Equine1952, you are blessed.
Thank you for your service.
I’m the son of a man who was on the one surviving Taffy 3 Destroyer at the Battle of Leyte Gulf; I once had the good fortune to talk to an uncle who served in the Army of Northern Virginia; one of my grandfathers went up San Juan Hill with Teddy Roosevelt and the other fought in France in WW1. My cousin drew the Stars and Stripes WW2 cartoon, “Willie and Joe”, and I rode swift boats on the rivers and coast of Viet Nam.
I too say thanks to my fellow vets.
Jack
Thank you greatly for your service, Sir.
Reading about your lineage, your Sunday afternoon visits at Grandma’s house after church must have been a great occasion for stories about everyone’s past.
I had 5 Uncles on my Dad’s side who fought in WWII. One was a K-9 scout in Patton’s Third Army, one was a tail-gunner on B-24s, and yet another was on “Pig” Boats in the Pacific. All of them had harrowing stories of their war-days. They are still my heroes.
My wife had 2 Uncles who survived Pearl Harbor and fought throughout the Pacific until V-J Day.
Thank you BuffaloJack for your service! And I would like to acknowledge the service of all of my fellow Vets as well.
“...I once had the good fortune to talk to an uncle who served in the Army of Northern Virginia...”
Just exactly how old are you?
Wow BuffaloJack. Its all I can say.
Sincerest thanks for your service.
Can’t trace my military lineage as far as you can, but my father was a maintenance NCO assigned to the 3rd Armored Division during World War II; he led a platoon of tank retrievers, who pulled damaged Shermans and Stuarts off the battlefield, fixed them, and put them back into service. Dad also had the distinction of being part of the first-ever peacetime draft, called into service in the summer of 1941, he was half-way through his one-year hitch when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. “Boys, we’re in for the duration,” he told his buddies in the barracks. And sure enough, he wasn’t discharged until the fall of 1945.
Dad’s brother was a mess sergeant with an 8th Air Force bomber group in England. Never saw him very much, and only spoke with him a couple of times about his experiences. He seemed to have a sense of survivor’s guilt. The cooks would serve breakfast to crews getting ready to hit targets in Nazi-occupied Europe, knowing that some of those men would not be in the supper line a few hours later.
On my mother’s side, she had three brothers, all served. The oldest was a counter-intelligence agent for the CID, served in North Africa and Italy. Her middle brother began as an anti-aircraft gunner on a gasoline tanker. Deciding that wasn’t exciting enough, he volunteered for UDT and was completing frogman training when the war ended. The youngest was a Marine infantryman, part of the “Old Breed” that Eugene Sledge wrote about so eloquently. He died during the invasion of Peleliu in 1944, obliterated by a Japanese artillery shell as his unit took the island’s airfield. He was just a few weeks past his 18th birthday.
Among their sons, I was the only one who served. Joined the USAF in 1981 as an airman; worked my way up the ranks and earned my commission through OTS in 1985. Remained on active duty as an intel officer and aircrew member until 2001. Retired five weeks before 9-11.
A salute to you—and all who have worn the nation’s uniform. Hope your cousin left you a few “Willie and Joe” originals. As you know, Patton hated Bill Mauldin, but Ike was a fan of his work. When old Blood and Guts began to raise a stink about some of his cartoons, Ike dispatched his Deputy Theater Commander, Lt Gen Ben Lear, to speak with Patton. Ike’s message was simple; Patton had no authority over what your uncle created and published, and he would focus on running his command, not protesting about cartoons in Stars and Stripes.