Pride

[Lee C]

 

[Ned]

I had, though I little realised the value at the time, the great privilige to sit round a pub table with a few such.
I was a young squaddie, barely 2 years in, and in my Dad's local there was:
My Dad - as a 19yr old Engineer one of the first into Nagasaki 1945, Palestine, Borneo, Aden, Malaya, (9 Para) Cyprus and Suez.
My uncle Ben - RMP (yes I know but one of the old school deck-you-and-drop-you-off-at-the-gate-type), Belsen liberation, Palestine, Cyprus, he was a really awesome character.
Len - Little Jewish bloke, one of Paddy Stirling's original desert SAS (didn't like Germans very much).
Two other, slightly younger Para mates of my Dad's, gave me good advice about NI.
These blokes were quiet, polite, and respected.
I should've spent more time with them............

 

[Pleiku]

I had, though I little realised the value at the time, the great privilige to sit round a pub table with a few such.
I was a young squaddie, barely 2 years in, and in my Dad's local there was:
My Dad - as a 19yr old Engineer one of the first into Nagasaki 1945, Palestine, Borneo, Aden, Malaya, (9 Para) Cyprus and Suez.
My uncle Ben - RMP (yes I know but one of the old school deck-you-and-drop-you-off-at-the-gate-type), Belsen liberation, Palestine, Cyprus, he was a really awesome character.
Len - Little Jewish bloke, one of Paddy Stirling's original desert SAS (didn't like Germans very much).
Two other, slightly younger Para mates of my Dad's, gave me good advice about NI.
These blokes were quiet, polite, and respected.
I should've spent more time with them............

My dad was an army lifer. Only guy I talked to about the war for years. We had a standing joke when my mom would come into the kitchen and ask what we were talking about. We would laugh and tell her "... we're just sitting here lying to each other."

 

[tho9900]

My cousin Bob was a chopper door gunner in the Marines during Viet Nam... right before I left for bootcamp (while I still had time to say no) he pulled me outside during my going away party and told me "you know being a corpsman isn't about putting bandaids on people and taking temperatures... he told me a lot of their search and rescue and medevac mission stories... still didn't quite prepare me... maybe a little... in a sense it made me sadder.. if what I saw was what it was I can't imagine what he saw...

One regret is I never got my dads father into a convo on what he did, he was also a Marine during WWII... he was bound for the invasion of Guadalcanal when they got to Pearl Harbor to resupply... they found out he was a pipefitter (industrial plumber basically) and they pulled him off the ship to help rebuild Pearl Harbor. Evidently it was still messy and

My Great Uncle died the year after I was born... I would have LOVED to talk to him... 437 missions in a B-25 in the Pacific supporting anti-shipping raids and amphib landings... 7 Air Medals, a lot of lesser ones as well as a campaign ribbon. My grandmother said he told her the WORST part of their raids was sitting in a turret for 5 hours there and back, getting attacked from the air was a welcome relief as it made you forget how much you hurt... I spent 4 years researching his career because no one remembered the history...

My uncle Leo was awesome... he was a tail gunner on an SBD dive bomber in WWII... problem was he was an accomplished duck hunter.. so excelled in gunnery school (knew just how to lead a target right), he spent the war as an instructer at the dive bomber aerial gunnery school and FINALLY got orders to a carrier in the Pacific... when the plane arrived in Pearl they learned the A-bomb had been dropped and the war ended a few days later...

When I was out on the Guam I wrote him 4 times a week, with pictures... he lived what he missed out on vicariously through me...

The list goes on... wish I had one more time to talk to them all... well Bob is still alive but when he talked to me it was the first time he talked abt Nam since he first came home mid 60's... not gonna press that button...

 

[Anglesachse]

I remeber geting back from the Gulf and going on leave. Didn`t have a motor so me and my mate Mike got on the bus back to blighty. On the way back we got to dover early and had to wait for the bus.

So we walked into a nice little pub, dumped the bergans and ordered two pints. Land lord put them down in front of us, and said "there from the old guy`s in the back" so we turned round and there were 4 old blokes playing cribbage looking at us. All 4 raised there glasses to us, and called us over. Turned out they were WW2 vets, who wanted to say thank you to 2 young squaddies looking after them, in taking up the fight against tyrants. Didn`t buy a drink the whole day and was well pissed when we got on the ferry.

They are probably no longer with us, but they had real respect for us, and we for them.

 

[Lee C]

 

[Lee C]

 

[Sarg]

My Dad never went to war anywhere. He somehow missed out on Korea, never got called up for Nam. But he would have these poker parties every Thursday night and the guys that came to play WERE in wars. They'd hang up their Blues jackets that were dripping with stripes, decorations from wars and conflicts all over the world.

I would sit down next to the door and listen to their war stories. For a while, a guy that was in the Flying Sargents would sit in. The stories he told would just blow me away.

It didn't take me long to realize that we had more heros sitting in on those poker games than any war movie on t.v.

Taught me a very real lesson in life.

Sarg

 

[tho9900]

that pic tells a lot Sarg... the Red Tails... history lesson in itself... so many people who went before us and served right along side of us, or are serving now.... wow... the collective ... no not heroism... but sense of duty and devotion to their fellow service members... it is awe inspiring...

I know y'all prolly don't listen to rap... so not gonna post it in the bar but there is a rapper and his band all OIF/OEF vets... "4/25th" (fourth quarter) their msg of they were there for each other... taking up the slack for the slackers... doing what they had to do to survive even if it were brutal etc.. etc... it speaks to me.. and ya I just stumbled into it.. here I am this middle aged white guy in an SUV booming down the street with his rap going lol... funny picture in my mind..

Ya I am rambling but we all gotta lot to be proud of... and no in my mind none of us were heroes... even if you got the Medal of Honor... but you were there for your mates... maybe not for the idea behind the conflict, or the flag, or the country... we always were there for each other...