From the internet
Years ago, Al Capone owned Chicago . Capone bootlegged booze, prostitution and had people murder.
Capone’s lawyer nicknamed ‘Easy Eddie.’ Easy Eddie’s skill at legal loop holes kept Capone out of jail for a long time.
Easy Eddie had a son that he loved dearly. Eddie saw to it that his young son had clothes, cars, and a good education. And, despite his involvement with organized crime, Eddie even tried to teach him right way. Eddie wanted his son to be a better man than he was.
With all his wealth and influence, there were two things he couldn’t give his son; he couldn’t pass on a good name or a good example.
He decided he would go to the authorities and and try to clean up his name , and offer his son some semblance of integrity. To do this, he would have to testify against The Mob, and he knew that the cost would be great, he testified.
Within the year, Easy Eddie’s life ended in a blaze of gunfire on a lonely Chicago Street .. But in his eyes, he had given his son the greatest gift he had to offer, at the greatest price he could ever pay. Police removed from his pockets a rosary, a crucifix, a religious medallion, and a poem clipped from a magazine.
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The poem read:
The clock of life is wound but once, and no man has the power to tell just when the hands will stop, at late or early hour. Now is the only time you own Live, love, toil with a will. Place no faith in time. For the clock may soon be still.
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Fast forward ….World War II produced many heroes, Lieutenant Commander Butch O’Hare. A fighter pilot assigned to the aircraft carrier Lexington in the South Pacific. His entire squadron was sent on a mission. After he was airborne, he looked at his fuel gauge and realized that they forgot to fuel his tank. The mission commander told him to get back to his ship. Reluctantly, he dropped out of formation and headed back to the fleet.
As he was returning to the mother ship, he saw a squadron of Japanese aircraft speeding its way toward the American fleet.
There was only one thing to do. He must somehow divert them from the fleet.
He dove into the formation of Japanese fighter planes. With wing-mounted 50 caliber’s blazed as he charged in, attacking one surprised enemy plane and then another. Butch wove in and out of the now broken formation and fired at as many planes as possible until all his ammunition was finally spent. He continued the assault. He dove at the planes, trying to clip a wing or tail in hopes of damaging as many enemy planes as possible, rendering them unfit to fly.
In exasperated Japanese squadron took off in another direction.
Butch and his fighter p[lane limp back to the carrier and reported the event surrounding his return. The gun-camera mounted on his plane told the story. It showed the extent of Butch’s attempt to protect his fleet. He had, in fact, destroyed five enemy aircraft.
This took place on February 20, 1942 , and for that action Butch became the Navy’s first Ace of W.W.II, and the first Naval Aviator to win the Congressional Medal of Honor. Butch was killed in aerial combat at the age of 29. His home town would not allow the memory of this WW II hero to fade, and today, O’Hare Airport in Chicago is named in tribute to the courage of this great man.
So, the next time you find yourself at O’Hare International, give some thought to visiting Butch’s memorial displaying his statue and his Medal of Honor It’s located between Terminals 1 and 2.
SO WHAT DO THESE TWO STORIES HAVE TO DO WITH EACH OTHER?
Butch O’Hare was ‘Easy Eddie’s’ son.
