Porter Spencer sits stoically in his chair as a powerful Army officer in his perfect dress blues places a flag in the young boy’s hands. Porter Spencer is 9 years old, and he carries the blood and the name of an aviator who died defending the United States and the world from atrocities unreal and unimaginable.

It’s a darker time and a sinister time as Nazi Germany spreads its hatred across Europe. The year 1940 is a rough year as the German war machine indulges Adolf Hitler’s hate and his delusional ambitions. They spread the fragmentation of his hate as German panzers and ground troops slam into France and Belgium and Holland.

It’s a slower time and a quieter time in the life of the world and in the life of Harlingen when a young Porter Pile heads off to school. He’s just a youngster at Central Ward Elementary school on Jackson Street in the new town founded just a few years before in 1910. There is promise, there is new agriculture and there are farmers and railroads and the establishment of new communities.

The wooden box – about a foot long and maybe six inches deep – remained on a pantry shelf in a Portland Heights home in the Southwest hills for 36 years. No one opened it. No one moved it. No one touched it.

WASHINGTON – The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) announced today that Army Air Forces 2nd Lt. Porter M. Pile, 24, of Harlingen, Texas, killed during World War II, was accounted for Nov. 28, 2022.

WASHINGTON – The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) announced today that Army Air Forces Tech. Sgt. James M. Triplett, 36, killed during World War II, was accounted for Oct. 25, 2022.

Flying through Belgium, we were over enemy territory only two hours. The more I fly these missions, the more anxious I am to complete my tour…

Today was a red letter day. For the 1st time in the ETO, I flew a “pleasure” mission. Our group has turned unoperational for a while as we are hauling supplies to France…