The BBC recently reported on a young Royal Navy sailor, Able Seaman Hollie Randle, one of 142 sailors who pulled the gun carriage bearing Queen Elizabeth II’s coffin in the state funeral procession. Seaman Randle said that she was “overwhelmed” by the honor and that, “if someone had told me a year ago I’d be taking the Queen’s coffin to her funeral, I wouldn’t have believed them.”
For those of us on the other side of the pond, this raises the question, “Why use Royal Navy sailors, rather than horses, to draw the gun carriage carrying the coffin?” Apparently, the tradition originated with Queen Victoria’s funeral on February 2, 1901.
In early September, just weeks before his sentencing in a decade-long Navy bribery and corruption scandal, Leonard Glenn Francis, known as “
The 137-foot 
The legend of the 
Herbert “Bert” Jacobson was 21 when he died in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. Over 80 years later, he was finally laid to rest yesterday in Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia. He was one of 429 sailors and Marines on the battleship 
On the morning of September 4, at 7:35 AM, Leonard Glenn Francis, known as “Fat Leonard,” cut his ankle bracelet monitor and 
The 
An updated repost. There is a line from a Paul Simon song, “these are the days of miracle and wonder.” One might not think to apply that lyric to the events of 9/11, 21 years ago today. Yet for at least part of that strange and horrible day, they fit. The great 