Articles about Military
Filter by topic
Taps for last Bloomington Civil War veteran in 1940
By Bill Kemp. Published on September 14, 2014.
Today the median age of Korean War veterans is 88 years old, and as the ranks of these old soldiers get increasingly thinner there will...
WW I freighter ‘Evergreen City’ named for Bloomington
By Bill Kemp. Published on February 5, 2017.
At the end of World War I, Bloomington citizens were given the honor of having a freighter named for their fair city. The...
Campaign to aid Britain comes to Bloomington
By Bill Kemp. Published on February 19, 2017.
On Dec. 5, 1940, two of Bloomington’s favorite sons returned home to call upon Americans to support Great Britain in her greatest hour ...
Four Burger brothers served in World War I
By Bill Kemp. Published on April 9, 2017.
This past week marked the 100th anniversary of the American entry into World War I, though for the other main combatants the unpreceden...
‘Black Devils’ earned fame in WW I
By Bill Kemp. Published on April 30, 2017.
During World War I, several dozen Bloomington-Normal residents fought in an African-American regiment that earned a reputation for brav...
Julia Vrooman brought jazz to WW I doughboys
By Bill Kemp. Published on September 24, 2017.
“Julia Scott Vrooman has always been in the news,” noted The Pantagraph in early October 1976. The occasion was her 100th...
ISNU welcomed veterans after WWII
By Bill Kemp. Published on October 22, 2017.
After World War II, Illinois State Normal University put out the welcome mat for returning soldiers and sailors looking to reintegrate ...
Memorial tablet honors ‘Great War’ dead
By Bill Kemp. Published on November 18, 2018.
One hundred years ago today, November 11, 1918, the guns in Europe fell silent after more than four years of unrelenting carnage. World...
Central Illinois final resting place for once-enslaved persons
By Bill Kemp. Published on March 17, 2019.
The stain of slavery pervades the American experience, dating well before the nation’s founding to the present. Yet the all-encompassin...
Long-gone Franklin Park monument dedicated 150 years ago
By Bill Kemp. Published on June 16, 2019.
On June 17, 1869—150 years ago this week—area residents packed Bloomington’s Franklin Park to dedicate a monument to the more than 700 ...
Harvey Hogg early martyr to Union cause
By Bill Kemp. Published on August 18, 2019.
The Civil War was a brutal, decidedly unromantic slog. By its cruel end, as Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee’s armies blackened the V...
Halloween 1945 followed world war’s end
By Bill Kemp. Published on October 20, 2019.
World War II still loomed large over American life during the Halloween season of 1945. The surrender of Japan marking the war’s end ha...
Dr. E.D. Churchill, savior to wounded GIs
By Bill Kemp. Published on December 8, 2019.
Winning a war is not only about killing—it’s also about saving lives, especially if those lives are wounded soldiers fighting on your s...
Donated Vrooman letter speaks to wartime loss
By Bill Kemp. Published on October 10, 2021.
Faced with the enormity of the Second World War, it’s often difficult to put a human face on the horror. “One death is a tragedy, a mil...