News
Keeping track of WWII vets
I was drafted into the Army in January 1945, which means I am one of the youngest veterans of World War II. Coupled with the fact that my family history indicates that mine is a long-lived family and that I am in especially good health at 85 years of age, I regard myself as a candidate for last surviving American veteran of that war. Who is counting those survivors as their numbers dwindle?
The Department of Veterans Affairs keeps track of U.S. World War II veterans still living.
As of Sept. 30, 2011, the VA estimates there were 1,711,000 living World War II veterans, out of more than 16 million. The VA expects the number of survivors to dwindle in half by Sept. 30, 2015, and to 57,000 by Sept. 30, 2025.
For more details, see www1.va.gov/opa/ publications/factsheets/fs_americas_wars.pdf. You can also contact the VA. Various ways can be found at iris.custhelp.com.
You might also be interested in a nongovernmental WWII veterans website: ww2.vet.org/#RCRC.
The value of pull tabs
For years, I have seen people carefully remove and save the pull tabs from drink cans, while others pooh-poohed the idea that any organization could profit by using something so small, in any quantity. If, by collecting and sending these to specific organizations, any good can be accomplished, it would be good for all of us to know about it. Can you find out if this is legitimate?
There are groups that have collected pull tabs from aluminum cans to raise money for a charity. But it's a very difficult way to raise money.
Why? Because the only value of the tabs is what money they bring when recycled. A recent price of about 70 cents a pound for recycled aluminum means collecting a million tabs would raise a little more than $400.
Rumors have persisted for years that, for instance, donating tabs can help reserve time on dialysis machines. Snopes.com, the online reference source that looks into urban legends, rumors and myths, has debunked that and other stories. You can see that report at www.snopes.com/ business/redeem/pulltabs.asp.
Periodically, a charitable group has to deny the rumors. In 1998, the National Kidney Foundation put out this statement: "A false rumor that has plagued the National Kidney Foundation (NKF) and the aluminum industry for decades has recently resurfaced, perhaps fueled by the Internet. Individuals and groups believe they can donate the pull tabs on aluminum cans in exchange for time on a kidney dialysis machine.
"Such a program has never existed through the NKF ... False rumors about an NKF pull tab program have circulated throughout the country since the early 1970s. Consequently, churches, community centers, schools and other groups have collected tabs and brought them to the NKF, only to find that they cannot be donated in exchange for a patient's dialysis time."
Loading...
