4chan Gives 90-Year-Old Vet a Great Birthday

Hugh Pickens writes "Members of 4chan aren't known for doing things that are cute and heart-warming and when they decide to go after someone, it's typically to subject them to ridicule. But not this time. Someone at 4chan decided that the Internet should get together and wish 90-year-old WWII veteran William J. Lashua a happy birthday, and soon Lashua's local branch of the American Legion was deluged by birthday calls from people as far away as Sweden. The account someone set up for Mr. Lashua's birthday on Facebook had 3,956 'likes' and over 500 comments, most of which wished him a happy birthday and thanked him for his military service. It's not clear how 4chan originally came across a photo of Lashua, but a member of the site posted a snapshot of a flyer that was on the bulletin board at a store in Ashburnham, Massachusetts asking for guests to attend the nonagenarian's birthday on at the American Legion hall and the post took off. In contrast to their usual behavior, 4chan members 'were giving him nice phone calls and sending him nice notes' and discouraging those who wanted to do something stupid or mean. 'They were all being.. well, shucks, awful nice.'"

Re:4chan gets it wrong again...

[gmhowell]

Perhaps he was like my now deceased grandfather who didn't care for an annual reminder of having been involved in the island hopping of the US at the tender age of 17 nor the glorification and magnification of violence as the answer to world problems.

Thanks from Italy

[Anonymous Coward]

While WWII might indeed evoke fairly bad memories in those who were actually there, Happy Birthday, and Thank You mr. Lashua.

I live in Italy and if it wasn't for people like you I'd probably speak German or Russian now, and concepts like individuality, freedom of speech, personal rights might be alien or completely twisted in my mind/society.

Another WWII Vet just celebrated his 90th

[pickens]

His name is Jack Vaughn.

He was a prize fighter, a diplomat, and the second Director of the Peace Corps.

Read a very interesting story about his life at:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Vaughn [wikipedia.org]

Happy Birthday, Jack, from RPCVs around the world.

Re:4chan gets it wrong again...

[Anonymous Coward]

Unless GP is German. Or Japanese. Or Italian. Or.... well you get the idea.

Anon = god? Maybe.

[Anonymous Coward]

As shocking as it is it should prove something. Anon only attacks those who deserve it or when public ridicule is in order. No one could see any reason to make fun of this ederly hero who, at first, appeared to be as if he wasn't going to have many friends or family attend the party...and when many anon wanted to attack him in a negative away, anon wasn't going to have it. Anon is not a horrible entity. Anon is more like the little voice in side everyone's head that they usually silence...and as has been proven in the past...the power of many anon can be used for evil...or on the occasional case, used for good. Didn't anon help identify the girl who was throwing puppies in to the river? Anon is great, anon is good. Anon is everything and nothing at the same time. Is anon god? Sometimes it's vengeful, sometimes it's good. Who's to say? Just don't piss anon off.

A drop of honey in a gallon of battery acid

[goodmanj]

And now, every time someone rightly says that 4chan is nothing but a batch of juvenile asshats, they'll trot out this one story as a counterexample.

uhm...

[neuro88]

So like... what? Has 4chan become the Internet Love Machine now?

No

[justinlee37]

4chan is just an Internet Amusement Machine. Anonymous does whatever amuses it.

Sometimes that involves posting pictures of dead cats or trolling 11-year old internet girls who show their boobs on tinychat (see Jessica Slaughter), sometimes that involves wishing an old man a happy birthday or organizing anti-Scientology protests.

I have personally seen Anonymous engage in some unusual behavior. For example, someone recently was asking Anonymous on /b/ to troll a high school kid because his Mom had just died and he was homosexual. Anonymous decided that would be a dick thing to do and decided that it would be more fun to troll the person making the request. Anonymous immediately set about trying ascertain the identity of the troll so that they could harass him.

Anonymous is unpredictable. There is no central organization and there are no rules. Anonymous just does whatever it thinks might be fun at the moment.

Re:Another WWII Vet just celebrated his 90th

[rrossman2]

My grandfather is also damn close to 90. Joined the military at age 16 (obviously lied about it), went into the air corps and passed, even with getting sick for the first year or so, because his flying was so good.. learned on bi-planes at that. Went on to fly B-17s in WWII over Europe, was involved in other conflicts, and retired as a Colonel in the Air Force working in the Pentagon. Just wanted to throw that one out there too :)

Re:Ugh.

[Anonymous Coward]

Rules 1 and 2 have long since expired. 4chan has been mentioned in the mainstream media on a monthly basis for well over a year, now. Anybody curious enough to ask about 4chan or practically any of it's memes can easily learn all about it from Google.

The battle against newfag cancer was lost before it began. Really, it has been a constant since Day 1 (/b/ was never good, etc). It is only the newfags, trying to catch up on memes, who protest. The oldfags point this out at every opportunity, which is in turn pointed out by the metafags.

Re:4chan gets it wrong again...

[Runaway1956]

Sometimes, I hate your posts. Sometimes, I love 'em. This one is the latter category. My stepdad lied about his age, so that he could join the Seabees at age 15. He saw a little bit of the Pacific, until he was hit by shrapnel, and spent the last year of the war recuperating in the states. The old man turned 18 just after the war ended, and walked out of the hospital shortly after that. During those years, reality sucked, man. I also had an uncle who saw very little combat. He was a year older than my stepdad, but his Mama did everything she could to keep her son from joining the service. When he was old enough to LEGALLY enlist without Mama's approval, he signed up, went to Europe, saw a little bit of action, then participated in liberating one of the death camps. Remembering his stories, every time I hear the holocaust deniers running at the mouth, I just want to shoot them in the face. Yes, reality sucked in the 1930's and 1940's. Sometimes, I think we have things far to good these days. Few Americans have any concept just how ugly life can be.