Paratroopers

Alfred Joseph Moran, a retired telephone union official who was active in labor organizations for four decades and was a World War II veteran, died Aug. 28 at Stella Maris Hospice of surgical complications related to an aneurysm. The former Woodlawn resident was 86. Born in Baltimore and raised in Bolton Hill, he was a Corpus Christi Parochial School graduate. As a young man, he rode a bicycle to deliver blueprints in downtown Baltimore and sold office equipment for the Victor Adding Machine Co. In 1940, he enlisted in the 110th Field Artillery, a division of the Maryland National Guard.

Albert Richard Baines Jr., a retired tool designer for Westinghouse Electric Corp. and World War II veteran, died Tuesday at his home in Arnold. He was 92. According to the funeral home handling his service, his death was due to "natural causes. " Born in Baltimore on Sept. 25, 1919, Mr. Baines was raised in Sparrows Point, where he graduated from Sparrows Point High School. He served in the Army as a paratrooper in the Pacific during World War II. He was in the 462nd Parachute Field Artillery, 503rd Regimental Combat Team.

WASHINGTON - Under cover of drizzle, dust and darkness, Iraqi troops were reported to be repositioning south of Baghdad yesterday, as U.S. ground forces were massing for a major battle near the gates to the capital. American paratroopers seized an airfield in northern Iraq, expanding the battlefield into the portion of the country containing rich oil fields and Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit. In and around Baghdad, the U.S.-led air campaign again pounded targets that included Iraqi missile sites positioned in residential neighborhoods.

Not a lot has changed in the jockey goggle business since 1947, when Israel Kroop first stitched trim around a molded sheet of plastic, added two brass vents from a mattress, and attached a strip of elastic. Kroop's design — a made-in-Maryland variation on miners' protective eyewear — was an instant hit with jockeys at the Laurel racetrack and at Pimlico. It didn't take long for the invention to catch on outside Maryland. Riders around the country swapped cumbersome motorcycle goggles for the wafer-thin, well-ventilated models.

After six years of reform and hope, President Mikhail S. Gorbachev is now heading a government that seems to be returning to the policies of duplicity and lawlessness. Unless this can be halted, Lithuania will be only the beginning of a mournful journey back to the Stalinist past.In Lithuania, a democratically elected constitutional government is gradually being overthrown by paratroopers answering the call of a shadowy group of pro-Moscow communists. Such "calls for help" by quislings have been a standard Soviet tactic, from the forced 1940 annexation of the Baltic republics to the invasions of Hungary, Czechoslovakia and Afghanistan.

James Gorman Keeney, a former Sweetheart Cup Co. worker and World War II paratrooper, died from complications of heart disease and diabetes Sunday at his Finksburg home. He was 81. Mr. Keeney was born and raised on a farm in Savage. He attended Howard County public schools until leaving to help support himself. In 1943, he enlisted in the Army, and after completing paratrooper training, he joined the 17th Airborne Division. He later served with the 101st Airborne Division, better known as the Screaming Eagles.

Here's a list of fireworks, parades other activities marking Independence Day scheduled for the metropolitan area:* TODAY* CROFTON: Celebration sponsored by Bowie-Crofton Jaycees, noon to 5 p.m., Crofton Elementary and Hardy Field on Route 424 near Duke of Kent Lane. Activities for children, food, vendors, games and music by the band Deja Vu. Information: 721-7016 or 721-5470.* FORT MEADE: "Meadefest '95," a four-day Independence Day celebration, begins at noon and runs until 11:30 p.m. today through Tuesday at Burba Park.

Ina E. Fisher, a World War II Army nurse who became a Baltimore County public school nurse, died of heart failure Jan. 23 at St. Joseph Medical Center. The longtime Timonium resident was 83. Born Ina Elizabeth Frankenfield in Towson, she was a 1940 graduate of Towson High School. After earning her nursing degree in 1943 from Maryland General Hospital, Mrs. Fisher enlisted in the Army Nurse Corps and was sent to Plymouth, England. At the time of the D-Day invasion on June 6, 1944, she was assigned to a hospital in Bristol, England, that treated casualties evacuated from the landing, especially paratroopers and glider crews.

VILNIUS, U.S.S.R. (AP) -- Soviet troops yesterday seized two more buildings in Lithuania, and pro-independence activists stood guard outside parliament and the television station as tension with the Kremlin deepened.The troops Friday seized four other buildings, including the national guard headquarters and the republic's main printing plant. Seven people were reported injured.Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev, who ordered paratroopers to enforce the draft in Lithuania and six other rebellious republics, has warned of direct Kremlin rule over the Baltic republic unless it backs off its independence declaration of last March.

A soldier from Gaithersburg was killed in combat in Iraq on Wednesday, the Department of Defense announced yesterday. Army Spc. Thomas J. Barbieri, 24, a gunner assigned to the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg, N.C., died when he was hit by small-arms fire from enemy forces during combat operations south of Baghdad, the military said. The soldier's parents, Thomas and Carolann Barbieri, were grieving yesterday and not able to talk with the media, a family friend said. Specialist Barbieri, who joined the Army in October 2004, trained at Fort Benning, Ga., and became an infantryman in January 2005.