In honor of Veteran's Day, my own family Honor Roll:
Landis Safford, GAR, 1964-1865
Everett Shores, AEF, 1917-1918 (killed in action, August 18, 1918)
Daniel Safford, Unites States Army, 1945-1946
Bernard Safford, United States Navy, 1943-1946
Eugene Johnston, Jr., United States Navy, 1941-1946
David Johnston, United States Marine Corps, 1945-1955
Ivan Johnston, United States Navy, 1955-1969
My great-uncle (my paternal grandmother's brother), Everett Shores, was originally buried in the American cemetery in France. My great-grandparents requested his remains be disinterred and brought to the US for burial in the family plot in Wysox, PA. My grandfather, a railroad man, had to go and positively identify the body, per US War Department regulations. My father told me a few years back that, despite two years in French soil, it was clear that Corporal Shores died from the blast concussion from a shell, whether German, American, or French will never be known. Dad told me that his father said there was not a mark on his body. My father's brother, Bernard, who passed away in 1999, gave to me a small jewelry box, that contained an itemized inventory of the contents of Corp. Shores' pockets, and a handful of coins, some of them completely faded with age, others in great shape, that were all that was left behind. Corp. Shores, like many young men, traded money with French and British forces, including the French colonial forces, so I have old coins from France, Britain, and Morocco in that box. I also have the plaques sent to my great-grandparents by Gen. Pershing and by the French government, framed and hanging in our house.
