"Remembering Our Fallen" Win a MPC Coop May HAL w/hosts Mike & Sally

[Jessimom]

It is extremely sad. My parents best friends from when we lived in a different state are still dealing with the aftermath of Vietnam. I can remember the first time we visited them, my mom told me to be nice to Uncle Art and to not make loud noised. The entire weekend him and my dad would sit in the other room drinking beers and my dad would just listen as he told story after story. My mom tried to keep me busy in the other room, but I could still hear what they were talking about. Some of the stories were funny about random mishaps and stuff, but I remember some of them were the bloodiest most horrific stories. The worst part was as much as he tried to be normal, you could see his mind was still wrapped up in the war.

To this day some people would describe him as "off", but when I think of him it makes me appreciate the sacrifices that the military men and woman make even more. He saw some of the most horrific things in that war and even though he lived to tell about it, you can see the scars run much deeper than what is visible. I just pray that the military finds better and more effective ways to help the veterans that make it back to deal with what they saw and did. I think its sad that sometimes we forget that just because they made it back alive doesn't mean they made it back whole.

Very well put. When my brother talks about his shipmates, there are negatives and positives. But, I didn't serve, so he knows, I don't REALLY understand what he saw. He tells us the big stories, but the stuff that he really needs to talk about he only says to other vets. He spends a lot of time at the VFW, and is very active with the Colorguard. It keeps him busy and he feels good about himself when he does that, so it's as good as we can expect right now.

I wish there wasn't a need for anyone to experience war. But as long as there is a need, I wish the returning vets got better care than they currently do.

 

[JudoJNoble]

Thank you for this thread.

Entry #1
I was Army, myself, but the greatest man I've ever known was a retired Navy NCO.

My godfather left the Chippewa reservation he was raised on when he was sixteen, and joined the Navy as soon as he could. After over thirty years of service to our country, he continued to better the lives of everyone who knew him.

In the Navy, he was one of the guys they tested the early deep sea diving equipment on, and served as a guinea pig when they were trying to figure out how quickly they could bring up a diver without killing him from the bends. Of course, that gleaned knowledge has gone on to impact so many civilian and military divers through the ensuing decades.

He went on to be Master Diver and head NCO for a ship during Korea, and was one of the first Master Chief Petty Officers when the Navy added the rank.

I knew him much later, and during my most impressionable years, he helped shape my sense of duty and honor, while teaching me all about living off of the earth and respecting mother nature even while harvesting her bounty, and a host of other things too numerous to list.

He was the kind of guy who had keys to everyone's cabin, because everyone knew that not only was he the most trustworthy guy they knew, but that he would take care of anything that might come up in their absence.

Nothing I could type here could possibly come close to doing his memory justice, but he's the kind of man that would smile and say I've already said too much.

I was lucky beyond words to have him in my life until recently, and even though we were separated by half the continent for most of my post-eight-year-old life (minus a bunch of summers), he was more than the father I never had.

There are so many stories of his great service to our country, though he wasn't one to discuss it much at all. But his service was exceptional because of the great man that he was, in every aspect of his life, not the other way around.

He is missed by so many.

 

[Sally Sunshine]

LESS THAN SIX DAYS

to ENTER CONTESTS !!!!! @MyPetChicken

COOL New CONTESTS​

w/ fantastic Prizes donated by…​

​

Remembering Our Fallen CLICK HERE​

Random Drawing to be chosen from the stories.​

Prize: Bungalow CHICKEN COOP! (no run) CLICK HERE​

If the winner doesn’t want a coop $250 MPC credit.​

​

Poultry Shaming Photo Contest CLICK HERE​

1st Place: Egg Collecting Apron CLICK HERE ​

2nd Place: Team Pokey Coffee: CLICK HERE​

3rd Place: Green Goo, Herbal wound salve: CLICK HERE​

Show your Stripes! Patriotic Poultry CLICK HERE​

1st Place: Seabuck Feed Additive: CLICK HERE​

2nd Place: Team Pokey Coffee: CLICK HERE​

3rd Place: Bon Temps Poulet Egg Soap: CLICK HERE​

Patriotic Party! Red, White & Blue Recipe/Photo Contest CLICK HERE​

1st Place: Peace, Love, Chickens T-shirt: CLICK HERE​

2nd Place: Team Pokey Coffee: CLICK HERE​

3rd Place: Wire Egg Display: CLICK HERE​

Shouldered Poultry Photo Contest! CLICK HERE​

1st Place: Fresh Eggs Sign: CLICK HERE​

2nd Place: Team Pokey Coffee: CLICK HERE​

3rd Place: 2 packs of The Chicken Salad Mix: CLICK HERE​

Poultry in Nature! Photo Contest CLICK HERE​

1st Place: Chicken Swing: CLICK HERE​

2nd Place: Team Pokey Coffee: CLICK HERE​

3rd Place: 3.5 oz bag of Mealworms: CLICK HERE​

Natural Eggs & Flowers Photo Contest! CLICK HERE​

1st Place: My Pet Chicken Handbook: CLICK HERE​

2nd Place: Team Pokey Coffee: CLICK HERE​

3rd Place: Chicken Treat Ball: CLICK HERE​

​

A FEW EXTRA CONTEST FROM OUR MEMBERS!​

Head Shots Photo Contest! MAY HAL Members ONLY CLICK HERE ​

MAY "SHARE A LAUGH" CLICK HERE - Prizes are yet to be determined.​

​

​

 

[JudoJNoble]

Entry #2

 

[7littlegirls]

Entry #1

This is a picture of my father Frederick Smith. He was in the Korean War. Sorry I do not have any stories from him, but I do have a few photos on slides from when he was there.

My younger brother John Smith who was in the Navy.

 

[7littlegirls]

Entry #2

My older sisters 3 sons are all Marines.

Her oldest,Eric,was in Iraq and Afghanistan. And her middle,Kurt,was in Afghanistan also. Her youngest,Thomas just finished training in California. We are all very proud of them!

 

[chickendreams24]

Well I hope it's okay if I enter I saw some others that weren't of people that have passed but have served.

First entry(will have to find the photos later)

My Grandfather is 86 now and he is the greatest man I've ever known. One of those fix anything men. He has through the years at one point worked three-four jobs to support his family, but in the early years after him and Grandma got married he was deployed to Germany where his until shared a base with a German unit, that apparently threw the best parties. I have enjoyed many a story about his time in the war. He also loves to tell us about his rotation through the kitchen and I will never forget standing over our sink at home peeling potatoes while Grandpa tells me about peeling potatoes in the army.

Entry number two:
Another of Grandpa's favorite stories and a memory that has lingered long into his battle with Alzheimer's disease is of the ship ride over to Germany, you can bet that any episode of Deadliest Catch would get him telling this story for days on end. Complete with arm motions to show the rocking of the boat in the storm they came through. Grandpa loves that story. Everyone stuck inside but him on guard duty outside the doors as the waves rocked and crashed into the ship nearly everyone was seasick and running outside to puke over the rails or just wherever they stood. I'll save you the rest of the gore. Lol

Grandpa is my hero the man I measure all other men by and I've finally found one that measures up. I lived with my grandparents for over four years after high school helping my mother care for my Grandpa, with Alzheimer's, and my Grandma, with dementia. The war didn't take my Grandpa something else is. I've watched as he's lost almost all of his dignity, seen the frustration and sorrow in his eyes when someone asks him a question he knows he should be able to answer but can't. I've been remembered and forgotten, I've been called someone else(though usually he remembers me even if he can't remember my name). I've searched for him in the woods in the cold, when he's wandered, and followed him when he's left. This man basically raised me. I've heard so much and yet I know it's next to nothing compared with his experience. His life. He came home from the army to a young wife and little boy who didn't know him. I can't imagine the pain. I believe he remembers only the good of the Army, the pride, the honor, the laughs. It wasn't war time in that place then but it wasn't always an easy peace either. I know this from his stories.

My Grandpa had to be moved to a care facility last December, and he's declining more rapidly now. I helped to care for this man turned, little boy, that once watched one of my brothers and I while we had the flu. He taught us to play black jack that day and fed us peanut butter and sugar sandwiches. Lol he is an army man, turned family man and farmer. I'm not sure how much longer we'll have him, but I always good to hear those favorite army stories once more.

 

[chickendreams24]

Entry number 3:

My brother was in the Army an airborne qualified infantryman. On his last jump of training the chute didn't open and the backup didn't either. In the dark and over the water he climbed the ropes and untangled his chute, a week later at another base a story was going around about the guy that had happened to. No one knew it was him. My brother, Eric, was always the man I counted on most besides my Grandpa, until I met DH2B, they're a very similar in values and wonderful men. Eric though he is quite the man. He entered the Army and won medals for shooting, not hugely intimidating but strong as an ox, Eric won the respect of everyone who came to know him in the army. He went into special forces training and toughed through being bitten by a brow recluse spider but the whole until had to be pulled out when they developed the awful h1n1 that went around that year. He got married while in the service to a young woman from our home town. He decided to stick with the infantry and was sent to Afghanistan, where he witnessed unspeakable things that he could do nothing about. He also had a close call when a bomb hit where he had been on guard duty not 10 minutes before. He came home and him and his wife are now expecting their second child. I'm very proud of Eric we all are. I doubt he'll ever know how proud. But let's just say that Grandpa knows him and knows what he did and what he gave for this country. It's not measurable but it's real.

Entry number 4:
Before meeting my mother, my father was a handsome young man in the Navy and while he served he got to see many wonderful things. An avid photographer I've gotten to look through many of his images of Egypt, Greece, Italy etc the photos are breathtaking. The journey amazing. Still my favorite family friendly story of his is when him and some buddies took leave and decided they would get all the way to the leaning tower of Pisa and back in three days... They missed a train and we're almost AWOL. But he saw it! Not in a time of war my father did not give his life but his time and had a vastly different experience than my brother still there were times that were humiliating as well such as when some of the guys decided to haze my father by making him search for hours for a part of the ship that didn't exist. And the "sock parties" with socks with bars of soap in them which they then beat each other with. Not the noblest of stories perhaps but I can no longer ask the people I need to about those that served before in my family. I'm sure it's written in the family history but I don't have access to it and it would only be what I have been able to read.

Thank you to all that have served. To those that gave their lives and to those that remember the fallen. God Bless America

 

[Bantambird]

My father in law was a navy boy during Vietnam . He served 3 tours of duty during the war until he busted his ankle so badly he got a discharge and a purple heart. I am not exactly sure what he saw, but I do know that he manned the flamethrowers on the river boats inside Vietnam hauling soldiers to their deaths in the jungles. He doesn't say anything else about it, but he is a hard man and a heavy drinker. I am sure he was a little broken inside during the time he was there.

 

[cree57i]

My father was 6 years old, and the only son, when his father died. The last thing his father told him was to take care of his mother and younger sisters. He took on the man's role in the house and was guarding the hen house with the shotgun when he was 7. When he was a teenager, the depression hit. He hitchhiked to SanDiego from Illinois to join the Navy and have money to send home. He was on a Navy aircraft carrier when men came to ask for volunteers for a secret mission that was sanctioned by President Roosevelt. The pay was fantastic and they promised the ones who decided to do it would really "See the World." He needed money for his family at home and accepted the offer, but to do this he had to leave the Navy. No one was to know this was a mission sanctioned by the President. He had been recruited into the Flying Tigers. At that time, they were said to be a band of mercenaries, since it was before World War II and the US was not in the war. The Navy put him and 3 other American's on a "slow boat to China" where they learned Chinese from missionaries. It took 6 weeks to get there. They sat on the deck each day and studied Chinese and Chinese customs so they could fit into the culture somewhat. They also taught them hand to hand combat and covert skills.

Once in China, contact was made with General Chiang Kai-shek and my father became his personal attache on Formosa. That was not enough action for him though and he studied communications. He became a navigator for the bombing runs on the Japanese by the Flying Tigers, flying with pilots such as Tex Hill and others. As the Japanese continued to make advancements on China, General Chenault needed to have another way into China. That meant flying the "Burma Hump". There was no radar in the mountains between China and what is now part of Thailand (Burma). My father was stationed in an outpost, with manned machine gun mounts, which General Chiang Kai-shek took away from a local warlord. He said he slept with a pistol under his pillow. He supplied the radar communications so the planes could successfully navigate the Burma Hump. He manned the station with Chinese loyal to Chiang Kai-shek. Some of these men visited him in the US as long as 20 years later.

He was at his station, on the radio, when he heard about the bombing of Pearl Harbor. They packed the entire operation up and started riding horses for the coast. They ended up walking, taking rafts and at times swimming rivers to get to the coast for a pick up out of China. He had stories which he only told during dark times about that trip out of China as the Japanese invaded and overwhelmed the Chinese military. Once he got out of China with his skin intact, he returned to the Navy. He continued in the Navy until 1948. In 1949-1950, they called him back to help set up communications for the Korean War, but that was brief as he was a civilian at that time. With the money he made, his mother and sisters survived the depression and eventually were able to sell the farm and move to town. The widow lady with 3 kids did not lose her land in the hard times. He kept the little boys promise to his dying father.

In 1990, President Carter broke the code of silence about the Flying Tigers and those brave men were finally awarded veterans benefits. Until that time they had been considered a loose knit band of mercenaries under Chenault. There was much he never spoke about and what little I do know was from times of too much alcohol and a lot of ghosts. He was interviewed for several books and gave all his pictures away. About all we still have is his Flying Tiger belt buckle and a few mementos he sent his mother from China.

In his case, duty to fulfill the promise he made his father probably had much to do with the decisions he made. On the other hand, not everybody who got the offer to take a slow boat to China did it.

When he died we found some silver stars and other medals that we don't have any idea what they were for. It just wasn't something he ever spoke about.