{"id":16111,"date":"2015-05-24T08:29:40","date_gmt":"2015-05-24T12:29:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/?p=16111"},"modified":"2015-05-24T08:29:46","modified_gmt":"2015-05-24T12:29:46","slug":"remembering-our-heroes-this-holiday-weekend","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/?p=16111","title":{"rendered":"Remembering our heroes this holiday weekend"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;\"><em><strong>So many families can point with pride to those who served<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;\"><span style=\"font-size: 10pt;\"><strong>By Kelly Hockenberry<\/strong><\/span>, <span style=\"font-size: 8pt;\"><em>Columnist, The Times<\/em><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/KellyColumn415Revised-250x300.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-1111066 alignright\" style=\"margin: 4px;\" src=\"http:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/KellyColumn415Revised-250x300.jpg\" alt=\"KellyColumn415Revised\" width=\"175\" height=\"210\" \/><\/a>In honor of Memorial Day, I wanted to pass along the <em>amazing<\/em> story of my husband\u2019s\u00a0grandfather.<\/p>\n<p>Wilfred Eugene Hockenberry (Gene to his family and friends) was an 18 year old\u00a0U.S. Army soldier fighting in Salerno, Italy in World War II. He and his buddy were hiding in a\u00a0fox hole when they were surrounded and captured by German officers. They were held as\u00a0prisoners of war for thirteen months and thirteen days and liberated on 13th day of the month.<\/p>\n<p>Over the course of that time, Gene experienced dire conditions and horrible tragedies. During\u00a0his imprisonment, he was forced to clear rubble after enemy bombing. In a cruel twist of fate,\u00a0the night before they were set free, Gene\u2019s friend was killed trying to escape from the camp.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Back when he was first captured, Gene was stripped of his personal effects, including a watch\u00a0given to him by his parents for his high school graduation. The day they were rescued, Gene\u00a0relayed the story to his liberators and one of the soldiers took a pocket watch from a German\u00a0officer and handed it to Gene. This watch was passed down to my father-in-law,\u00a0then to my\u00a0husband and will eventually go to our oldest son.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/Memorial-Day.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-1111065\" src=\"http:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/Memorial-Day.jpg\" alt=\"Memorial-Day\" \/><\/a>I cannot image my seventeen year old having to endure such heartache as that experienced\u00a0by his great grandfather.<\/p>\n<p>It makes me appreciate the bravery and sacrifice of the men and\u00a0women in our military.<\/p>\n<p>Awarded the Bronze Star on June 4th, 1991, Gene was officially recognized for the hero his\u00a0family knew he was all along.<\/p>\n<p>Thank you to all who have served, including my own Marine father who fought in the Vietnam<\/p>\n<p>War, also as an 18 year old. Makes you pray a little harder for world peace, doesn\u2019t it?<\/p>\n<p>Happy Memorial Day Weekend<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>So many families can point with pride to those who served By Kelly Hockenberry, Columnist, The Times In honor of Memorial Day, I wanted to pass along the amazing story of my husband\u2019s\u00a0grandfather. Wilfred Eugene Hockenberry (Gene to his family and friends) was an 18 year old\u00a0U.S. Army soldier fighting in Salerno, Italy in World [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16109,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,4],"tags":[338,43,6224,4898],"class_list":["post-16111","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lifestyle","category-featured","tag-holiday","tag-memorial-day","tag-thanks","tag-veterans"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16111","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16111"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16111\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16112,"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16111\/revisions\/16112"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/16109"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16111"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16111"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16111"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}