title
PROPOSED RESOLUTION
IN HONOR OF VETERAN RICHARD A. OLUND'S SERVICE IN THE UNITED STATES ARMY DURING WORLD WAR II
WHEREAS, Richard Olund was drafted in 1943, just before he was to graduate from Tilden Technical High School in Chicago, where he was a member of St. Basil Parish in the Wrightwood neighborhood; and
WHEREAS, he was assigned to the Army Medical Corps. as a medical technician, and trained in Portland, Tennessee, and Fort Devens, Massachusetts, before being sent to the 108th Evacuation Hospital in Manchester, England; and
WHEREAS, Richard Olund landed on Utah Beach in Normandy, France on July 18, 1944, the day the 3rd Army officially went into action; and
WHEREAS, he was originally assigned to General George Patton's 3rd Army formation, before being transferred to the 7th Army and later the 9th Army, as he made his way through England, France, Belgium Holland, Germany and Austria during his service, which ended in 1946; and
WHEREAS, an avid photographer to this day, Rich's prized possession throughout his tour of duty was a small camera brought from home. Throughout his tour of duty, and especially in the ten months he was in Europe after the war, Rich took a lot of photographs, and still has many of them; and
WHEREAS, as a surgical technician and, later, a dental technician, he knew how to develop X-ray photos, and often used the same supplies to develop his photos; and
WHEREAS, one of the many photographs is of Rich at Hitler's Eagle's Nest, the mountaintop chalet in Berchtesgaden, Germany, that served as a Nazi retreat, while others are of churches and other buildings damaged in Allied bombings; and
WHEREAS, Rich is compiling an album of his wartime photos with descriptions and more recent photos of the damaged buildings, which have been restored; and
WHEREAS, soon after he returned, Rich married his wife, Dorothy, and together they raised two daughters, Victoria and Claudia; and
WHEREAS, after leaving the war and attending television e...
Click here for full text