Military Service Records

Some time ago I became curious about my grandfathers military service. I got a bag full of pins and medals from my grandmother (she gave the bag to Yoni who passed it on to me), however we believe that she has throw out hit uniform so some information was missing. I started searching on the internet to see if I could find any information, I was lucky and managed to find his enlistment records. From that point on I followed some links and found some formwork to send in to the national archives for his records. My father and I filled the form out. A couple of weeks later I got a letter back from the archives; it basically informed me that unfortunately his records had been in the part of the archives worst damaged by a fire in 1973. They did save his honorary discharge paper, from this I managed to fill in some of the gaps and have documentation to back up what my grandfather had told me years ago.

The letter from the Archives.

My grandfathers slightly crispy honorable discharge paper from which I learned that he was a Staff Sergeant and that he served in Normandy (he went on to the beaches around two days after D-Day), and in Northern France.

Here are the medals and pins and stuff. In the boxed in section on top, is his army ribbon rack as my research would indicate it would have appeared on his uniform, on top is a ribbon for his Bronze Star (which is in the un-opened black case at the bottom), and then the bottmo row, from left to right, Good Conduct Medal ribbon (the medal is the one with an eagle on it with the ribbon above it having the same color scheme as the ribbon), European/African/Middle Eastern Campaign ribbon (with to stars shaped pins in it for the two campaigns he was directly involved with), and the WWII Victory Medal ribbon (the medal is to the right of the ones for good conduct). In the bottom left corner are two pins one that has US on it and the other has a shield this indicated that he was attached to the Adjutant Generals office. Above the extra ribbons is a round pin with a duck on it this is an honorable discharge lapel pin (called the ruptured Duck). In the top left hand corner is a dog tag with the name Herman C Lazinsky (my grandfathers nae before he changed it). In the bottom right are two sets of dog tags the ones on the right are my grandfathers and the ones on the left are my grandmothers (she worked for the US army as a civilian after she married my grandfather in England). You can also see a 5 cent F.D.R. stamp and a 9mm casing that I believe is from a Smith & Wesson M&P.