Posted on 11/10/2011 7:16:05 PM PST by RightOnline
[Note to all: I've finally resurrected what was a tradition here for several years on FR....the "Veterans' Check-In". Much has happened since I started this...twelve years ago. Three of my five sons are now veterans, including a Bronze Star-winning Stryker platoon leader in Iraq back during the 'surge' days (FReeper "Future Snake Eater"), a combat videographer who jumped in so young I had to sign papers to allow him to serve, and a 'grunt' from Ft. Polk who just got back from Afghanistan). God bless them, God bless you all. I've included the original text from all those years ago here.]
While splashing some coffee into my eyes in a feeble attempt to wake up (early plane to catch this AM), I still wanted to take a moment and express my...and I'm sure "our"...appreciation to all of you veterans. We salute you on this Veterans Day for your sense of duty, commitment, honor, and sacrifice. Whether you served in WWII, Korea, Vietnam, the Gulf, Bosnia, Afghanistan, Iraq, or any number of other "hot spots" around the globe, may we offer our thanks and deepest respect for what you've given and helped to protect.
May God in His Heaven bless all of you, and just know that many, many of us remember. You will never be forgotten.
Take a moment and "check in" here, all you vets. It's your day. Those of us who served during "peacetime" especially salute the combat veterans; those who survived the bullets and incoming and left so many close friends behind. A special prayer to all of you today.
It has been an inspiration reading this thread. Thanks for posting it, and thanks to all who served, my dad included, although he is not a FReeper. Them internets are too slow down in his neck of the woods!
Ask some of your Okinawa buds if they remember a position called "The Horse". I rode it for much of my time at Onna Point and what a ride it was.
My last old Onna Point bud passed in TN in 2007. Tony Askew. We arrived at San Vito together in 1962, Tony from Onna Point, me from Clark. Were you involved in the 3D or 2T programs?
Another Cold War vet...
Air Force/ Air National Guard KC-135 Navigator during the 80s and C-130 Navigator during the Clinton era.
Now a civilian Desk Jockey in the Marine Corps.
Thanks to the most recent generation of veterans — YOU may someday be known as the Greatest Generation!
...and my favorite military insignia of all ...
US Army 64-87. Served all over but my favorite memories come from my two tours with 2nd Battalion 32d Armor, 1st Brigade, 3d AD.
Checking in.- USS Grenadier SS-525 ‘64-’65. USS Cony DD-508
‘65-’67
I'm not familiar with either program, at least by name, but I did win the island wide Air Force/Navy/Army annual ditty bop competition in '68. ;^)
For the record, I was involved in several "side" projects during my tour on Okinawa but if they had names I wasn't aware of it. Interesting work was it not???
The 3-D program and its follow-on 2T program were designed to keep airmen in the field instead of returning to CONUS and getting out of Command and take a job pushing papers until separation. The 3-D was first, strictly voluntary. If you were stationed a remote location, say, the Aleutians, you could put in for a more desireable location, such as Scotland or Misawa. The move gave the airman a promotion to the next highest grade. The 2-T program was pretty much the same, except that it was involuntary: you could be in Darmstadt and you’d get pulled out and sent to Peshawar, Pakistan, and also pick up another stripe. I chose not to participate in 3-D, opting instead for an inter-theater transfer, Philippines to Italy; no stripes were involved.
Oh, ahem. If I was ever offered anything like that I don’t recall it. I had already gotten my fourth stripe during my first tour. There was a nice re-up bonus for signing on for another four is all I remember. Fact is, I couldn’t see spending that much of the rest of my young life overseas; some of it in some of the most God forsaken places. And given the nature of the duty, that’s just about all there was. The military regimen wasn’t that much to my liking either. Some like it, I just wasn’t one of ‘em.
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