Remembering, Veterans Day, November 2022

 Remember: 

 

To our oldest generation:

Thank you for believing that freedom was worth fighting for.

Don Madden, Da Nang, Vietnam, 1969

James Clifford McKittrick

Edward Joseph Guillory

William Ellsworth Lemmons

On an observation helicopter, South Vietnam, June 1967.

Originally designated as "Missing in Action".

Also designated as "MIA: Declared Dead While Missing."

But now designated by our government as 

"Unaccounted For" and "Non-recoverable."

Could we please just designate them as 

"Veterans We'd Like to Have Had the Chance to Thank"?

Remembering, June 6, 1944

Robert Capa, photographer, Normandy Beach , June 6, 1944

 "The move to the ships and craft took place the 3rd of June and we started loading up the night of June 5 but waited twenty-four hours. ... June 6 ... eating a quick breakfast at about 2:00 a.m., climbing over the side on a cargo net at about 3:30 a.m. into a wildly pitching LCM, bouncing on board while the craft joined a rendezvous circle and waited for the last of our wave to join.  We were afloat and sailed out with barrage balloons to prevent bomb attack.  Training and planning had ended and D-Day had started for the 54 occupants of LCM 1098.  Finally, we ceased circling and started the straight run to the beach, still in the dark.

While we travelled the 12 miles to the shore line, the dawn came up... Everyone soon was experiencing the pangs of seasickness, wanting to get off that pitching and rolling boat no matter what might come next. You couldn't stick your head over the side, so everyone was vomiting in the boat.  I positioned myself right at the front as I believed it was essential that the members of the command be first on the beach...

In our craft we could feel the bottom scrub some sand and jar to a grounded halt. Obviously the boat had struck a sand bar.  I plunged forward, jumped into the dark water, feet first, and was surprised to find I was in eight-foot deep water. My lifebelt brought me back to the surface, already swimming.  Soon my feet touched bottom and I was able to begin splashing and running out of the water.  Winded, I paused to kneel in the shelter of a steel hedgehog, then lunged ahead and dove into a depression filled with water.  Suddenly, my ankle felt as if hit by a baseball bat. I was afraid to stand up for fear of being shot and I was afraid to stay where I was for fear I'd be drowned.  Eventually I decided I had to move, and I'd try running and if I could run OK then my leg must not be broken.  I hobbled the remaining 50 yards to the shoreline and lay down against the stony rubble. .. There was no one in front of me, beside me, nor behind me that I could see or hear."



Being interviewed, Normandy, June 6, 1994

Susan's step-father's account of June 6, 1944. That day he was shot in the ankle but went on with the 121st Engineers Combat Battalion, 29th Division, to St. Lo, Brest and on to Paris. He continued to serve in the army in France and later in Okinawa and in Viet Nam, where there was, to his immense pride, a $2,000 price on his head.

Pops, we miss you.

Memorial Day, May 30, 2022 - Remembering, from 2009

Memorial Day is a Federal holiday observed on the last Monday of May to honor U.S. soldiers who died while in military service. On this long Memorial Day weekend enjoy your picnic, your barbecue, your family gathering and maybe a long break from work.

But before you do, please see below what I said in a previous post in 2009. It will let you see why it is so important for me that you take a few moments to remember two men who gave their lives defending our country and the freedoms we have.

The last Monday of May (May 25, 2009) is set aside to commemorate U.S. men and women who died while in military service. The gravestones at many cemeteries will be graced by U.S. flags placed there by family members and volunteers. Although I like to think of my blog as a humorous and entertaining glimpse of my life, today I want to give you a piece out of my past, and I want you to be able to see Memorial Day not as parades, picnics and flags but instead as people, families, and children, both here and gone. 

 HBO recently showed a special program called "Taking Chance", which depicts the Military Escort Duty of a Marine Officer, based on a true account. In case you aren't aware, a Military Escort accompanies the body of any serviceman killed in duty overseas, all the way from arrival in the United States to the burial/final service where the Military Escort presents to the family the American flag used to cover the coffin. Military Escort duty isn't assigned, Military Escorts volunteer for the duty. In January of 1968 I volunteered for service in Vietnam. And I volunteered for Military Escort Duty. 

I watched the program "Taking Chance" and went to tell Susan. 

Susan: I remember you did Escort Duty when we were stationed in California. Do you remember anything about it? 

Me: (without thinking) His name was Brown and I took him home to a little town in Illinois. 

Susan: You were in the service for 5 years and up until now the only name you can remember from that whole time was your roommate in Vietnam. 

But now, all of the sudden, you can remember the name of the man you did Escort Duty for?

Me: Yes. 

Susan did internet research and found a U.S. Air Force Officer named Brown who died in 1968 and had an Illinois hometown. More research pulled up a post from a David Brown, asking for information about his father, Barry Lynn Brown. Was it the same person? Susan did more internet research, made many phone calls to funeral homes and VFW centers where finally she talked to a very helpful veteran, Bruce McMillan. He offered to go to his local library and do more research for her and was able to mail her a copy of the local May 6, 1968, newspaper with the large headline "...Killed in Vietnam". 

Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall, Washington, DC, April 2009

I emailed David telling him I didn't know his father but that I had served as Military Escort at his father's funeral. As a result of remembering his father's name, Susan's research, and Bruce's help, I've now been able to communicate with Barry Lynn Brown's sons, David and Kent; his widow, Patty; and his grandson, Connor, who never knew his grandfather but wants to go into the Air Force. They have been incredibly generous in their appreciation of what I did for them, yet they were the ones who made the ultimate American wartime sacrifice. 

 What did I do for them? When my name came up to the top of the volunteer Military Escort Duty list I got a phone call telling me that within 12 hours a flight would be arriving from Vietnam and I was to meet it to begin Escort Duty. Not until I showed up did I find out where I was going and who I was escorting. I did my best to preserve the dignity, honor and respect Barry Lynn Brown deserved. I presented the folded American flag from his coffin to his widow, "from a grateful nation".

I can think of no greater honor I could have had than the privilege of escorting the body of an American serviceman, killed in action, home to his family.

Captain Barry Lynn Brown, Killed in Action, Vietnam, May 5, 1968

On Memorial Day, when most people think of small American flags placed on gravestones, think back to May 1968 and visualize a very young widow and her two sons, ages 1½ and 2½ years old, being handed a carefully folded flag by a very solemn young man.

Think also of the family of James Clifford McKittrick. They are still waiting for him to come home. I'm still waiting to send them my POW-MIA bracelet.

   

Major James Clifford McKittrick, Missing In Action, Vietnam, 1967 

Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall, Washington, DC, April 2009

Armed Forces Day, May 2022

 I took this picture of  Army nurses in Da Nang, Vietnam, 1969.  

Not everyone in the Armed Forces carried weapons.