A local hero to recall on Memorial Day

Somehow I missed this local news article about two years ago on the 72nd anniversary of D-Day. The details of a D-Day jump with the 82nd Airborne Division (and subsequent trip back to Normandy 72 years later) is told in this Milwaukee Journal Sentinel article by Meg Jones. Yesterday, I met the gentleman who was the subject of that piece, Mr. Ralph Ticcioni of New Berlin, Wisconsin. (Disclosure: Ralph is Uncle to one of my brothers-in-law).

French Legion of Honour recipient, Ralph Ticcioni
John Maddente photo

As I listened to the 95 year old veteran speak about his experience, I marveled at his deep humility. As a paratrooper that fateful day, Ralph along with thousands of his comrades were dropped behind enemy lines. Unlike his comrades, he landed smack onto a farm rooftop in Cherbourg, France whereupon he had to cut himself loose from his own parachute which was entangled on a weather vane. Some history readers and viewers of the movie, Saving Private Ryan will recall that Cherbourg was a location of importance during the invasion. Speaking of the movie, Ralph told me that when he viewed the first twenty minutes of the film; he thought he was watching an actual news reel of the event. (Many D-Day veterans have expressed a similar reaction to that segment).

Ralph could easily recall the gear he carried that day, including the amount of ammunition and all the weapons he was issued which included a sidearm (.45 caliber semiautomatic pistol), several hand grenades and a Thompson sub-machine gun (which was swapped for an M1 Carbine rifle after paratroopers reunited with American supply units).

So pleased to have met this man yesterday. To all like him, living or not, God bless and thank you for defending freedom!

Blessed with friends on the other side

Wikipedia image This post contains excerpts from an April 10 e-mail response to a dear friend of mine (edited for emphasis and anonymity). “Dear Mortimer, I’ll say hello to the guys for you and I’ll be thinking about you this evening. As for politics, yes, we tend to gravitate toward sources that share our views. However, I also read the New York Times Op-ed pages and watch MSNBC (as hard as those tasks are for me). I suppose you watch Fox on occasion and I know you read the WSJ – so good for both of us. We try. The state-sponsored education you cite that we both benefited from, came largely from our parents' sweat equity – translated into tax dollars – that funded the University of Wisconsin system. True, my friend. But, I'm not arguing for zero taxation, or zero government involvement in our lives. When Progressives argue in favor of entitlement programs, they'll sometimes cite Social Security (under-...

Because it's not theirs to change

Freepik image This week there was controversy stemming from a publisher's decision to edit versions of children's stories written by the late Roald Dahl . The edits, whether inspired by Netflix (who according to Forbes purchased the rights to Dahl's work) or the publisher Puffin Books , sparked a public outcry and PR nightmare. The publisher curated an alternative version to the original work from Dahl's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, (a story later adapted to make the film, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory ), ostensibly to remove insensitive terms. There are several reasons why this ill-conceived, if well-intentioned attempt at inclusiveness -- a term becoming increasingly elastic -- failed miserably. I'm not discussing the evils of censorship today. Altering original art work to appeal to others is ill advised for another reason.....it's not theirs to change (and doing so can backfire). One ...

Economics 101 for the rest of us

W arren Buffet and Carl Icahn are famous investors but fewer people may know Ray Dalio. Mr. Dalio founded an investment firm 40 years ago called Bridgewater Associates. With $160 billion under management, Bridgewater runs one of the largest hedge funds in the world. Bridgewater founder Ray Dalio, Bridgewater website I recently discovered (among 3 million other people) a thirty minute YouTube video that Mr. Dalio produced to explain fundamentals of what he calls the economic machine . This video, which he narrates has been translated into several languages and viewed over 3,200,000 times. The content begins slowly with basic concepts but progresses to explain the primary levers that policy-makers use to manage and stimulate the economy. You can find it here . There are numerous lessons cleverly and clearly explained here. Example: I hadn't appreciated why economists seem obsessed with Wage Growth until I watched this simp...

john maddente | midwestern clarity

Search This Blog