latter-day-saints

"For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity in action at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty while serving as a Section Leader with Bravo Troop, 3d Squadron, 61st Cavalry Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division, during combat operations against an armed enemy at Combat Outpost Keating, Kamdesh District, Nuristan Province, Afghanistan on 3 October 2009. On that morning, Staff Sergeant Romesha and his comrades awakened to an attack by an estimated 300 enemy fighters occupying the high ground on all four sides of the complex, employing concentrated fire from recoilless rifles, rocket propelled grenades, anti-aircraft machine guns, mortars and small arms fire. Staff Sergeant Romesha moved uncovered under intense enemy fire to conduct a reconnaissance of the battlefield and seek reinforcements from the barracks before returning to action with the support of an assistant gunner. Staff Sergeant Romesha took out an enemy machine gun team and, while engaging a second, the generator he was using for cover was struck by a rocket-propelled grenade, inflicting him with shrapnel wounds. Undeterred by his injuries, Staff Sergeant Romesha continued to fight and upon the arrival of another soldier to aid him and the assistant gunner, he again rushed through the exposed avenue to assemble additional soldiers. Staff Sergeant Romesha then mobilized a five-man team and returned to the fight equipped with a sniper rifle. With complete disregard for his own safety, Staff Sergeant Romesha continually exposed himself to heavy enemy fire, as he moved confidently about the battlefield engaging and destroying multiple enemy targets, including three Taliban fighters who had breached the combat outpost’s perimeter. While orchestrating a successful plan to secure and reinforce key points of the battlefield, Staff Sergeant Romesha maintained radio communication with the tactical operations center. As the enemy forces attacked with even greater ferocity, unleashing a barrage of rocket-propelled grenades and recoilless rifle rounds, Staff Sergeant Romesha identified the point of attack and directed air support to destroy over 30 enemy fighters. After receiving reports that seriously injured soldiers were at a distant battle position, Staff Sergeant Romesha and his team provided covering fire to allow the injured soldiers to safely reach the aid station. Upon receipt of orders to proceed to the next objective, his team pushed forward 100 meters under overwhelming enemy fire to recover and prevent the enemy fighters from taking the bodies of the fallen comrades. Staff Sergeant Romesha’s heroic actions throughout the day-long battle were critical in suppressing an enemy that had far greater numbers. His extraordinary efforts gave Bravo Troop the opportunity to regroup, reorganize and prepare for the counterattack that allowed the Troop to account for its personnel and secure Combat Post Keating. Staff Sergeant Romesha’s discipline and extraordinary heroism above and beyond the call of duty reflect great credit upon himself, Bravo Troop, 3d Squadron, 61st Cavalry Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division and the United States Army."

"In April of 2011, almost a year after arriving back in the States, I ended my military career, moved my family from Colorado to North Dakota, and tried to put the Army behind me by taking a job as a safety supervisor in the oil fields just outside the town of Minot. It was there, in the autumn of 2012, that I found myself sitting in the cab of a pickup truck next to an oil rig when a call arrived from a colonel who was stationed at the Pentagon. He was phoning to ask if I'd be willing to hop on a plane to DC and drop y his office. I had n idea what this might be about, but I'd already used up my vacation time for the year, so it was another month before I could comply with the request. When I was finally able to make the trip, I was brought into a conference room and invited to join a group of colonels and generals who were sitting at a long table. It was at this point that I requested and explanation for why I was there. "You don't know?" someone asked. When I shook my head, they explained that after conducting an extensive review of my actions during the Battle for Keating, I was slated to receive the Medal of Honor, the highest military award the country can bestow."

"If there are soldiers who miss the fury of combat, who find themselves tortured by the desire to return to its flames, I cannot number myself in their company. I have no wish ever to return to Keating or to Afghanistan, and most of my men feel the same. However, the bond that kept us together as a unit, a team, is something that I long for and continue to cherish. It is also something that is very much alive."

"It would be an understatement to say that I found this news confusing. In fact, it made no sense whatsoever. Singling me out for such a superlative commendation struck me as both inappropriate and wrong. In my view, nothing that I'd done that day was any different from what my comrades had accomplished. What's more, I could easily have picked half a dozen men- especially Gallegos, Kirk, Hardt, Mace, and Griffin- who truly deserved selection because they had given their lives in an effort to save others. But me? No way. The idea seemed to violate my sense of what was most important- and what deserved to be commemorated- about that day. Although I didn't know it at the time, it turns out that most Medal of Honor recipients feel exactly the same way. It also turns out this fact has had very little impact on the way that I feel about the honor that I was selected to receive- and everything else that would later unfold from it. They picked the wrong guy."

"Although I entered into this project with some reluctance and hesitation, my sense of conviction burgeoned with each passing month. Eventually, I came to believe that telling this story- our story- was the only way to properly honor what we had done. Odd as it may sound, I also came to believe that this might enable me to fulfill the final part of my duty to those of my comrades from Keating who did not survive. It was the only way for me to bring them home."

"As for the medal itself, when I got back home, a question arise for which I really didn't have an answer: What exactly do I do with this thing? I don't know what most of the other recipients do, although I've asked a handful of them. A few have ordered up replacements so that they have something to wear and to show folks when they ask to see it, while they store the original in a safe-deposit box. Others keep the medal in a sock drawer or on their nightstand. As for me, I never bothered to ge a duplicate and I eventually took to carrying the original around in my front pocket. As a result, it's taken several accidental trips through the washing machine, so the gilded surface is a bit tarnished, and the blue ribbon has begun to fade. But that doesn't bother me a bit. In fact, I kind of like it that way, perhaps- in part- because I don't truly regard it as mine. Like it or not, there are eight other guys with whom I served to whom that medal rightly belongs, because heroes- true heroes, the men whose spirit the medal embodies- don't ever come home. By that definition, I'm not a true hero. Instead, I'm a custodian and a caretaker. I hold the medal, and everything it represents, on behalf of those who are its rightful owners. That, more than anything, is the truth that now sustains me- along with one other thing too, which is a belief I hold in my heart. I know, without a shred of doubt, that I would instantly trade the medal and everything attached to it if it would bring back even one of my missing comrades in arms."

"Women are a neglected resource. They are not sufficiently recognized and their full potential is not often developed"

"We can we can discuss what it is after we've proved that it exists. It's silly to do it beforehand."

"I am not running for Congress as a former NFL player. I am running for Congress as a former chimney sweep."

"Soon, U.S. service members will begin deploying to Afghanistan to fight in a war that began before they were born. As we face this watershed moment, it’s past time to change our approach to the longest war in our country’s history"

""It’s a cauld barren blast that blaws nobody good.” - title of poem."

""But he'll ne'er wake us mair, "For Hughie is deid" - Elegy on Wee Hughie - A Pet Canary"

""I knew him, ere the roots of bitterness "Had grown to putrid cancer in his soul. "Then Revelation's light gleamed o'er his mind "In strange fantastic dreams of future bliss, "He saw the dawn, and this was quite enough"

""Lust is the offspring of a thousand sighs, "Intrigue, deception, and as many lies; "A strange compound of hidden, plotting ill, "To fire with rage, to torture, or to kill" -Lust"

""Thou representative of something great, What wert thou in thine unconverted state?" - Reflections on a Banknote"

"With butlers and super-butlers, maids and the rest, what work is there for a housewife? I won't be a parasite. I won't sit home and twiddle my fingers, waiting for a husband who goes on the lot at 5:00 a.m. and gets home at midnight and receives mail from girls in Oshkosh and Kalamazoo."

"He knew what I was when I married him. I have been working since I was seventeen. Homes and babies are all very nice, but you can't have them and a career as well. I intended, and intend, to have a career and Valentino knew it. If he wants a housewife, he'll have to look again."

"It wasn't love at first sight. I think it was good comradeship more than anything else."

"I shall always love the Mexican people for what the happiness they gave us that day. There was nothing that was too much for them to do."

"Actors are often inspired while playing by the very spirit who impressed the part upon the writer. When the actor is really mediumistic, as all great actors are whether they know it or not, the spirit may actually play the part through him."

"I felt as if I had at last returned home. The first few days I was there I couldn't stop the tears streaming from my eyes. It was not sadness, but some emotional impact from the past- a returning to a place once loved after too long a time."

"Rudy gets horribly excited when I say this, but I do declare that if they keep him from working two years more, then I will work and support us both. There are many things that I can do. I can dance. I can go back to my designing, but I don't care what it is if it only brings in enough money for him to be able to go on fighting for decent treatment and good material."

"I'll confess it is rather fun being courted by your own husband."

"The figure in fur advanced and shook hands. At least his handshake was firm. Might I add, a little too firm for comfort."

"A sensitive personality is like a great organ. Press the keys of discord and harshness comes forth. Play the keys of beauty and melody delight are given."

"Fame is like a giant X-Ray. Once you are exposed beneath it, the very beatings of your heart are shown to a gaping world."

"Whether to call myself Winifred Hudnut or Natacha Rambova or Mrs. Rodolph Valentino, I don't know. Natacha Rambova seems to belong most to me, the individual I think I am, but of course, I wasn't born that way. When I went into the Russian Ballet, though, I had to have a Russian name. That was just after my course at art school in Paris and I was seventeen, and I have been using that name ever since. I speak Russian and all that is Russian appeals to me and moreover that is what Rudy calls me."

"All women love the man who appeals to their maternity. Rudy does that instinctively and it is devastating in its effects on feminine resistance."

"They say that ninety percent of TV is junk. But, ninety percent of everything is junk."

"I find television to be very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go in the other room and read a book."

"If it weren’t for Philo T. Farnsworth, inventor of television, we’d still be eating frozen radio dinners."

"I wish there was a knob on the TV so you could turn up the intelligence. They got one marked “brightness” but it don’t work, does it?"

"There’s nothing on it worthwhile, and we’re not going to watch it in this household, and I don’t want it in your intellectual diet. (to his son, on television)"

"This has made it all worthwhile. (The live televised first step by Neil Armstrong on the moon.)"

"The damned thing works! (telegram, on the first successful television broadcast)"

"Phil saw television as a marvelous teaching tool. There would be no excuse of illiteracy. Parents could learn along with their children. News and sporting events could be seen as they were happening. Symphonies would mean more when one could see the musicians as they played, and movies would be seen in our own living rooms. He said there would be a time when we would be able to see and learn about people in other lands. If we understood them better, differences could be settled around conference tables, without going to war."

"I played a character called Lorabelle Larkin in ‘Slaughter Trail’ with Gig Young. We made that picture twice. It was around the time Howard Hughes bought RKO-Radio. Howard DaSilva was originally cast in the part Brian Donlevy eventually did. Donlevy was cast after Howard Hughes said DaSilva was a Commie and was kicked off the picture! We reshot virtually the whole film, because Howard Hughes ‘didn’t want no Commies in his movies.This made the picture a financial pleasure. It was way out in left field, a strange offbeat picture, but one of my personal favorite."

"The star was Gene Autry. I had heard tales he had a way with the ladies, but luckily for me, there was no problem. I think he must have known I was dating Clark Gable, and he’d better not try anything with me. That makes any man secondary, after you've dated the best."

"It was filmed up in Lone Pine, halfway between the Valley and Mammoth Lake, about a three hour drive, so we stayed up there. We shot it in the Spring, or maybe the Fall, because the weather wasn’t too bad. You have the danger of rains when you shoot then, but in the summer, it would be too hot. The desert scenes were shot just beside Lone Pine…that area resembled a desert (the dunes near Olancha—ed.) Fortunately, we didn’t have to go to Death Valley."

"And it is ‘Flame of Barbary Coast,’ and not ‘Flame of the Barbary Coast’. Almost everybody gets that title wrong. Ann Dvorak was in it…a big picture, a long shooting schedule…I was not under contract to Republic, but after I left MGM in ‘42 and started to freelance, Republic and Universal used me quite often after that. Yates seemed to like me."

"I made so many pictures, that many are a blur in my mind.” One that isn’t a blur is “The Last Command” made for Republic. “We made ours before Duke made his ‘Alamo’. There was a beef with Herbert Yates over the title. We shot it on location in Brackettville, TX, and the John Wayne version used our left-over sets. Although we were in Texas, I never got to San Antonio, so I never saw the ‘real’ Alamo—just the one constructed in Brackettville."

"Idaho we shot on location in Kernville. Roy Rogers was the star, and he was a nice man to work with. This was before Dale Evans, though. Roy was married to another girl who shortly thereafter passed on."

"Even though we stayed on location, I didn’t get to know him. We were too tired, and too dirty (Laughs) to socialize in the evening. Besides that, I don’t recall there being any place to even go at the time. It surely has grown some, but in those days, there was literally nothing there. So, the cast would take a shower, jump into bed (separate beds, of course) (Laughs), grab their script, and study their lines for the next day’s shoot."

"It’s been released on video, and I have a copy—however, there is an important scene missing. They cut out a big sequence. I cannot remember if it was cut before the film was released, or if it has since been edited out. It was where I had fallen in the river and Uncle Tom saved me—it set up a good relationship between Uncle Tom and Little Eva. The director, Harry Pollard, hated James B. Lowe, or ‘Tom’, who, interestingly, called me several years ago. He was down in Long Beach, from Europe where he normally lived. He tried to get together with me, but it didn’t work out. He was a real sweetheart.""

"I am a Mormon. Dad was and I was raised in that religion and during the '30s and '40s, I strayed and got into others things. I drank, I smoked, and did things totally opposite, not even thinking of what I had known during childhood. I remember in 1958, two elders came to my door and I began to think about my upbringing and what I learned and than I started to meditate on that and I found solace once again and realized what I had been neglecting, if not forgetting, all those years when I was out of circulation. I returned to my Mormon roots around Christmastime that year and became very active in the church again. I'm glad those young man dropped in and reminded me about what I'd been missing because if not I would've missed out on what the true "big picture" is. (Note the quote about being a Mormon is not sourced and is disputed: “Deleted quote about Virginia Grey being a member of the LDS church. I am her biographer and have spoken to members of her immediate family. They don't know why that quote was attributed to her. She was a lifelong devout Catholic.” See, main article history.)"

"That was with Richard Arlen, who had been a big star in silents, he’d slipped into the Bs by this time. We shot that on location up in Lone Pine."

"We filmed in 1956. This was five years after I dated Bob [Robert Taylor] and she filed for divorce. I accidentally put my coat on her chair and she tore into me with a vengeance in front of everyone. She never mentioned Bob, but she resented me for going out with him. She had no other reason for hating me."

"The Audie Murphy people—his foundation, have been haunting me about him. But I didn’t know him at all. I’d work, go home, and not socialize with these people. The whole picture is very vague to me."

"Hollywood men are a lot of phony balonies."

"I don’t believe it. You know, after a picture’s been out for awhile, stories seem to circulate—stories that can no longer be verified, because everyone connected with the incident is dead. People will say anything to sell a book. As for our work with the dinosaurs, it was all done with a backscreen, so none of the actors saw the monsters, until we saw the picture. I liked doing it! It was a crazy picture, and I liked working with Richard Denning and Barton MacLane. They dyed my hair red, but left Denning’s blond locks alone. It’s been so long ago I don’t remember why they did it that way. ‘Unknown Island’ was one of the fun ones."