Illustrated below is a mounted US Navy medal group with a Good Conduct medal named to Everett D. Johnson, 1942. The medal also has a "Second Award" bar, (pin back version) and three stars  which indicates that he enlisted in 1939 and stayed in the navy until 1954 or later. Next medal, the American Defense ribbon has one battle star as does the Pacific Campaign ribbon which makes me think this might be a Pearl Harbor grouping. No battle or campaign stars were authorized for the American Defense Service Medal but it was not unusual for survivors of the Pearl Harbor attack to wear a bronze battle star on the ribbon of their ADSM on their own authority!

Went to the flea market in Shawano last weekend.  By the way, the way you pronounce that name and some of the other local place names around here tells us locals who the foreigners are and more. For example when the 1977 TV docu-drama "Tail Gunner Joe" was aired we all knew it was going to be a hatchet job on our infamous senator Joseph McCarthy; but to me the film lost all credibility when the actors mispronounced this and two other place names.  Back to the intended topic. At the flea market I found a history of the 120th Feld Artillery published in the 1920's which covers mostly their WWI history.  In the book is the cartoon illustrated below which deals with the unit's first inspection by a regular army officer when the unit was called up into federal service. What he says leads me to think he is Irish.  "Yer a foine looking bunch of soldiers,--- ye stand there wid yer bellies sticken oot loike a bunch of  ALDERMAN. Thats all I got to say to ye."  Camp Douglas Aug. 1, '17   signed by Rotier.

   I've never heard the word "Alderman" used as a put down before.  Was this military jargon of the time or an Irish anti-political slur? Anyone know?

In almost every collection there is usually atleast one item that will remain in a collector's memory for a life time due to the unusual way in which it was acquired. The story behind my most memorable item starts back in June 1963 when my parents took me to Germany to visit family and the ancestral homeland. While visiting my aunt on the family farm in Lower Bavaria, not to far from Passau, my interest in old coins became well known. Since my aunt was the housekeeper for the local parish priest, he also quickly learned of my interest in old coins. One day my aunt came home with a cigar box full of old German coins for me from the priest. The obsolete coins were thrown into the collection basket during the hard times after the war when the poor parishioners had nothing else to give. After I started sorting the old pfennig coins by denomination, date and mint I suddenly struck gold! Buried in the the box was the gold class  Mothers Cross illustrated below.Someone must have thought it was real gold and valuable. Even though it is only gold plated it is one of the most attractive decorations of the Nazi regime and one of the few Third Reich items in my collection.