DNA from letters home helps ID Pearl Harbor casualty

Before he died at Pearl Harbor, less than a month after turning 18, Gerald Lehman sent home to Michigan letters that his mother came to treasure.

In them, the teen talked about going through Navy training in Great Lakes, Ill. — falling out of his sleeping hammock once — and how much he liked his new woolen uniform.

In graceful penmanship, he asked about the family dog, Duke; wrote about waiting to ship out from California on the battleship USS Oklahoma; and seeing the mountains and rainbows of O’ahu from the doomed ship.

Unknowingly, Lehman sent home to those who loved him something else, something that wouldn’t be useful until decades later: his own DNA.

Sixty-eight years after he was killed on Dec. 7, 1941, DNA lifted from the envelopes Lehman had licked helped the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command positively identify the young sailor’s remains.

Full Article @ HonoluluAdvertiser.com

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Bag of Randomness

  • Today in history Lincoln was shot, the Titanic struck an iceberg, and Jimi Clark was born.
  • I so need to get one of these for my dogs.
  • Ah, so this is how med students learn how to deliver a baby.  YouTube
  • Man, Sarah Jessica Parker sure does have some freaky arms.
  • With this kid on the team, Lane Kiffin isn’t going to have any problem coaching USC.
  • So what’s up with the image above?  Well, I’m referencing it because of a post that Baylor alum Barry made on his blog that has garnered some interesting comments.
  • Because we both share a lot of the same readers, one of his readers asked me to share my thoughts, but at this point I’m not really comfortable doing so, but most of you probably already know were I stand.  Perhaps one day I’ll give my uncensored thoughts about the whole thing.
  • But I will say that sort of thinking was common when I was a student at Hardin-Simmons.  Heck, I even remember one student (he was actually from Mineral Wells) debate the prof in a chemistry class about how he felt that carbon dating was a bunch of crap (his words).
  • I will also say it’s another reason I label myself a Recovering Baptist.
  • Not sure if it’s related at all, but the town in which the author of the letter references she is from  is just an hour away from the Creation Museum.
  • I wonder if that Baylor alumni magazine could be any more controversial with that letter and with Ken Starr on the cover.
  • Grace
Posted in Personal, Spiritual | 2 Comments