Just wanted to post this, as Yogi Berra is more well-known among younger folks for his classic Yogi-isms (even despite all the Championships he called behind the plate):

…In 1943, Yogi turned 18 and America’s involvement in World War II was going on two years. By that time, Yogi was playing for the Yankees’ minor league team in Norfolk when he received notification that he would be drafted. When his team played against the Navy team stationed at the navy base in Norfolk, a base commander encouraged him to join the Navy, where he might be able to continue to play baseball for the base. Yogi did join the Navy, but his call to play at Norfolk never came.

Instead, after completing basic training, Yogi volunteered for what he was told was a secret mission. So secretive, in fact, that he was not permitted to disclose any details to his family. This mission was to serve onboard a rocket boat in support of the first offensive waves of the Allied invasion of Normandy. These 36-foot rocket boats, classified as Landing Craft Small Support (LCSS) boats, were armed with six crew, a dozen rockets, and several machine guns each. Their job was to get within 300 yards of Normandy’s shore and pound the German machine gun nests with rockets so that the soldiers landing could have a better chance of survival. For months before the invasion, Yogi’s LCSS trained with eleven others under the attack transport USS Bayfield to prepare for the invasion.

On the morning of June 6, Bayfield and other transports like her reached their designated positions offshore and launched troops while the LCSSs began their patrols of the shoreline. As troops came ashore, the LCSSs hammered the machine gun nests they encountered with rockets. As gunner’s mate, Yogi was responsible for the operation and maintenance of all weapons and ordinance onboard while also manning one of the ship’s machine guns throughout the mission. On D-Day at the mere age of 19, Yogi was awestruck by the sheer magnitude of all the explosions and gunfire going on around him–his officer actually had to yell at him to keep his head down before he got hit. As the invasion progressed, the LCSS crews also assisted in recovering bodies of those soldiers killed in action on their way to the shores of Utah Beach—197 men were recovered onto the USS Bayfield alone. Just off the coast of the Allied landing beaches, many other sailors performed similar support actions, providing their own essential role in the overall operation. By the end of the first day of the Normandy invasion, Allied landing forces had succeeded in establishing a foothold in occupied France. Though more fighting was still needed to secure the areas surrounding Normandy before pushing further inland, the D-Day landings had already accomplished much, and Navy crewmen like Yogi were instrumental in paving the way for France’s liberation.

Normandy was not the end of Yogi Berra’s career in the Navy. In fact, his LCSS also supported the invasion of southern France later that year. After the war, Yogi continued to support the troops in other ways as a civilian. In 2009, the Navy Memorial recognized Yogi’s lifelong service by presenting him with the Lone Sailor Award. More information about his service career is recorded in his Navy Log.

This D-Day, the Navy Memorial wants to honor the service of all Navy personnel like Yogi Berra who assisted in the hard-won success of the D-Day invasion. It is our hope that when someone thinks of Yogi Berra, they not only remember his impressive career in pinstripes, but also recall his time in Navy blue and the Normandy landings.

https://www.navymemorial.org/tales-from-the-navy-log/2020/6/4/catching-heat-in-new-york-and-normandy-yogi-berra-at-d-day

>>13843964

Hezbollah?

LUKE ROSIAK INVESTIGATIVE REPORTER DECEMBER 19, 2017

While Imran and Abid Awan ran their car dealership in Falls Church, Va. in the early part of the decade, Drug Enforcement Agency officials a few miles away in Chantilly were learning that the Iranian-linked terrorist group frequently deployed used car dealerships in the US to launder money and fund terrorism,

The money that disappeared between the Awans’ dealership, some $7 million in congressional pay, the equipment suspected of disappearing from Congress under their watch, and their other side businesses — all while they displayed few signs of wealth and frequently haggled in court over small amounts of money — raise questions about whether the Awans might have been laundering money or sending it to a third party.

“Based on the modest way Awan was living, it is my opinion that he was sending most of his money to a group or criminal organization that could very well be connected with the Pakistani government,” said Wayne Black, a private investigator who served as law enforcement group supervisor in Janet Reno’s Miami public corruption unit. “My instincts tell me Awan was probably operating a foreign intelligence gathering operation on US soil.”

Officials told Politico that prosecutors refused to help them punish top Hezbollah operatives involved in its money laundering network because of political concerns, such as fears of jeopardizing the Obama administration’s deal with Iran…. The disclosure of a House IT breach shortly before the election by Pakistani-born Democratic staffers would have had political fallout.

Abid Awan is married to a Ukranian named Nataliia Sova, who was herself on the House payroll as an IT aide in 2010 and 2011 for Reps. Emmanuel Cleaver, Ted Deutch, and Gabby Giffords. Abid incorporated Cars International in 2008, and Cars International A in 2009, taking out loans from the Congressional credit union while omitting the dealership from House financial disclosures. It was not clear how he could have been working at both the dealership and a high-paid congressional job.

In 2010, the CIA dealership took a $100,000 loan from Dr. Ali Al-Attar, who is of Iranian heritage and was a minister in the Iraqi government, according to court records. Al-Attar is a fugitive wanted by the U.S. government. Philip Giraldi, a former CIA officer, wrote that Attar “was observed in Beirut, Lebanon conversing with a Hezbollah official” in 2012–shortly after the loan was made.

The money was moved from Ali Al-Attar through accounts intended for Fairfax County real estate….

Despite brothers Imran, Abid and Jamal and Imran’s wife, Hina Alvi, all making chief-of-staff level salaries of $160,000 on Capitol Hill, they displayed few signs of wealth in the US, further raising questions about where all the money was going…

They bought houses will little money down, then rented them out, insisting that rent be paid in cash, tenants told TheDCNF. Sources said the FBI generated Suspicious Activity Reports hundreds of pages long based on large cash deposits and international wires.

Members of Congress have refused to acknowledge what is well-known among the House bureaucracy, that investigators found conclusive evidence that the Awans wantonly violated House IT regulations. “There’s no question about it: If I was accused of a tenth of what these guys are accused of, they’d take me out in handcuffs that same day,”… https://archive.is/CRuvs

https://dailycaller.com/2017/12/19/house-it-aides-ran-car-dealership-with-markings-of-a-nefarious-money-laundering-operation/

The secret backstory of how Obama let Hezbollah off the hook

An ambitious U.S. task force targeting Hezbollah's billion-dollar criminal enterprise ran headlong into the White House's desire for a nuclear deal with Iran. https://archive.is/MFHiV

https://www.politico.com/interactives/2017/obama-hezbollah-drug-trafficking-investigation/