This podcast aims to help bereaved people and their family members get through the holidays without their lost loved one.

If you or a loved one need support this holiday season or have questions for Sarah or Ashlee, please reach out to Ashlee at [email protected] or Sarah at [email protected].

This podcast aims to help bereaved people and their family members get through the holidays without their lost loved one.

If you or a loved one need support this holiday season or have questions for Sarah or Ashlee, please reach out to Ashlee at [email protected] or Sarah at [email protected].

This podcast aims to help bereaved people and their family members get through the holidays without their lost loved one.

If you or a loved one need support this holiday season or have questions for Sarah or Ashlee, please reach out to Ashlee at [email protected] or Sarah at [email protected]. 

Robert Lee Emery of Valparaiso died with honor on October 15, 1950 in the Korean War. He lived on Blackhawk Beach on Flint Lake in Valparaiso and attended Central Junior High before going to work at Carnegie-Illinois at US Steel. He enlisted in the US Army in 1949 and by September, 1950 after nearly a year in Japan was in Korea in the thick of a confusing war. July 27 is National Korean War Veterans Armistice Day, so we want to recognize and honor the nearly 50,000 Americans killed in that war. 

Join Volunteer Services Coordinator Erica Kerkes and VNA Hospice Chaplain Ben Polhemus as they speak with Northwest Indiana native, Keith Young, about his time in the United States Navy. You'll hear Keith speak in his own words about his service, family life, and career after the military. 

We express our gratitude for those who work tirelessly to support our veterans. 

We begin a brief series on Sons of Porter County lost in the Korean Conflict. This is an oft forgotten war in our nation's history where not a lot is taught or understood in modern times. But for 50,000 families who lost a loved one in the conflict, it is anything but forgotten. Today we meet Marvin Wilbert Soderstrom of Portage who was KIA while defending an outpost in a hostile area in Korea on September 9, 1951 during the "Punchbowl campaign." Marvin moved to Portage right before his senior year in high school having spent his first three years of high school at Lew Wallace in Gary. He was 21 at the time of his deployment and was declared as MIA immediately following the attack on his outpost by Chinese militants. An incoming shell exploded directly next to him; subsequent searches by his company were unsuccessful and he was finally presumed dead in February, 1954. 

The Minton family of Kouts was one of 22 Pleasant Township families to have two or more sons serving during WWII at the same time. Connie E. Minton was aboard a LST amphibious landing ship just offshore of Iwo Jima on February 19, 1945 - just a few days before the famous iconic USMC flag raising during that costly battle. A massive US Navy presence surrounded the island early that morning bombing it from sea and air preparing for the landing on that heavily fortified and well-defended volcanic rock in the ocean. Seaman First Class Minton was topside likely taking place in the bombing and defending the air around the ships when a Japanese kamikaze pilot targeted his LST-477 - striking it near the forward gun placement and killing 8 shipmates instantly, including SFC Minton. Hear his story and how his two brothers, Marshall and Ivan fared in the war and take a moment to thank the Minton family - especially Connie - for their ultimate sacrifice. 

"Then came Montelimar" is the bone-chilling 3-word sentence to start a chapter in the memoir of the 141st Infantry Regiment 36th Infantry Division during WWII - described as a unit that fought for 5 years, 5 countries and 5 campaigns. Montelimar is a commune village in the Rhone Valley in the south of France, an otherwise beautiful area of the world. In the last week of August 1944, though, it was anything but. Chesterton's Charles Smalley, Jr. was embedded with the 141st after marching across Italy and most of southern France as the Allies encountered a determined German 1st Army including a feared Panzer Division. For 168 hours in the hills, fields and clustered towns in that scenic valley, a firefight bloodbath of explosions and close combat took place. Sometime in those 168 hours, Private Smalley lost his life. A former Methodist church youth group leader, Boy Scout and big brother to Jack and Ronald - his remains were never recovered in the carnage that was left. The Germans limped out in retreat defeated, vastly weakened and disorganized - a victory for the Allies, but at a steep, steep price.

Valparaiso's Louis Paul Auble said goodbye to his wife, three young sons and father just before Christmas, 1942 as he left for Camp Gordon in California to serve his country. He was 29 at the time and just hitting his stride as a family man and professional painter and interior decorator. He fought with General Patton's army across north Africa and into Italy as a mortarman with the 83rd Chemical Battalion. By late 1943 Italy was fractured in half with the lower part of the "boot" aligned with the Allies, while Hitler and Mussolini desperately tried to hold the north - including Rome - and retake the south. Running the Germans out of the north would create a wide-open path directly to Germany and provide vital ground operations for air attacks. Hitler established a series of defensive fronts across the central Italy that would collectively be known as the Winter Line. Private Auble was aboard LST-422 in the early-morning hours of January 26, 1944, part of a 13-ship convoy sailing into the port city of Anzio - behind the Winter Line. The ships carried tens of thousands of men, tanks, trucks, ammunitions and fuel needed to dislodge the Germans from Italy once and for all. A fierce winter storm kicked up over the Tyrrhenian Sea with gale force winds, 30-foot waves, and ice, snow, rain and hail. As the ships anchored at sea a few miles off the coast waiting for their calls to port the storm intensified. The LST-422 was blown from its anchor and was tossed into an enemy underwater minefield that until that point no one knew was there. The explosion ripped a huge hole into the starboard and bottom of the ship allowing the sea to rush into the below decks where the entire 83rd Chemical Battalion was encamped - they never stood a chance. Private Auble died in those icy waters that night; he was never recovered. He would never learn of the challenges his youngest son Ray "Buddy" Auble would endure with an often fatal heart condition and how the whole city of Valparaiso rallied around "Blue Baby Buddy," the son of a dead war hero. We learn how Lucile, Louis's wife would die young as well - at the age of 38 - making orphans out of the three boys who would live with other family members. We learn of Buddy's triumphant recovery from so much tragedy.