Editor’s note: This is the final profile of Marching Orders, season 1. Read previous profiles at ThisWeekNEWS.com/MarchingOrders. Craig Morin, 30, of Columbus was a U.S. Army officer in Afghanistan in 2013 and 2014, advising the Afghan National Army during Operation Enduring Freedom. Morin was born in Cincinnati and grew up in the nearby suburban v…

Michael Pohorilla, 95, of New Albany flew 35 combat missions over German-held territory as a first lieutenant and Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress navigator in World War II. He was based in Great Britain as a member of the U.S. Army Air Corps’ Eighth Air Force. The 10-man crew on his bomber ranged from 18 to 22 years old, “barely out of high school,” he…

Wally Cash, 93, of Hilliard is among the ever-shrinking ranks of World War II veterans in the United States. Cash spent two years and 10 months in the U.S. Navy and concluded his active service before he was 21 years old. He was a 17-year-old senior at Grandview Heights High School when he enlisted in the Navy in August 1943. He later earned his hi…

Edward Taylor III, 49, of Pickerington is an Ohio Army National Guard veteran of the 1990-91 Gulf War and served during the 2003-11 Iraq War with the Ohio Air National Guard, for which he still serves as a chief master sergeant. A Canton native, Taylor graduated from McKinley Senior High School and attended the University of Akron and Grantham Univ…

Dr. Dana Robinson-Street, 50, of Columbus is a 26-year veteran of the U.S. Navy who served on the destroyer tender, USS Samuel Gompers, during the Gulf War of 1991, including the combat phase of Operation Desert Storm. She was inducted into the Ohio Veterans Hall of Fame in 2018. Born and raised in Chicago, Robinson-Street was the youngest daughter…

Roberta “Bobbie” Jean Mershon, 71, of Canal Winchester treated some of the most badly wounded soldiers of the Vietnam War after she arrived in the country as a 22-year-old Army nurse in 1969. Those severely injured and burned soldiers typically were 19 or 20 years old, she said. “It was just like, ‘Oh, my God. I just don’t know how they could ... h…

Vietnam War veteran and retired U.S. Air Force Major Gen. Edward Mechenbier, 76, of Columbus was held as a prisoner of war from 1967 to 1973 in North Vietnam, where he was beaten and tortured but survived on as little as 600 to 800 calories a day. The nearly 600 Americans who survived captivity in North Vietnam “weren’t special. We were just produc…

Mike Schad, 91, of Grove City is a U.S. Air Force veteran who served during the Berlin Airlift, the Korean War and the Vietnam War. The oldest of 11 children, he grew up and graduated from high school in Plainview, Minnesota, and attended the University of Minnesota for a year. Motivated by a love of airplanes, he said, he joined the Air Force in 1…

Husband and wife Richard T. Curry and Christine Curry of Pickerington are U.S. Army veterans who served in Iraq and Kuwait during the War on Terror. Richard Curry grew up in Cincinnati and attended Youngstown State University, New York University and the American Military University. He earned his master’s degree in military history in December fro…

Mike Strahle, 34, of Westerville served in the Iraq War in 2005 with the Marine Corps' Columbus-based Company L (known as Lima Company), 3rd Battalion, 25th Regiment, as part of Regimental Combat Team 2. Strahle was with the unit when it conducted anti-insurgency operations in Iraq's Al Anbar province along the Syrian border and later helped launch…

Joseph A. Machado of Baltimore is an 80-year-old U.S. Army veteran who served in the Vietnam War in 1966 and 1967 during his 24-year military career. A native of Cambridge, Massachusetts, Machado grew up there and graduated from high school in 1956. He joined ROTC before graduating from Harvard University and was commissioned an Army lieutenant in …

Robert Sotak of Upper Arlington is a 91-year-old U.S. Navy veteran of World War II and the Korean War. Sotak was raised in St. Ann’s Infants Home and St. Vincent Orphanage, both in Columbus, after his father died of cancer and his mother of tuberculosis. He graduated from East High School in 1945 and enlisted in the Navy at age 17 that June. His tw…

Ernest C. Massie of Gahanna is a 50-year-old U.S. Navy veteran who served during Operation Desert Shield and Operation Desert Storm in 1990 and 1991. His father, an Army military policeman during World War II, traveled in his work for defense contractors when Massie was growing up. As a result, Massie, who was born in Michigan, lived in Grand Rapid…

Jeffrey D. Noble, 74, of Dublin flew an Army helicopter gunship during the Vietnam War with Company B, 9th Aviation Battalion, 9th Infantry Division, and went on to have a 25-year career in the Army. “I wouldn’t trade one day of the 25 years for anything in the world,” he said. After graduating from high school in Florida in the early 1960s and tak…

Angela Beltz of Reynoldsburg is a 49-year-old Ohio National Guard veteran who served in Operation Desert Shield and Operation Desert Storm in 1990 and 1991. Beltz’ military career started after her junior year in high school, having joined the North Dakota Army National Guard in 1986. She grew up primarily on the Spirit Lake Nation reservation and …

Jerry Vance of Hilliard is a 75-year-old Vietnam War veteran who served two tours in Thailand as a U.S. Air Force pilot. The first in 1968-69 was part of a 60-day temporary-duty assignment with the Young Tigers aerial refueling wing stationed in U-Tapao, about 87 miles southeast of Bangkok near the Gulf of Thailand. As a Young Tiger, Vance flew Boe…

Jason Goldsmith of Powell is a 37-year-old Iraq War veteran who was part of the U.S. Army’s 660th Transportation Company based in Zanesville. Goldsmith enlisted in 2000. At the time, he said, he couldn’t envision actually participating in a war type of scenario. “When I initially joined, I – not in the wildest dreams – would I have thought that I w…

John T. “Ted” Mosure of Westerville is a 69-year-old Vietnam War veteran who was part of the U.S. Navy SEAL Team 1 at Naval Amphibious Base Coronado in Coronado, California. An Ohio State University student at the time, he enlisted in February 1968, shortly after the Tet Offensive – a North Vietnamese campaign of roughly 85,000 troops whose mission…

Robert Burr is an 87-year-old Delaware resident who served in the Korean War. Just before joining the U.S. Army in 1951, Burr was quarreling with his girlfriend and didn't like his job, he said. He had intended to join the U.S. Air Force, he said, but the recruiting officer told him the Air Force’s quota had been met. “But if I joined the Army, I c…

Don Jakeway of Johnstown is a 95-year-old World War II U.S. Army veteran who was dropped behind enemy lines just prior to the Normandy invasion on June 6, 1944, as part of the elite 508th Parachute Infantry Regiment of the 82nd Airborne Division. His parachute landed in a tree next to a church in the middle of the night, with German fighters nearby…

Shut Up! You’re Drunk! Episode 2 Carly Maughan Carly was a beer rep for Barrier Brewing Co. and we got to chat 1 day before she put her two weeks notice. Music from the podcast is by Slüt Hammer which is available on itunes.By TaylorConnelly

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