Military

Author’s note: During the last few days I have come to know and develop a deep respect for a man I have never met. I do family history as a hobby and have been doing research on Frank’s uncle, …. What follows is what I have discovered, and what has brought me to tears a few times while collecting it all, here, for Memorial Day.
Lawrence Edward Webber, USMC, MIA – POW – KIA
Lawrence Edward Webber was born in 1920, in Malden, Massachusetts, the son of Frank Webber and Elizabeth Benson. He was the youngest of four children. He had one brother, Frank Webber (long-time local businessman and owner of Ocean Beach Camera, in the Newport Avenue area) and two sisters, Mildred and Dorothea (mother of our own editor, Frank Gormlie).

As a young man Lawrence moved to San Diego, where his siblings also lived, and enlisted in the Marine Corps on May 2, 1939 at the age of 19. He was stationed in San Diego until December 1939 when he was transported to Shanghai, China.

For years, animal rights advocates have waged war against the US Navy for its use of dolphins in warfare and research. Is a resolution possible?

by Lina Zeldovich / Hakai Magazine / February 5, 2019

1. The Great Divide

Michele Bollo stood on Harbor Drive Pedestrian Bridge, close to the US Navy base in Point Loma, San Diego, looking through a video camera trained on a network of pens in the water below. The nine-by-nine-meter ocean corrals held 70 dolphins and 30 sea lions belonging to the US Navy Marine Mammal Program (NMMP). Bollo was there to document how the navy treated the animals.

One animal, a 46-year-old bottlenose dolphin named Makai, once deployed to find mines in the Persian Gulf during the 2003 Iraq War, was sick and unable to swim.