Independence Day to ME!

July 10, 2008

It is now 6 days after we celebrated our independence and celebrated the lives of all those who served and preserved the freedoms we all enjoy. I come from a military background with great grandparents who fought for our independence, fought in our revolutionary war, fought with Mexico, WWI, WWII, Korean Conflict, Vietnam, and now in Iraq.

Dad was a 'flying seargent and test pilot in WWI. Dad was notified to serve in WWII but worked for Purina Mills deemed a 'critical service' to our war effort and was given a deferment to help supply beef, pork and chicken to our troops.

Uncle Bill (Navy), Enoch (Army), and Walter (Navy) fought in the pacific and Enoch in Europe, and Enoch was a POW (Oflagg 47) for 13 months during our war with Hitler's machine. He escaped on a death march when the allies were pushing the Germans back into Germany. Early on his return home, he told me stories to this child of his being wounded and cared for by his comrades in arms and finally the German doctors.

Bill and Walter served on troop ships and on a destroyer in the pacific, keeping Nippon off our western shore. They too were bombed and shelled and spent may a day and night under fire in the Pacific. Bill made 1st Class Petty office and Walter 3rd
Class.

Enoch was a commissioned reserved at the onset of the Korean war, and volunteered, and served in Georgia and Kentucky as a gunnery officer training our recruits going to Korea. So my father and Uncle Enoch served in not one but TWO wars. Uncle Jim G. went to Korea at age 17, went all the way to the Yalu River in North Korean and withstood the onslaught of the Chinese went they pushed the US and our allies back almost into the sea. He then fought all the way to the 38th parellel and was on operation Wineglass, a hold at all cost operation where he and one other were the only survivors.

Yours truly volunteered for the Coast Guard in the early peace time of the early 60's, serving here at multiple bases from Yorktown, Va, Cape May New Jersey, the CG cutter Unimac, and finally advanced training school in Groton, Conneticut, across from the Norfolk, VA submarine base. During the 2nd Berlin crisis and the blockade of the Russians putting ballistic missiles in Cuba, I served at an Air-Sea rescue base in Corpus Christi, Texas. Then as a reservist serving here in Birmingham and Mobile, Alabama as a port securtiy petty officer 3rd Class.

The Vietnam War came and I had a family and they were early on only sending single Coast Guard regulars and reservist to pilot our Marines and Army combatants up the rivers into Vietnam. I lost several of my unit who were killed as pilots on these boats that went repeatedly into hostile territory, exposing themselves to hails of enemy gunfire muliple times. My best friend moved to Pensacola and his unit was activated and he too was lost in the Vietnam War.

A close friend I graduated from high school with went to flight school in the Navy, did an 18 month tour flying fighter planes off an aircraft carrier in Vietnam. He came home, reenlisted and was shot down on his first sortee off the same carrier. He was wounded, captured, and was held captive in Hanoi for 5 1/2 years of torture.

So you see my albums and pictures I tresure are adorned with ribbons, badges, insignia, collar and hat pins, from several different wars. Which do I treasure most or mean the most to me. My father's pictures from WWI and his collar and hat pin signifying a 'flying sergeant'! Uncle Enoch's 'collar pins and captain's bars' and even his 'olive handkerchief' he carried as a soldier in Europe and as a POW.

My connections are real. My connections have names and places and faces and stories of these men sharing thier 'real stories' of what fighting for our INDEPENDENCE is all about. There is more, lots more but this tells you, my gentle and kind reader, of this man and what our INDEPENDENCE is and what it means to ME.

Jeff the Knutt in the Ham (BirmingHAM, Al, the United States of America