Claim: Photograph shows a tearful World War II veteran embracing a wounded Marine.
Example:[Collected via e-mail, December 2004]
Picture worth a 1000 words...and, really, no words needed!
We truly take a lot for granted. Forget the football "heroes"... and pass this on, please.
Origins: This moving photograph of a World War II veteran overcome with emotion while embracing a wounded Marine is a cropped version of a photograph which originally appeared in newspapers in November 2004:
The occasion of this photograph was a Veterans Day Commemoration at Dallas City Hall on 11 November 2004. The veteran pictured is Houston James, a survivor of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, and the Marine is Staff Sgt. Mark Graunke Jr., a member of an ordnance-disposal team who lost his left eye, his left hand, the thumb and index finger of his right hand, and his right leg as a result of injuries sustained while defusing a bomb in Iraq in July 2003.
In July 2007, a Dallas builder named a city block in Staff Sgt. Graunke's honor and donated a portion of the proceeds from home sales to charities selected by him:
A Dallas builder, Brandenburg Homes, will construct 16 homes on the block, now known as the Mark Graunke Jr. Addition. The builder will donate $3,000 for each home sold, divided equally between three charities Graunke selected — the Intrepid Fallen Heroes Fund, Fisher House and the Marine Corps-Law Enforcement Foundation, all of which helped him recover from his injuries, he said.
