Korean War

The Rev. William McCoy Jr., the longtime pastor of Friendship Baptist Church and a theology teacher, died June 23 of congestive heart failure at his Parkville home. He was 80. Mr. McCoy was born in Greenville, S.C., and moved with his family in 1936 to Washington. He was a 1948 graduate of Cordova High School. Drafted into the Army in 1951, he served in Korea as a medical corpsman until being discharged in 1953. After leaving the Army in 1953, Mr. McCoy went to work for the parcel post office that was located on St. Paul Street across from Pennsylvania Station.

George Robert Davidson, a mechanical engineer and Korean War veteran, died Monday from an aneurysm at his Riderwood home. He was 83. Mr. Davidson, the son of a Baltimore & Ohio Railroad freight clerk and a homemaker, was born in Baltimore and raised in Overlea. After graduating from Polytechnic Institute in 1944, he earned a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering in 1948 from Duke University, where he had been a member of the Naval Reserve Officers Training Corps.

N one are so old, Thoreau once wrote, as those who have outlived their enthusiasms. By that standard, Sgt. Maj. Raymond Moran, the most chronologically advanced recruiter in the Army Reserve, might well also be its most youthful. "This isn't work; it's a labor of love," says Moran, a beloved figure at Fort Meade who is embarking on his 60th year of doing what he loves most: finding prospects for the Army, then putting his cheerful personality to work guiding their careers.

Doris M. Everett, a retired secretary who served as a Navy WAVE during World War II and the Korean War, died Nov. 12 of breast cancer at her Overlea home. She was 86. Doris Miles was born in Baltimore and raised in the Herring Run neighborhood. After graduating from Eastern High School in 1940, she went to work in the directory department of the Chesapeake & Potomac Telephone Co. In 1943, she became a Navy WAVE and was trained as an airplane handler. "She drove a tractor that parked and moved airplanes at the Anacostia Naval Base in Washington," said her husband of 57 years, William E. Everett, a retired United States Fidelity & Guaranty Co. purchasing department executive.

A new poll shows a substantial majority of Americans have resigned themselves to the reality of our nation's perpetual foreign wars. They don't like it, but they see it happening and know there is nothing they can do about it. The poll, conducted by Clarus Research Group, showed that 68 percent of us agree with idea that we won't either win or lose the war in Afghanistan, now eight years long, but will instead just remain there. The image of flies and flypaper again swirls in my head, just as it did at the time of the invasion of Iraq.

George Dayton Dodge, a mechanic and former fleet manager for the H&S Baking Co. who earned two Silver Stars in combat during the Korean War, died of cancer May 22 at a daughter's Dundalk home. He was 80. Mr. Dodge was born in Terra Alta, W.Va., and raised in Oakland, Garrett County. He enlisted in the Army in 1946, and served from 1950 to 1951 as a staff sergeant with the 195th Ordnance Depot Company near Korea's 38th Parallel, where he experienced fierce enemy action. "I was in two active fire fights.

Dr. Joseph Peter Gutkoska, a former longtime professor and director of reading programs at Towson University who was also a decorated Korean War veteran, died Tuesday of heart failure at St. Joseph Medical Center. He was 81. Born in Baltimore and raised in Highlandtown, Dr. Gutkoska was 16 when he dropped out of Patterson Park High School to enlist in the Marine Corps in 1944. He was sent to the Pacific, but because Dr. Gutkoska was underage, he was not allowed to participate in landings.