Posted by Albert T. O'Connell on August 17, 2010:

William T. O'Connell, Jr. will always be to his family Bill, or Billy. I am his first cousin, eight years his junior and was always proud of my "big brother" Even before the Academy Bill showed his mettle. He was a graduate of Regis High School in Manhattan, an all-scholarship Jesuit school where of a thousand applicants, 100 hundred are selected. I marked the 60th anniversary of his death on 28 Jul 10 with a floral tribute in Arlington and to my utter dismay found his grave marker (he is interred with his co-pilot) lacking the PH for Purple Heart. Neither is notice given him as first to shoot down a Russian-built YAK. This, I believe, also needs correction. I am a veteran of the Korean War and had three tours of duty in Viet Nam (on one tour my boss was Bill's classmate, the late Tom Bowen, then BG) and cannot help consider the "generosity" of decorations awarded in Viet Nam. Bill had every bit of "the right stuff" His Dad was a daytime construction craftsman and a night law student who rose to the bench ("if you can make it in New York."). His uncle an Academy Award nominee. Classmates talk of his Irish wit and song. We O'Connells are fierce in our love of these United States that have been so good to us and so proud of our immigrant grandparents.

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