Carolina PuroClean

@CarolinaPuro

Father, veteran, and small business owner of #1 property restoration and mitigation company.

Upstate of SC and Western NC

Joined November 2009

1.3K Following

355 Followers

247 Posts

CarolinaPuro retweeted

Rob Friedman

@PitchingNinja

11 days ago

Chris Sale's son when he saw him coming out for the 9th Inning. 🔥🔥

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CarolinaPuro retweeted

Echoes of War

@EchoesofWarYT

21 days ago

Thomas Howie captained the baseball team at The Citadel. After graduation he played mill league ball back home in Abbeville, South Carolina, then moved to Virginia to teach English literature and coach at Staunton Military Academy. He married a local girl named Elizabeth in 1932. Their daughter Sally was born in 1938. He shipped out in the fall of 1942 and never came home. Howie landed at Omaha Beach on D-Day with the 116th Infantry, 29th Division. His battalion then fought 41 straight days in the Normandy hedgerows. That is the kind of fighting where you take a field, then a hedge, then another field, and you pay for every one of them. By mid July they were outside St. Lo. On the 16th he personally cleared two German machine gun nests to break a line the Americans had been stuck on for days. That night another battalion got cut off and surrounded. Howie went to get them at 4:30 the next morning. He ordered his men to do it quietly. Only two riflemen per platoon were allowed to shoot. Everybody else went in with bayonets and grenades. They broke through in the dark, reached the trapped men by 7 a.m., and handed over their own rations and bandages. Then division got him on the phone and asked if he could keep going and take St. Lo itself. Howie said, "Yes, we can do it." He gave his company commanders their orders. As they walked out of the command post he told them, "See you in St. Lo." German mortars came in minutes later. A fragment went through his back and into his lung. He said "My God, I'm hit," and he was dead in about two minutes, in the arms of one of his captains. He was 36 years old. His men took the town anyway. When General Gerhardt heard what Howie's last words had been, he gave an order with no military purpose whatsoever. Howie was going in with the first troops. His body rode in an ambulance until the ambulance was needed for wounded men, so they moved him to the hood of the lead jeep. On the evening of July 18 they carried his flag draped stretcher through a town that had been bombed nearly out of existence, still under fire, and laid him on the broken stones of the Church of the Holy Cross. Soldiers coming up the street pulled off their helmets. Some of them knelt. Somebody took the photograph. Drew Middleton called him the Major of St. Lo, and that is what he has been ever since. Life ran a poem about him. Most people who saw the picture never learned his name. In his last letter home, written from a dugout in France, he told his wife: "I have no physical reason for thinking so, but I've always felt that your prayers would be answered and that we'd have a grand reunion some fine day." He is buried at the Normandy American Cemetery. In 1969 St. Lo built him a monument, and his bust is still in the middle of it.

EchoesofWarYT's tweet photo. Thomas Howie captained the baseball team at The Citadel. After graduation he played mill league ball back home in Abbeville, South Carolina, then moved to Virginia to teach English literature and coach at Staunton Military Academy. He married a local girl named Elizabeth in 1932. Their daughter Sally was born in 1938.

He shipped out in the fall of 1942 and never came home.

Howie landed at Omaha Beach on D-Day with the 116th Infantry, 29th Division. His battalion then fought 41 straight days in the Normandy hedgerows. That is the kind of fighting where you take a field, then a hedge, then another field, and you pay for every one of them.

By mid July they were outside St. Lo. On the 16th he personally cleared two German machine gun nests to break a line the Americans had been stuck on for days. That night another battalion got cut off and surrounded.

Howie went to get them at 4:30 the next morning. He ordered his men to do it quietly. Only two riflemen per platoon were allowed to shoot. Everybody else went in with bayonets and grenades. They broke through in the dark, reached the trapped men by 7 a.m., and handed over their own rations and bandages.

Then division got him on the phone and asked if he could keep going and take St. Lo itself. Howie said, "Yes, we can do it."

He gave his company commanders their orders. As they walked out of the command post he told them, "See you in St. Lo."

German mortars came in minutes later. A fragment went through his back and into his lung. He said "My God, I'm hit," and he was dead in about two minutes, in the arms of one of his captains. He was 36 years old.

His men took the town anyway.

When General Gerhardt heard what Howie's last words had been, he gave an order with no military purpose whatsoever. Howie was going in with the first troops. His body rode in an ambulance until the ambulance was needed for wounded men, so they moved him to the hood of the lead jeep.

On the evening of July 18 they carried his flag draped stretcher through a town that had been bombed nearly out of existence, still under fire, and laid him on the broken stones of the Church of the Holy Cross. Soldiers coming up the street pulled off their helmets. Some of them knelt.

Somebody took the photograph. Drew Middleton called him the Major of St. Lo, and that is what he has been ever since. Life ran a poem about him. Most people who saw the picture never learned his name.

In his last letter home, written from a dugout in France, he told his wife: "I have no physical reason for thinking so, but I've always felt that your prayers would be answered and that we'd have a grand reunion some fine day."

He is buried at the Normandy American Cemetery. In 1969 St. Lo built him a monument, and his bust is still in the middle of it.

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Carolina PuroClean

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