blue Prince Charles and Camilla wedding mug, my Prince William and Kate playing cards and gold Westminster Abbey wedding cup and the King James version of the Bible printed to commemorate their wedding.
The Trump card!
He’s got bots!
Bot bling! House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has taken a card from The Donald’s playing deck.
He just texted me a “personal” invite slugged “I want to meet YOU!”
But it has a price.
“Now’s your chance,” the McCarthy missive meows, inviting me to a private dinner in Tampa. “This is an exclusive and rare opportunity….to get the inside scoop on our vision to get our country back on track.”
It also had instructions to hit an “enter to win” button for “a seat at the House Republican Spring dinner,” an invite to pay for a “plus two” dinner ticket, flight and hotel stay on a sliding scale from $35 to $5,000...and, of course, an invitation to hit the bigger-bucks “Other” button.
Once again, the siren song of bots asking patriots to pay up was singing…minus, of course, an actual date for the event.
Joe’s foe
The turn of the screw?
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who recently tossed his activist hat into the Dem presidential ring, might be keeping something up his sleeve.
Is Kennedy, who’s a nephew of the late President John F. Kennedy, positioning himself as another Ralph Nader, the legendary irritant activis, who unsuccessfully ran for president three times?
“It wasn’t about winning; it was what impact Nader had,” a top Dem politico says. “Bobby Kennedy is an anti-vaxxer progressive who has the ability to attract the disgruntled and disengaged. He is capable of causing trouble for Biden even if he doesn’t have the support of his legendary politically royal family.”
The query: Will Bobby Kennedy stir up hefty press and progressive buzz next year by showing up at the Dems’ New Hampshire primary since that state was denied premier Dem primary prominence by Biden, who tossed the prime primary time slot to South Carolina to “better reflect the nation’s diversity.”
Sneedlings
Saturday birthdays: rapper Meek Mill, 36, actor George Clooney, 62, and comedian Sasheer Zamata, 37. Sunday birthdays: singer Thelma Houston, 77, comedian Aidy Bryant, 36, actor Morocco Omari, 48, and director Amy Heckerling, 69.
