Bronze Star

Julius Gordon, a combat medic who worehis World War II decorations on his deathbed, died Wednesday of respiratory failure at Cherrywood Healthcare and Rehabilitation Centre in Reisterstown. The Northwest Baltimore resident was 79.Mr. Gordon, known as Jules, enlisted in the Army in 1940. In 1942, he was shipped overseas to the Pacific Theater of operations where he was assigned as a medic to a Marine Corps unit and saw action at Guadalcanal and Bougainville Island.After being discharged in 1945, he returned to Baltimore and owned and operated a wholesale produce business until opening Gordon's Package Goods at Carey and Mosher streets.

John Y. Crow, a retired salesman of dairy products and a decorated World War II veteran, died of complications from pneumonia April 8 at Charlotte Hall Veterans Home in Southern Maryland. He was 89 and had lived in North Baltimore. Born in Uniontown, Pa., and raised in Towson, he was a 1941 graduate of Towson High School. He earned an animal husbandry degree at the University of Maryland, College Park, where he also attended a Reserve Officers' Training Corps program. He went into military service in the Army.

NEW YORK - Bob Kerrey, a former U.S. senator, has acknowledged that a combat mission in Vietnam for which he was awarded the Bronze Star caused the deaths of 13 to 20 unarmed civilians, most of them women and children. Days before an investigation of his role in the incident was to be published in the New York Times Magazine, Kerrey described his version of the events in interviews with two other newspapers and in a speech. The Times' magazine investigation was carried out jointly with "60 Minutes II," the CBS News program.

Mourners of Airman 1st Class Matthew Ryan Seidler said the Westminster man had followed his dream of serving his country, found a band of brothers in the Air Force and died protecting his fellow soldiers in Afghanistan. "When we talked to him New Year's Day, it was the happiest that he had ever been in his life," his father, Marc Seidler, told the more than 500 mourners who filled the Sol Levinson & Bros. funeral home Tuesday in Pikesville. "He loved the Air Force. " Matthew Seidler, an explosive ordnance disposal apprentice, was killed Jan. 5 by a bomb in Helmand province.

Charles A. Cusumano told his children of the hardships he experienced during World War II, but he had never called himself a war hero until now.More than half a century ago, Cusumano spent three months repairing war planes in New Guinea, suffering a lack of food, bouts of malaria and dengue fever, and an enemy attack that left him with three fractured vertebrae.Yesterday, Cusumano received the Bronze Star his war buddies there got in 1944.Wearing a light blue sport coat and a tie decorated with the stars and stripes, Cusumano stood at attention before a battery of flags in the office of Col. John D. Frketic, garrison commander at Fort Meade.

Nearly 60 years after he was severely wounded on a World War II battlefield, Stanley Hamilton Jr. accepted one of the nation's most prestigious combat medals yesterday. Hamilton, 78, received the Bronze Star, engraved with his name, in a brief ceremony at Westminster's County Office Building. He was a reconnaissance scout for his platoon and continued his mission even after German tanks destroyed the Allied tanks he was using for cover. In the ensuing battle, he lost part of a lung and sustained injuries that partially paralyzed his left arm and shoulder.

Navy Lt. Melvin Spence Dry dropped out of a helicopter into choppy waters off the coast of North Vietnam in June 1972. On a highly classified mission to rescue two escaped American prisoners of war, he died the moment he hit the water. But because the mission was top-secret, Dry's valor went officially unrecognized. No medals, no commendations and no place of honor among the fallen at the U.S. Naval Academy, where he graduated in 1968. Even his parents were told that he died in a training exercise.

Louis Rice Witt Jr., a retired petroleum equipment executive and decorated World War II veteran, died of congestive heart failure Sunday at Union Memorial Hospital. The Catonsville resident was 84. Born in Niagara Falls, N.Y., he attended Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and earned a degree from the Rochester Institute of Technology. He joined the Army and landed at Marseille, France, in October 1944. He served in an infantry unit that was trucked to the front near Baccarat in the Lorraine province.

Harry Lindauer, a retired U.S. Army colonel who served in World War II, Korea and Vietnam after fleeing Nazi Germany in 1938, died of age-related complications and an infection Friday at the Ginger Cove retirement community in Annapolis. He was 88. Born in Buttenhausen and raised in Darmstadt, Germany, he was 20 when he left his family's tobacco and soap factory as the Nazi government intensified its campaign against Jewish business owners. Distant relatives sponsored his immigration to Chicago, where he worked initially in a sausage factory.

Fred Janney, a World War II rifleman who landed at Normandy and fought through with the 79th Infantry Division to the Rhine River, died Friday after open heart surgery at Sinai Hospital. The Street resident was 82. Mr. Janney was born in Baltimore and raised on South Potomac Street. He attended Patterson Park High School. Before the war, Mr. Janney worked in his father's confectionery stores on East Monument Street and North Calvert Street and at Eddie's supermarket in Dundalk. He enlisted in the Army in 1944 and, after training, joined the 79th Infantry Division.

Thomas W. Brundige III, a retired lawyer and decorated World War II veteran, died Aug. 31 of respiratory failure at Keswick Multi-Care Center in Baltimore. The former longtime Stevenson resident was 90. The son of a lawyer and a homemaker, Thomas Worthington Brundige III was born in Baltimore and raised on Winston Avenue in Govans. After graduating from City College in 1938, he enrolled at the Johns Hopkins University, where he earned a bachelor's degree in 1942. While at Hopkins, he completed reserve officers training, was commissioned a second lieutenant and entered the Army.

James Keefe Donahue, former president and CEO of Industrial Shows of America Inc. who also was producer of the International Auto Show and Chesapeake Bay Boat Show, died June 23 of heart failure at Good Samaritan Hospital. The Lutherville resident was 88. Mr. Donahue was born and raised in Arlington, Mass., and was a 1942 graduate of Belmont High School. He enlisted in the Army in 1943 and served with an infantry unit in Europe, receiving a battlefield commission. At the Battle of the Bulge, he established a roadblock that held off the advance of a German unit.

Stanley A. "Jimmy" Makowski, founder of National Press of Baltimore and a decorated World War II veteran, died June 21 of heart failure at his Perry Hall home. He was 93. Mr. Makowski, one of eight children, was born and raised in Canton. He was a graduate of Polytechnic Institute. Drafted in 1941, he was assigned to the 28th Infantry Division and landed at Normandy on June 6, 1944. After being wounded in the legs during the D-Day invasion, he was reassigned to division headquarters, where he was a supply clerk, and later an electrical technician in charge of a power plant and a demolition expert, said a son, Stephen Makowski of Perry Hall.

Edward T. Kusterer, a retired mechanical engineer and World War II veteran, died April 4 of heart failure at Stella Maris Hospice in Timonium. He was 94. Mr. Kusterer was born in Richmond, Va., and moved to the city's Pimlico neighborhood in 1918. He was a 1934 graduate of Calvert Hall College High School. He was working as a bank teller at the old Maryland Trust Co. on Eutaw Street when he was drafted in 1941 into the Army Air Corps. After being commissioned a second lieutenant, he joined the 99th Bomb Group, 346th Squadron in Oran, Algeria.

Edgar Knauff, founder of a Baltimore construction company and a World War II veteran, died Jan. 13 of kidney failure at his York, Pa., home. He was 92. Mr. Knauff, son of a construction superintendent and a homemaker, was born on 22nd Street and raised on Southern Avenue. A 1936 graduate of Polytechnic Institute, he studied engineering at the Johns Hopkins University. During World War II, he served as a captain with the Army's 373rd Field Artillery Battalion in Europe, earning the Bronze Star.

Charles Sussman, a retired Baltimore County public schools administrator who was a decorated World War II veteran, died of congestive heart failure Wednesday at Sinai Hospital. He was 85 and lived in Pikesville. Born in Baltimore and raised on Bryant Avenue near Druid Hill Park, he worked as a cashier at the popular delicatessen Sussman and Lev, at 923 E. Baltimore St., which was operated by his father, Jacob. While attending City College, where he graduated in 1942, Mr. Sussman befriended Russell Baker, who went on to become a Baltimore Sun reporter, New York Times columnist and author.