Honoring the Fallen

[filkertom]

Memorial Day in the United States.

• Wikipedia
• The History Channel
• National Memorial Day Concert (last night on PBS)
• National World War II Memorial (Wikipedia, many good links)
• The Virtual Wall (Vietnam Veterans Memorial) (one of many good VVM sites)
• Tomb of the Unknowns at Arlington National Cemetary
• Casualties to date in Iraq

No politics in this thread, please -- but we would all be honored by any stories of service by your family or friends that you might wish to share.

Comments

[sdorn.livejournal.com]

See my professional blog entry today about the uncle I never met.

[jmthane.livejournal.com]

My grandfather (dad's stepfather) flew B-2 bomber missions over Germany in WWII. Given a field commission, as officers only could fly the planes, I don't remember just *how* many he flew, but I know he came back home with about every medal awarded. Except the Purple Heart. For which he is very glad.

That's right. Never injured. And never lost a plane.

And he and his wife adopted a boy from Germany. My uncle's always had a struggle in life because he's just not that sharp for whatever reason, but he does his best. And my grandparents have always been there for him, and for their whole family.

This grandfather is the only grandparent I still have alive.

[shsilver.livejournal.com]

Currently, one of the traveling replicas of the Viet Nam Memorial is set up in the village in which I work. We took the girls to see it on Saturday afternoon. Every evening at 7:00, they are holding a Taps ceremony.

[rmeidaking.livejournal.com]

My dad's great-grandfather, Charles Franklin Peters, was born near Saginaw in 1843. He enlisted in Dygert's Sharpshooters of the Union Army in February 1864. He was wounded at the Battle of Petersburg, VA on 19 Jun 1864. He got shot in the side of the jaw; apparently it was a good thing his head was turned when the ball impacted, else it might have gone straight through his mouth. He recuperated at Harper Hospital in Detroit, where he met his wife. Reportedly he had trouble eating anything more substantial than mush for the rest of his life, yet he raised several children while owning a moving and storage company in Bay City. He died in Bay City in 1925.

[msminlr.livejournal.com]

Mine is overhere. (http://msminlr.livejournal.com/61259.html)

[scott644.livejournal.com]

My father is a veteran, my older brother is a Gulf War veteran, and I'm a Reserve veteran. Thanks!

[annearchy.livejournal.com]

My Dad is one of the lingering members of the Greatest Generation. He was drafted in 1943 and was being trained for infantry duty. He was already in England and set to be shipped out to France when his CO found out that Dad had almost no vision in one eye. He'd been struck in one eye by a baseball in high school, and he wanted to go so badly that he memorized the eye chart so he could pass the physical. Anyway he ended up in the troops that "cleaned up" after D-Day. They brought back the bodies and the left-over ordnance. Dad turned 82 on May 14th.

I've been watching Band of Brothers on History Channel since yesterday afternoon. Brilliant miniseries.

[sdelmonte]

My father serves in the 50s, where he was trained as a cook and then (in typcial Army fashion) assigned to serve as a company clerk. He never saw any action.

My wife's grandfathers served in WWII. Her maternal grandfather was sent to England to train the troops to speak German? Why him? He spoke Yiddish, which was close enough. Sort of. It didn't work that well, but not for lack ing of trying. Her father's father never left his native Louisiana, where he served as a lay chaplain for Jewish soldiers on a local base.

My "uncle" was drafted on June 5, 1944, but was in Europe in time to see a little action in the Battle of the Bulge. He suffered frostbite and some nerve damage to his hearing, whihc was bad most of his life. His brothers also served, one receiving a number of Purple Hearts along the way.

[markbernstein.livejournal.com]

In April of 1941, my father celebrated his 22nd birthday, received his Master's in Education from Columbia, and enlisted in the Army. After Pearl Harbor, as a corporal, he was shipped to Hawaii. He saw no action there, but did work his way up to Sergeant. In 1943, he was sent to Officer Candidate School, after which he was sent to Europe. All I really know of his service there is that he was at the Battle of the Bulge, and was greatly amused to receive the Purple Heart for a minor injury suffered in a jeep accident. In November of 1945, he was honorably discharged as a Captain in the field artillery.

[firedrake-mor.livejournal.com]

My family's given a lot to this nation.

My maternal grandfather, James Ursie Blaydoe, Sr., saw service in WWI, as did his brothers Forrest and William.

His son, James Ursie Blaydoe, Jr., was killed at Midway. He and my cousin Arthur Allen Gurganus, also lost at sea during that battle, are who I'm named after -- James Allen Davis.

My Uncle, Clarence Bishop was in the 101st Airborne on D-Day, and he was the only member of his paratrooper unit to survive. He's still moving along today at age 85. His stepson, William Mel Godwin, served in the Navy in the early 60s, and he and his wife had their first daughter away from home at Balboa Naval Hospital in San Diego. His grandsom, James Wesley Truitt, served in the Air Force in the 1970s.

My father, Johnnie James Davis, served in WWII, Korea and Vietnam, about Navy aircraft carriers. (That's where he met my Uncle James -- my mother's brother, and thus my mother). He died of heart disease in 1989. I spent much of my youth not seeing my dad, because he was at sea, and went to 13 schools before I graduated high school because of station moves.

My mother's middle brother, William Thomas Blaydoe, served in the Navy, and then the State Department. He was stationed all over the world as a communications specialist. He was scheduled to go to Tehran for a secord time just before he retired, when a friend offered to switch with him because he -was- close to retirement and still had children at home. That friend became one of the hostages in Tehran, and Bill never recovered from the guilt.

My mother's youngest brother, Robert Yancy Blaydoe, was in the Navy reserve for several years, and was killed in 1962 when his reserve training flight suffered critical malfunction on takeoff from Los Alamitos Naval Air Station (about five miles from where I am right now), and the pilot nosed it into an open field at Seal Beach Naval Station rather than endanger a nearby neighborhood.

I served on active duty in the Army from March of 1973 to 1976. My back was damaged by a couple of incidents (rolling down a hill side-over-side in a jeep while being shot at by the Bader-Meinhof terrorist group can ruin your whole day), and today am pending being granted 100% service-connected disability by the VA. Not that that level of compensation is really enough to live on (it'll about rent a -small- house in Orange County, CA), but it'll help.

I had friends in Desert Storm, and one friend who was in the second tank over the line there (the first blew up) -- he got the Navy Cross, and in this Iraq war has been over three times as a Marine Gunnery Sergeant. I just found out that the 18-year-old son of a friend has enlisted to enter next spring.

One of my best friends, Francis Marvin Wycoff, was one of our "Goddess Bless'" on September 11, 2001 -- he was exiting the -other- side of the Pentagon when it was hit. He survived, but suffered enough damage from debris and flying glass he had to take early retirement, which really teed him off -- he'd finally made the short list for Brigadier General. I had another SCA acquaintance who's "mundane" name I cannot recall who worked in the supply office which was obliterated, but he had been in a meeting over in Arlington that morning, though he lost a number of co-workers.

One small semi-political comment, Tom: This nation exists because of men and women who've laid down their lives and given much to protect it. It's a shame our nation seems to either resent the expense of or ignore most veterans.

Thank you for caring.

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

Thanks to you for caring, and for serving, and thanks to your entire family. And, indeed, the nation often seems to pay little more than lip service to our armed forces. I will not get into detail about how I feel regarding the current administration, except to say that both those who have served and those yet serving deserve better than they're getting.

[sylverwolfe.livejournal.com]

many thanks to you and yours for your service and dedication. it does not go unappreciated or unnoticed.

[sylverwolfe.livejournal.com]

my dad served in the engine room of the aircraft carrier USS John F. Kennedy in the late '70's. some of his most memorable stories include on the anniversary of the assassination one year, almost at the exact time stateside, the ship was in the mediterranean and collided with another vessel, after which point the alarms went off to signify an impending collision. he thought it was kinda creepy. there was a water fight in the engine room one evening when they were under way that ended up stalling all four engines. the quiet woke dad out of a sound sleep. but what chills me the most about his tour in the navy was that he almost didn't come home to meet and marry my mother and bring me into the world. he was working in a fuse box, standing on a wet metal deck and bracing himself against a wet metal handrail for balance, and the fuse box that had an inch or so of water in the bottom also had some ill-maintained wires. the jolt he took tossed him clear across the room and his impact with the wall is probably the only thing that started his heart back up. so keeping in mind the dangers present even in peacetime, i'm grateful for all the men and women with the courage and ability to serve. i'd likely be Over There myself if i weren't an insulin-dependent diabetic. i've got friends and family in the air force, army, and reserves, so as far as i'm concerned, every man and woman in the service is in the family of my heart.

Our military service

[pickledcritter.livejournal.com]

Military service is a deep part of my family's history as well - my great-great grandfather's bible he carried with him during the Civil War (97th IL infantry) is still on mom's mantle.

My grandfather served in the Coast Guard during WWII on a sub chaser, running all over the South Pacific, usually batting clean-up after all the major South Pacific battles were over to make sure there were no Japanese subs hiding anywhere. He never chatted too much about this period beyond a couple of mildly amusing anectodes - at least while my grandmother was alive, 'cause she wouldn't let him. After she passed away, I found out why...

Remember McHale's Navy? Or, for you youngsters out there, Down Periscope? My grandad's boat was worse :) - and he was the biggest scoundrel of a motley lot :). In the latter part of his life, he would regale us with the tales gramma wouldn't let him tell.

For instance, he talked about his first attempt at making homemade hooch. He and a buddy did some fast talking and made out with a barrel and a couple cases of various kinds of fruit from an Army base in the Solomon Islands. Not really knowing much about the production of alcohol beyond the need to ferment fruit, he scrounged up some yeast from some other ship;s galley, mashed up the fruit and poured sugar, fruit and yeast into the barrel, then *sealed it* and placed it in the boiler room, where it would be plenty hot to get that fermentation going. As I'm sure most of you realize, there was a critical flaw with this plan...

Not unexpectedly a short time thereafter the entire boat shook. Naturally everyone's first thought is they were under attack or hit a mine or something. Once they stood down from General Quarters, they opened the boiler room. There was no damage, but everything from overhead to deck was covered in fermented fruit juice. Needless to say, grandpa was busy for the next couple of days :).

And prior to his actually being assigned to a boat, he managed to talk his way into being placed at a recruiting station in North Carolina, of which he was the only staff member. His immediate superior was a three hour drive away, so he was essentially his own supervisor - if he wanted a day or ten off, he could sign his own liberty chits, and did...

Oh, and then there was the day we found the pictures of him and his mates on the boat starkers - except for strategically placed dixie cups and leg crossings...

As for the rest of my family: my Uncle was in the Army in Korea, my dad was in the Air Force during 'Nam, my brother was a jarhead, my wife's sister is currently in the National Guard and both Pickles and I were squids. That pretty much covers all the major branches.

[sarekofvulcan.livejournal.com]

My uncle was in artillery in Viet Nam: he came back safe and mostly-sound. My dad served stateside in Army Intelligence -- I only bothered making the obvious joke once. :-)