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

[Puddin Fluff]

I am a U. S. Air Force Veteran. I met my husband when we were stationed together at Elmendorf AFB, Alaska. We were both E-3 AWACS crew members. My then boyfriend, was re-assigned to Valdosta, Georgia. We spent a year "dating" long distance. When it became clear that on my next assignment we would not be stationed together, I resigned my commission and moved to Georgia to be with him. Several months after I left, one of our aircraft was taken down by a bird strike and all 24 crew members were lost. All men whom I had served with and one who was a very close friend, "Skip" Rogers. We went through training together and came into the squadron together. It was like losing a brother and 23 more family members.

I had just begun a Masters program and because of that and the expensive of traveling from Georgia to Alaska, I was unable to attend the Memorial Service. I over the years, I have kept in touch with various other crew members and I often feel the loss on any day or event that is military related.

http://www.yukla27.org/

More information on the the crew and tributes can be found at the above link.

If you Goggle Yukla 27, news reports and photos are available.

Men and women voluntarily risk their lives every day so that we can do, say, be anything we want and it is too often taken for granted.

Remember the Fallen and pray for those left behind.

 

[Jessimom]

All of my Grandmother's brothers, and brothers in law were in the Army, As were her cousins. I will have to get some of the stories retold and add them here. I will share my Aunt's wedding photo back in 1944 or 1945. That's my grandmother on the bottom right. They always wore their uniforms in the weddings back then. They are all gone now, but will never be forgotten.




Fortunately the only loss that was suffered in a war, was by one of my cousins (2nd cousin) and it was his leg that he lost in Vietnam. He had a wooden leg as a replacement. When I was little, he would take a steak knife and stab the wooden leg to freak out all the kids. I remember one party when he decided to let the kids stab his leg. One of my cousins grabbed the knife and stabbed the OTHER leg. That was the end of stabbing anything.

My father and brother were both in a Navy. My father on the USS Wasp, which he was the photographer on the ship when they went to pick up the Gemini 4 Space Capsule.If anyone is interested, I can scan some of those photos. We have hundreds. My brother served on the USS Nimitz.

I have so much respect for all the men and women that have served, past and present.

 

[Jessimom]

This HAL we honor our men and women in uniform, though in my humble opinion words and ceremonies don’t seem adequate for what we ask of them. It also seems to me that the sacrifices of their families are too often mentioned as an afterthought. I’d like to change that and outline for you what some of those sacrifices are, at least from my perspective as a Navy wife from 1968 until 1990. This isn’t meant to be a pity party, just a few facts about military life as I lived them.

Sacrifice was pawning my wedding rings so my children could eat. Early enlisted pay was not much to start with, but when my husband’s ship was sent out to sea before he could get an allotment set up it meant he got his paycheck where he was, not where the kids and I were. That month I hadn’t a penny until he either came home or could get something mailed to us, so I did what I had to do. I never did find the extra money to redeem my rings.

Navy life meant packing up and moving on, usually on very short notice. It meant reintroducing our kids to their grandparents and extended family once every two or three years, and never being able to shake the feeling that somehow we didn’t quite fit in.

It was making a home out of a house so ramshackle the only thing holding it up was the cockroaches in the walls linking legs and the layers of pea green paint on the walls.

It meant no chance for me to have a career – just a series of dead end jobs that barely helped make ends meet.

It meant my kids didn’t form lifelong friendships, and in each new school they were either ahead of or behind their classmates academically.

Heartbreak was holding my sobbing 10 year old daughter in my arms when she was the only one who wasn’t going to the father/daughter dance with a proud dad escorting her.

It was promising my eight year old daughter that I would remember to tell Daddy how well she performed in the school Christmas concert because it was her third year in school and he’d still never seen her on the stage.

It was learning the rules of baseball because I was the only one who could teach my son enough of the game to try out for a team, and it was leaving the laundry and the dishes behind to take him fishing. It was facing those difficult times when a young man has questions only a dad can answer, but has only a mom to turn to.

Sacrifice was coping with the loss of premature twin boys alone because the Command decided my situation wasn’t critical enough to extend emergency leave when they were born.

It was long distance holidays, birthdays, anniversaries and milestones. We had been married 13 years before we spent our first Easter together.

It meant postponing Christmas until May when the ship which was supposed to return to port in early December had its tour extended by 5 months during the Iranian Hostage Crisis. It was something my kids thought was right to do, and I was so proud of them!

Sacrifice meant putting my pride in my pocket and asking a neighbor for help when the washer (or the dryer or the car or the whatever) broke down.

It was the sound of the phone at 3:00 in the morning, praying it would be him but terrified that it might be about him. It meant hearing his voice for a few precious minutes, and being willing to go in and wake up three sleeping little people so they’d have a chance to hear him too.

It was losing sleep night after night during the three years he spent in a village called Chu Lai during the VietNam war. The television broadcaster thought it was his job to give a total body count at end of his broadcasts, apparently not caring that families wouldn’t know for days if their loved one was part of that count.

It meant that my hallway wasn’t decorated with family photos, but with a world map. Once a week we would stand in front of that map and use red pins for where we thought the ship might be. We used blue ones to mark the far away places he called us from when the ship would hit port.

We shared our affection with two men in blue uniforms during those years – our sailor and the mailman who brought us the letters and packages. Letters always meant a celebration.

During the day I was busy taking care of the kids and the things that need tending. But the hours between the time they went to bed and I finally went to bed were the loneliest times I have ever known. There was no one to hold me so I could cry and no one to tease me out of a bad mood. No one there to reassure me that everything was going to be alright. No praise for a job well done or help correcting a task I’d muffed up. And, selfishly speaking, there was no validation of me as wife, partner, and friend.

I cannot imagine going through those things and so many more without an end in sight - day after day, night after night - because he never made it home to us.

Let no one think that in this day of instant communication our military families have it any easier. They may have access to email, web cams, instant messaging and cell phones, but that doesn’t diminish their sacrifice. The families left behind are still the ones who have to keep it all together while their loved ones are away, and put it all back together if, God forbid, it all goes terribly wrong.

So you’ll all forgive me if, while I honor and pray for our brave men and women in uniform, I pray just a little harder for the ones left behind. It’s the only side of the fence I’ve been on, so it’s the one I understand best. I’m proud of my small role in protecting this country, and I’d do it all again in a heartbeat. We were blessed, and well do we know it - Ken came home from every deployment. Too many don't. It sometimes seems like once the military honors and funeral services are over, the hero's loved ones go home to a house that will no longer ring with laughter, no longer feel the excitement of a homecoming celebration, and it becomes far far too quiet. Where are all the people who said, "I'm so sorry. If there's anything I can do....."?

Please, please - if you know someone who has lost a loved one in any conflict, don't forget them after a month or so. Remember and honor them every day - make a phone call once a week, send a "thinking of you" card. Do something. But don't pretend that that service member never existed. To do so dishonors his/her memory and the family's sacrifices.


My hero - then.......


And with our grandson Jamie in Charleston, South Carolina when Jamie graduated from Nuclear Power School in 2009.

Wow Blooie, very, very thoughtful and well written post. Thank you for YOUR service, as well as Ken's. My brother and I are a year apart, I know that our conceptions both coincide with my father's leave. My brother dropped out of the Nuclear training school - it was just too intense for him. So, congratulations on your grandson's accomplishment!!

 

[Blooie]

MANY times the damage that is done to the military is not visible. The horror that they see, and things that they have to do, stays with them, and they don't always recover. My brother has severe PTSD, depression and alcoholism. He isn't alone. Alot of them do. And like many of them, they don't think they need help. It's sad.

My heart goes out to him, and to the entire family.

 

[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.

 

[deserteggs22]

I don't remember much about my great Grandpa. But, I do remember 1 of his war stories. He was in WWII and after a battle had broke out. He ran behind a pile of bodies and hid there. But, he found out later that week that in that pile of bodies, was his 2 brothers. I remember him telling me that when I was little and him starting to cry.


I would like to thank him for his service and how great of a man he was. He was so great, that my mom named me after him. Evan.

 

[Blooie]

I have many family members in the military from 3 grandpas, a stepdad, several cousins, lots of my friends. A great grandfather that never came home from the war he was in. Thats what today is about right. And then the one that never got to go my Dad. He enlisted he did not pass the physical and was turned down. He was so upset by this. He lived a good life had a good job had 2 great kids

but always was saddened and a little angry when he talked about not getting to protect our grear country like his grandpa and dad had before him. My dad passed away day before yesterday 5/28/2016 @ 2:30 pm so now he can protect us with his wings. He finnaly got his soldiers wings for he had the heart of a great solidier.

I am so sorry to read about your dad. Please accept my heartfelt condolences!

 

[cree57i]

I have many family members in the military from 3 grandpas, a stepdad, several cousins, lots of my friends. A great grandfather that never came home from the war he was in. Thats what today is about right. And then the one that never got to go my Dad. He enlisted he did not pass the physical and was turned down. He was so upset by this. He lived a good life had a good job had 2 great kids

but always was saddened and a little angry when he talked about not getting to protect our grear country like his grandpa and dad had before him. My dad passed away day before yesterday 5/28/2016 @ 2:30 pm so now he can protect us with his wings. He finnaly got his soldiers wings for he had the heart of a great solidier.

I'm sorry for your loss. Losing a parent is tough.

 

[NaJoBeLe]

This was a gift from my mother this past Christmas. Both of my grandfathers are on the sides, and that is me in the middle. These two men are responsible for raising me into the man I am today. While they both only served one enlistment and made it home safely I'm thankful for the service experience they had. Neither shared much of the experience from the time they served while I was growing up but I did manage to get my grandfather on my dads side to open up about a portion of the time he spent in the Navy off the coast of Okinawa Japan. Only reason he wanted to talk about it is because I wound up going there for a couple of months. Both of these men have traveled on since I began my Air Force journey and unfortunately both while I was on foreign soil. While it made there passing harder I'm sure they were proud of me for what I was doing. I have the anchor and globe medallion from my moms dad and dog tags from my dads dad to cherish and remember them by.

 

[BantyChooks]