Empires Past

09/01/2026

It’s officially happening!!! Dave and I will be traveling to Nicaragua, at the end of Nov, to help my 1st ever boss in the veterinary field, and his amazing organization: GeoVeterinary International. We’ll be volunteering for a 3 day spay and neuter clinic. Dave will be able to assist with the non-medical side of things, while I get back into the action on the medical side. I can’t wait to participate in something so rewarding as this!

Donations are a part of what helps the organization be able to provide the necessary medical supplies for these missions. If you have some spare change, feel free to help support an amazing cause.

Donate now to donate to animal charity with GeoVeterinary to fund medical care medications and spay neuter campaigns.

08/29/2026

Our county gave this man a wonderful “welcome home”. ❤️🙌🏻

83 YEARS LATER, BALTIMORE FINALLY BROUGHT ONE OF ITS BOYS HOME.

Walter Raymond Bateman was born in Baltimore in 1921. He went to Baltimore City College. He worked for Merchants & Miners Transportation Company. And in 1942, at just 20 years old, he enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Forces.

He learned to fly. Earned his wings. And ended up flying a B-24 Liberator in World War II.

On August 16, 1943, First Lt. Bateman climbed into the pilot’s seat of a B-24D named SUZY Q with nine other young men.

Their mission was to bomb the Foggia airfield complex in Italy.

They never came home.

The plane was shot down by German fighters. All ten men were killed.

Walter was 22.

His body was never returned to his family.

His name was placed on the family headstone at Union Chapel Cemetery in Joppa and on the Tablets of the Missing at the North Africa American Cemetery in Tunisia.

His parents died without ever burying their son.

His brothers never got to bring him home.

And decade after decade passed.

Until now.

Modern forensic work finally identified Walter’s remains.

And Friday night, 83 years after he left for war, he came home to Maryland.

His remains arrived at BWI, where the U.S. Army, Southwest Airlines, BWI firefighters, TSA, Maryland Transportation Authority Police, the USO, the Harford County Sheriff’s Office and others were waiting.

Then he was escorted by motorcade to Schimunek Funeral Home in Bel Air.

There was reportedly no known family left in Harford County to stand there waiting for him.

So the community did.

People came out to welcome home a 22-year-old Baltimore kid who left for war in 1942 and never made it back.

On September 6, he will finally be laid to rest at Union Chapel United Methodist Church Cemetery in Joppa, where his family placed his name all those years ago.

This time, Walter will actually be there.

His family never got the chance to welcome him home.

So the community did.

Welcome home, Lieutenant.

You were never forgotten.

08/27/2026

That Major was truly lucky. ❤️

April 29, 1975. Saigon was falling.

Major Buang-Ly of the South Vietnamese Air Force found a Cessna O-1 Bird Dog on a small airstrip, put his wife and five children into an aircraft built for two, and took off from Con Son Island under ground fire. He headed out to sea with no plan beyond finding an American ship.

He found the USS Midway about 100 miles offshore, its deck packed with helicopters from the evacuation.

He circled with his landing lights on. The Midway tried to raise him on the radio and got nothing. He tried three times to drop a message onto the deck. The first two blew away. On the third he stuffed the note inside a leather pistol holster, heavy enough to land, and a crewman ran it up to the bridge.

It read: "Can you move the helicopter to the other side, I can land on your runway. I can fly one hour more, we have enough time to move. Please rescue me! Major B**g Ly, wife and 5 child."

The Midway's captain, Lawrence Chambers, had been in command about four months. He was the first Black officer to command a US aircraft carrier. His admiral told him to have the Cessna ditch alongside and pick the family out of the water.

Chambers knew what would happen. The Bird Dog had fixed landing gear. It would flip the moment it hit the water, upside down, with five children in the back.

So he got on the ship's loudspeaker, asked for volunteers to the flight deck, and gave the order to push the helicopters into the sea.

Then he turned his back on it. In his own words, he wanted to be able to say truthfully that he did not know how many they sacrificed trying to save that Bird Dog.

He had the arresting cables removed, because the Cessna had no hook, and brought the ship to 25 knots into the wind. When eight more helicopters landed on the cleared deck, those went over the side too.

Buang-Ly landed on the first attempt. That is what you are looking at.

All seven of them walked away. The crew took up a collection to help the family start over. Chambers was never prosecuted for the roughly ten million dollars he threw into the ocean. He made rear admiral and retired in 1984.

The note is at the USS Midway Museum in San Diego. Chambers kept it.

08/25/2026

They call him the ultimate casual badass. 🙌🏻

08/24/2026

https://www.facebook.com/share/1E1nJdq9Do/?mibextid=wwXIfr

He walked back into a burning aircraft to save a man who could no longer save himself. Bill Foxley came out alive, but he would carry that night for the rest of his life.

On 16 March 1944, 20-year-old RAF trainee navigator Bill Foxley was aboard a Wellington bomber when it crashed shortly after take-off from Castle Donington.

Bill escaped the burning aircraft.

Then he heard a crewman trapped inside.

He turned around and went back.

The aircraft was already an inferno. Bill managed to reach his wireless operator and tried to pull him free, but the flames caught him as he escaped through the astrodome.

His crewmate did not survive.

Bill did.

But barely.

His face and hands were devastated by the fire. He lost his right eye, while the sight in his remaining eye was severely damaged. At Queen Victoria Hospital in East Grinstead, he underwent 29 operations over three and a half years as Sir Archibald McIndoe and his team rebuilt what the fire had taken.

The physical pain never truly left him.

Neither did the stares.

On trains travelling between Crawley and London, passengers would sometimes approach the empty seat beside him, see his scars and quietly walk away.

Bill's answer was simple.

“It's all right. I'm not going to bite you.”

That was Bill Foxley.

He refused to let other people's fear define him.

He returned to work, became a successful facilities manager, ran long distances well into his seventies and even appeared in the 1969 film Battle of Britain, helping the wider public understand the reality faced by badly burned airmen.

But perhaps his greatest legacy came from what he did for others.

As a member of the Guinea Pig Club, Bill supported generations of burn survivors, including those wounded in the Falklands, Iraq and Afghanistan. He helped create organisations that gave disabled people opportunities to rebuild their lives.

The young airman who had once walked into a burning aircraft spent the rest of his life helping others find a way forward.

He could not undo what happened to him.

But he could choose what happened next.

Bill Foxley was not defined by the scars on his face. He was defined by the courage in his character.

A brave airman. A survivor. A friend to generations who needed hope.

He went back into the fire for another man. Then he spent the rest of his life showing others how to live beyond it.

08/18/2026

https://www.facebook.com/share/1Bbzr9bQUA/?mibextid=wwXIfr

It’s crazy to think it’ll be 25 years already. I hope “Paulie’s Push” has an amazing turnout of support. ❤️🙌🏻

For retired United Airlines flight attendant Paul Veneto, an airline beverage cart has become something much bigger than a piece of cabin equipment.

At 67, Veneto has begun his final “Paulie’s Push” — pushing a beverage cart 220 miles from Boston to Ground Zero in New York City.

The journey will take 28 days and pass through 60 cities and towns.

And he's doing it for the flight crews and passengers who never came home on September 11, 2001.

“I made a promise, all of us did, after 9/11 to never forget,” Veneto said. “I made a promise to myself to make sure these crew members of these aircrafts were honored and recognized for their heroics.”

He started Paulie's Push in 2021, on the 20th anniversary of the attacks.

Since then, he's retraced the routes connected to each of the four hijacked flights — pushing an airline beverage cart along the way.

This final journey comes as America approaches the 25th anniversary of 9/11.

By the time he finishes at Ground Zero, Veneto will have pushed a beverage cart a combined 1,000 miles in remembrance.

This time, he isn't pushing alone.

Four carts have been prepared — one representing each aircraft — with photographs of the crew members displayed on them.

Veneto wants people in the communities along the route to take part, especially younger Americans who weren't alive on 9/11.

He calls this last journe“Everyone's Push.”

For flight attendants, the tribute carries an especially powerful meaning.

“Being a flight attendant, I think of 9/11 every day I go to work,” said flight attendant Debbie Calimano, who has joined Veneto's team.

Twenty-five years later, one retired flight attendant is still keeping the promise he made:

Never forget.

08/02/2026

07/05/2026

Watching the veterans coming out last night was truly moving. And how amazing did those centurions look?!

07/04/2026

We hope everyone enjoys celebrating America’s 250th this weekend. Stay safe and stay hydrated! Happy 4th of July!!!

06/16/2026

Just wanted to hop on and say if anyone has messaged us, please don’t be offended if no one has responded. I’m really limiting my screen time, so my eyes can heal properly from my surgery. Right now, my close up vision is still blurry, so it causes headaches if I’m trying to focus on reading/texting off my phone. If it’s something important, please just call…..or you can always send a voice memo. Everything is currently on Dave’s shoulders, as I am typically the one handling Facebook and scanning the emails.
~ Amanda