Posted on 05/11/2012 5:01:45 PM PDT by Joe 6-pack
In an off line conversation with my FReeper lady friend, floralamiss, she mentioned to me that Joe Dimaggio had been her father's PT instructor during WWII. I indicated that my dad had served with Lt. George Steinbrenner at Lockbourne AFB in the 50's. When I was an ROTC Cadet, I did my advanced camp at Ft. Bragg, and then went on CTLT in Germany with Shawn Mullins.
Just curious how many other FReepers got to meet/know/serve with folks that later achieved some degree of fame (or notoriety) while in the military. Thought it might be a fun conversation topic for a Friday evening....
After landing in Washington, DC to perform 2 weeks Naval Reserve duty, I walked fast enough to beat out former Maine Senators Muskie & Mitchell for the next available waiting taxi...Does that count for anything?
And I was in charge of the ceremony and narrated MG George Patton III’s retirement at Fort Knox KY.
He was Admiral Kunkle who was in charge of the Kitty Hawk Battle Group back in 2003 when he was relieved of duty for having a sexual relationship with some woman...funny, when I did a search to find out more, I came across this old FR thread from 2003!
Here he is with me in our line shack on the JFK. I am kind of leaning away from him, because I didn't care for him. But I think that is unfair, because I didn't really know the guy well, but I just didn't like him.
At Knox we had M-48-A-2, etc. I had a bit of a vision problem and the stereoscopic range finders were a challenge. Fortunately, we did the Stakes on the same ranges as we had fired on, so I had memorized the material...:))
We did see the M-60s while we were there and I was especially thankful for the change in ranging equipment. The training during my BOAC was so good that I can still remember details of many of the classes. They set a standard for teaching that no civilian institution ever came close to. Later, I was fortunate to be able to be an Instructor at Fort Knox and to also serve as a member of the Adjunct Faculty at Fort Leavenworth.
I regret that I cannot do it all again...alas!
When was that? How wonderful is FR!
I worked for several years with Capt Gary R Sigler, whose plane was shot down in Viet Nam, in his first job after being released following 6 years as a POW. My ex-mother-in-law’s brother was MIA in Korea, never found. My husband’s father served in the USMC, got a Purple Heart for Pelelieu when he was 17. My husband did 3 years with USMC in Viet Nam era (no combat). My son and 2 stepsons served in USMC, between 2003 and 2007. Did 5 tours of Iraq among them, one has a Purple Heart and lost an arm and a leg, both, at Fallujah, then shortly thereafter, lost 31 from his unit in a helicopter crash at Ar Rutbah.
None were particularly famous, but heroes, every one of them.
Late 70’s? I left Knox in 1980. I also retired MG Lynch who was the post commander.
I did not serve, but I had the privilege of working with Tom Carter Jr. who was an early member of Delta around 2000. It was for a defense contractor doing work on a type of WMD detector. I never knew he was an operator (he never talked, but you knew he was nobody to mess with) until contact closeout when I saw his resume. Just by chance, we had also worked for the same security company in the early 90’s. I was rent-a-cop middle management, and he was doing cool stuff overseas. He was killed in Iraq in 2004.
RIP Tom, sorry I never shared your enthusiasm for Glocks.
I was in the branch detail program, so I transitioned to the MP corps before I went to my Advanced Course.
Wow. You know, I think Nimitz is one of the finest men ever to serve this country, and most capable.
I use his story all the time, the one about running his destroyer aground somewhere near the Phillippines as a young Ensign. He convinced the Court Martial to not destroy his career (as was usual) and was eloquent enough to make his point.
Years later, he was fond of using the saying “Every dog deserves a second bite.” when showing leniency in a judgement.”
That just blew me away, a man in his position could have just been an imperious hardass and nobody would have said boo to him. But he took that stuff seriously and gave it a lot of sober thought.
What told me the most about Nimitz, though, was his handling of Admiral Ghormley in 1942 when he had him relieved by Halsey. He did it humanely and with respect, so much so that Ghormley took it as such, and remained on excellent terms with both Halsey and Nimitz.
Ghormley was able to take it as he did, because of the enormous respect that Nimitz evoked from people he dealt with. It is almost as if Ghormley had just said “Well, if Chester says this is the way it has to be, then...this is the way it will be because he has been fair in his evaluations. I can TRUST that he makes the right decision.”
THAT.
IS.
LEADERSHIP.
PERSONIFIED.
OK it was 1980. I left Knox in 1981.
I danced with Mark Clark’s grandson at Harvard.
Thank you for your service. Too bad for all of us that the present powers that be do not have the “Pride of Country” that was just taken as a given in the years you served with such great distinction.
Way back in the 1980s, I worked with an attorney (he was old then - he had passed the bar in the early 1950s) who had been in the Navy with Admiral Richard Byrd. Details are fuzzy now, and my friend the attorney is deceased, but basically the story was, he was responsible for transferring Byrd ship-to-ship in a bosun’s chair, and Byrd was afraid to go over the water between ships in just the chair — he nearly had to be forced to do it and my friend had to give him a “gentle push” across :-)
My husband had Oliver North as an instructor at the USMC Basic School in Quantico. That is where they take Naval Academy Grads and make them into Marines.
I got to do some drinking with Charlie Beckwith one night, he was a very intense guy.
I met COL North in Afghanistan at Kandahar Airfield. He came in at the tail end of the Easter Sunday service. Very nice guy.
Sorry to hear that. His fights with Camacho hurt me to watch. He seemed to have a good sense of humor about things back then: “Hey Hector, how come you beat me up so bad...I thought we were friends.”
Off the subject a tad, but in the opening credits of Gomer Pyle USMC, apparently Frank Sutton was very friendly with the troops. Jim Nabors said it pains him when he sees the footage, because so many of those men he marched with went to Vietnam and never came back.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
