Chet Furtek

He was aboard the USS Corry when it was attacked on D-Day.

By Bob Staranowicz, Correspondent


“I was certain that I was not planning on making it through the D-Day invasion.” This was Furlong resident Chet Furtek’s feeling as he knelt before a priest during what he thought could have been his final confession.

U.S Navy Seaman Chet Furtek was aboard the USS Corry (DD-463), the destroyer that led the D-Day Invasion at Normandy. Launched in 1941, the Corry was a Gleaves-class destroyer weighing about 1,630 tons and running at a speed of about 35 knots. It carried four 5-inch guns with a range of nine miles, had 40mm and 20mm anti-aircraft guns, ten torpedo tubs and various depth charges.

Even with all of this power, at approximately H-Hour (0630) on D-Day, the USS Corry was hit amidships by heavy-caliber projectiles that detonated in the engineering spaces and broke the keel. As a result of the battle, 24 Corry crewmembers lost their lives and at least 60 were wounded, many seriously.

Chet still remembers that day vividly. “When the captain gave the order to abandon ship, I helped launch our life raft on the starboard side. After jumping into the water we found it just about impossible to move the raft any distance at all, because the waves kept pushing us back against the side of the ship, so we all decided to abandon the raft and swim as far away from the Corry as possible. Shells seemed to be bursting all around us, and no matter what direction I swam a shell would fall nearby.”

“After the air finally cleared, a fellow mate, Wainwright was close by and he looked at me and said, ‘This is Hell.’

“On three separate occasions while attempting to swim away from the gunfire, shell bursts were so close I was hit by the spray, and the odor from each of the explosions was very strong and frightening because it seemed that death was imminent. At one point, I thought I had been hit with shrapnel. I ran my hand over my face and was happy to find I wasn’t hit. I was quite thin, so the cold water was taking its toll, and I felt I couldn’t continue much longer. After swimming for what seemed like an eternity I simply stopped because I was totally exhausted and freezing and thought to myself, ‘This is it, I’m gonna die,’” Chet reflected.

Chet didn’t remember anything after that thought of death until he woke up with a warm blanket covering him.

“There was soft music in the background and the sudden and miraculous change from complete misery to divine comfort indicated to me I had died and was now in Purgatory,” he said.

He removed the blanket from over his face and was actually disappointed to find he was alive and lying on the deck in the wardroom of the USS Fitch; most of the wounded from the Corry were lying there as well.

“Later, I was removed by stretcher and put aboard the Barnett. After spending a few days in a hospital in England, I was diagnosed with having suffered from hypothermia and released to join the rest of the crew. I later learned that I had been spotted by a damaged whaleboat that had no room aboard because they were carrying so many of the wounded. I was floating still in the water and the area around my mouth was covered with foam, so I appeared to be dead to them. However, Lt. Vanelli had them take me in tow and tie me to the gunwale, and keep my head above water in hope that I would still be alive. I was then picked up by a torpedo boat and then put aboard the Fitch. I was unconscious the entire time until I awoke in the wardroom.”

Chet admits that his faith had a lot to do with his rescue and he thanks God every day for his rescue and survival.

Furtek was born in the Northern Liberties section of Philadelphia. He joined the Navy on his 17th birthday in 1943 and served for three years. He also had an older brother who served in the Navy. He currently lives in Furlong with his wife of almost 60 years, Nancy. He has a daughter, Deborah, three grandchildren, and three great-granddaughters with a great- grandson on the way. He and his wife are members of Our Lady of Guadalupe Church in Buckingham and he is a member of Doylestown VFW Post 175.

David Kolmetzky

Military career as a recruiter turns to career with the VA.

By Petra Chesner Schlatter, BucksLocalNews.com


Retired U.S. Air Force SMSgt. David J. Kolmetzky may have officially retired from the military, but in his current job, he continues to serve his country.

Kolmetzky is marking his first year as administrative officer of Washington Crossing National Cemetery.

The first burials at the 131st national cemetery took place Jan. 20, 2010.

Administered by the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), the new 205-acre national cemetery will serve veterans’ needs for at least the next 50 years. The cemetery will serve approximately 580,000 veterans in the Philadelphia metropolitan area.

After 22 years in the Air Force, Kolmetzky’s new employer is the VA. He joined the Air Force when he was 18 and served in the military from Oct. 1987 to Aug. 2009 until he was 42.
He applied on line through USA Jobs. “I actually left a job with the Department of Labor in Philadelphia to take this one, because I couldn’t think of a better way to spend a retirement still being able to serve,” he said.

Kolmetzky said he cannot think of anything as rewarding as “honoring veterans and their families like we do here everyday. It’s the next best thing to still being in active duty.”
When he was 6, his family moved to the Bustleton area of Northeast Philadelphia from the Mayfair section.

Most of his relatives were law enforcement officers, but his grandfather served in the Pennsylvania National Guard. His father, Benjamin Kolmetzky, was a Philadelphia police inspector. He is 87 and lives in Bucks County.

Kolmetzky spent most of his career as a recruiter. “I did not deploy in support of any battles or operations,” he noted.

“The reason I stayed in so long and stayed with Air Force recruiting for so long was just the number of kids I was able to give an opportunity to like I had myself,” he said. “I helped kids get into the Air Force who had everything in life they needed to kids that had nothing.

“There was one young man in Michigan,” Kolmetzky remembered. “I went to meet him and interview him and talk about the Air Force,” he said. “He lived in a 12 x12 cinderblock home — one room — chickens running through the house.”

Kolmetzky said the kids slept on a board that was placed across the rafters with a mattress on it. He had a brother and a sister as well. “He joined and came back. Just to see that change in any young man or young woman was about as heartwarming and rewarding as anything.”

But, that’s one story. In the 19 years he was a recruiter, he had a hand in over 3,000 men and women joining the Air Force in one way or another. He said he hopes he made a difference in their lives.

“I still have every letter that was ever written to me from all my recruits,” Kolmetzky said. Call him sentimental. He has all of his 200 recruits’ basic training photographs.

When he completed his tour as a recruiter and then as he moved through different supervision or leadership positions, he technically stopped recruiting.

“But I supervised the recruiters that did,” he said. “I worked at the processing stations where they joined. So, I had a hand one way or another of over 3000.”

Kolmetzky started as an aircraft armaments systems specialist. For three years, he maintained the weapons systems on B52 aircrafts. Then, he became an Air Force recruiter and did that for the next 19 years.

He retired as a production superintendent in charge of recruiting for New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania and Delaware.

When asked what his hope is for the country, the world and children, he said, “I would hope that someday there would be no need for the military. I would just love to see every country, every nationality, every religion respect one another.”

Regarding world peace, he said, “I would hope it would be in my children’s time.”

He is a member of the American Legion Post 79 in New Hope, which is where the veterans’ group, the Guardians of the National Cemetery, is based. Group members are active in the formal ceremonies held at the cemetery.

Kolmetzky lives with his wife, Lynn, in Warminster with their children, Devin, 15, and Hannah, 12. Devin is a sophomore at Archbishop Wood High School. Hannah is in the seventh grade at St. Joseph/St. Roberts School.

Lynn is a radiological technologist specializing in mammography at Lansdale Hospital.

Don H. Gee

Marine hunted down snipers during Missile Crisis.

By Natalya Bucuy, Correspondent


“Whatever I am today I owe it to the Marine Corps.”

For military journalist and public affairs chief Don H. Gee, life as a Marine did not end after his departure from the Corps in 1977. He is, in fact, a Marine for life.

Gee was born in Bristol, but grew up in Warrington and graduated from Central Bucks Joint High School – now CB West. His father, a World War II Marine, did not push his son to join the military, but what he brought from his experiences in the Marine Corps attracted young Gee.

“When my father came home from World War II he didn’t talk much about it. The only thing he would say is that the times were rough,” Gee recalls. ”But I noticed that people he associated with, the Marines, they had a bond. I guess that’s pretty much what did it.

“I always wanted to join the Marines,” Gee says. “Even as a kid – you play cowboys and Indians – I played Marines and Indians.”

Gee’s 20-year Marine career began on November 20, 1957.

“I was 18 and I decided - now was the time to join the Marines,” Gee said. “I have absolutely no regrets.”

Gee chose public information specialty. He attended a Navy Journalist School in Great Lakes, Ill. As staff sergeant he managed and edited a number of Marine newspapers and publications.

Gee traveled the world with the Marine Corps. His training and service within the United States’ borders took him to California, Florida, Illinois, Georgia, and Virginia. After completing his training Gee went on a six-month Mediterranean cruise, then a two-month Caribbean cruise.

Gee’s favorite tour took him to Iwakuni, Japan – the location of Marine Corps air station, where Gee taught conversational English to auto plant workers.

“I had the opportunity to explore a culture that I only heard about,” he says. “When you get involved with people like that you learn a lot more about the culture and a lot of myths are dispelled. You have to experience it. To me it was more than educational. It was educational and fun.”

Gee goes on to explain that his father was a World War II veteran to whom Japanese were “the bad guys.” Gee’s experience in Japan gave him an opportunity to learn for himself what Japanese culture was about. He made friends and exchanged cultural values.

Even though Gee never went to Vietnam – “I think they were saving me for the big one,” he says, he smelled the gunfire of the Cuban Missile Crisis in Dominican Republic as his squad knocked on doors in Santo Domingo looking for hiding snipers.

Gee retired as a gunnery sergeant in 1977. He continued his communication career as a public affairs officer for various organizations, including a number of veterans’ associations. He graduated with a degree in business administration from Delaware Valley College in 1987.

Even though Gee celebrates his 71st birthday this October, he is far from quiet retirement.
Working 18 hours a day from his home office in Chalfont, Gee manages DHG and Associates together with his wife, Iris. Their organization provides a variety of membership services to veterans’ organizations.

For the past few years Gee also served as grand marshal of the Doylestown Memorial Day Parade.

Gee has two children – son Don Jr. and daughter Tammy. Don Jr. continued the family path and served in the Marine Corps.

Gee is proud of his family tradition with the Marines. Years after leaving the Marine Corps, Gee values his military years and Marine Corps connections more than anything.

“Being a Marine is an obligation you can never fulfill,” he says. “Society holds Marines to a higher standard. The opinions of my Marine friends are more important to me than anyone else’s. There is no hidden agenda with the Marines – what you see is what you get.”

Jonathan Gremminger

Local Marine spent months training Afghan police.

By R. Kurt Osenlund, BucksLocalNews.com


Local Marine Jonathan Gremminger is very glad to be home, and to once again be able to enjoy “creature comforts” like a soft mattress and running water. For the five months prior to Gremminger’s mid-September return to the U.S. he was in a place that had no such comforts. The Holland resident was stationed in an especially desolate region of Afghanistan, training members of the Afghan police and helping to restore the region from a war-ravaged state. Gremminger says he got much personal growth and gratification from the experience, and explains that military service is in his blood.

Gremminger was born on July 28, 1987 at the Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune to mother Stacy and father Eric, a Marine himself who was serving at the time. Gremminger grew up in Holland, along with brothers Eric and Frank. The latter, Gremminger says, is currently in the Navy, aboard a ship headed for Pakistan.

“My father and brother definitely had an influence on me,” Gremminger says in regard to his reasons for enlisting. “I thought I should definitely do at least one tour and do my part.”

A 2005 Council Rock South graduate, Gremminger first studied international politics and economics at Penn State. In 2006, following his freshman year, he joined the Marine Corps Reserves. He graduated in 2009, all the while serving the customary one weekend per month and two weeks per year with the Reserves. He enrolled in law school at Drexel, then in November was summoned, along with 38 other enlistees, to report to a training facility in Pittsburgh.

By January of 2010 he was headed to North Carolina’s Cherry Point, a Marine Corps Air Station not far from Camp Lejeune. He was a Lance Corporal, promoted to Corporal once he and the rest of his unit landed in Afghanistan, after a Valentine’s Day departure led them through Kyrgyzstan. The crew set down at Camp Leatherneck, where they offered force protection and aided British soldiers. Before long they began their new assignment of police mentoring, moving on to Now Zad, a town in southern Afghanistan.

“We were training Afghan police, being accountable for them, going on patrols with them and having them work with the Afghan army,” Gremminger says, noting that the police and the army often speak different languages and rarely get along.

Gremminger says Now Zad was strewn with IEDs, a number of which he personally saw detonate. If not found and dismantled by Afghan de-miners, who’d sweep areas for old and new explosives, Taliban-planted IEDs would often be set off by vehicles. Fortunately, Gremminger explains, most current military vehicles are far more enforced than traditional Humvees; during his time served, Gremminger saw only IED-related injuries, and no fatalities.

“I can’t complain,” Gremminger says. “A lot of Marines have seen more dangerous situations with more hazardous conditions.”

What Gremminger did see was the gradual rebirth of a community, ushered along by his own efforts. On establishing a rapport with the Afghan police, he says mealtime played a pivotal role. He says Afghan people take rituals like gathering around together to eat very seriously, and rushing through the process is not an option. According to Gremminger, shifting from completing his duties and thinking in an “all-business” U.S. mindset was challenging, but invaluable in getting to know the locals.

When Gremminger and company first arrived in Now Zad, the town “was half-rubble and housing only 10 percent of its population,” the soldier says. Over their five months of service, the Marines saw the population grow to nearly five times its size; the market, or bazaar, expand and thrive with the opening of additional shops; and a decrease of Taliban control as the incresingly fortified Afghan police expanded its influence and gained more territory. By the time the Marines’ mission had neared completion, the number of local officers had increased from 14 to 100.

“Once people saw the security was stabilizing, they began to return to their homes,” Gremminger says of the slowly repopulated region.

Gremminger was of course ready to return home, too. He and his peers departed Afghanistan around Dec. 9, spent a couple of days in transit, then returned to Cherry Point. Retracing his steps, he then went back to his Pittsburgh training facility for “decompression and transition classes,” before finally touching down again at his Holland home on Friday, Oct. 1. While basking in his creature comforts, the 23-year-old speaks of what his tour taught him.

“It has a definite maturing effect,” he says, “and I’m sure that’s even more true for the even younger guys over there. And it lets you see how other people live. So many people study abroad, but they don’t really get to see how the other half lives – the poor majority.”

Having done his part, Gremminger says he doesn’t plan on pursuing a career in the military. Instead, he’s aiming to go back to law school next fall, with an ultimate goal of practicing business or contract law. For now, he says he’s in search of “some work to hold [him] off,” along with activities that will help him remain active.

“Anything that keeps me moving,” he says.