Coming Home

[daroofa]

Hancock, Mich. -- Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm has ordered that U.S. flags be lowered statewide to honor an Upper Peninsula sailor who died during the attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941.
Flags are to be lowered Saturday for U.S. Navy Fireman 3rd Class Gerald Lehman. He died just shy of his 18th birthday and was buried as an unknown in Hawaii until DNA recently identified him.
The flag lowering coincides with a funeral mass Saturday in Hancock and burial in Houghton.

DNA samples collected from envelopes of letters Lehman sent home helped identify his remains, which were in a casket with five other people.
Many of Lehman's relatives still live on the Keweenaw Peninsula.




Sailors pray,
For fair winds and a following sea
The smell of salt in the air,
The feel of their skin as it's touched by the spray
An albatross soaring above,
Dolphins in the ship's wake at play
To witness a work of art that only God can create,
The sunset at the end of day
At night a million stars in the sky,
Safe anchorage in an islands lee
When the time comes to die as for all it must,
To awake in Sailors Heaven where nothing ever rusts
And always there would be,
Fair winds and a following sea
C.D. Williams

http://www.detnews.com/article/20100...#ixzz0qg8aalr0

[CaptainRobin]

Welcome home, Gerald Lehman. Thank you for your service and sacrifice.

Robin

[marinedad]

thanks to gerald and his family for the ultimate sacrifice, may you rest in peace.