[AT] Thank You Vets

[Cecil R Bearden]

My Dad was in the Army stationed in Egypt repairing Radar & Radios in 
planes making bombing runs around the Mediterranean.  He would talk 
about cornstalks being found in the bombay doors of the planes from the 
low level runs the planes would make.  He would tell of the boat trip 
from San Francisco to Egypt via Australia and around Cape Horn.  The one 
he always told with that story was seeing the Statue of Liberty in NY 
Harbor.   His brother was in the Seabees and stationed in the Aleutians 
for the entire war.  Dad used to talk of  letters between them when the 
temperature was 200 degrees difference. The censors would not let them 
write where they were located, one of his letters said: " I'm in the 
land where God was born and I wish to God I was in the land where I was 
born".  I hope to go through his letters home and give them to the 
Veterans museum here in our small town.

The Uncle in the Seabees came home and was a carpenter for the next 40 
years.  He taught me the trade starting at the age of 3, I followed him 
around on building sites until I was 13.  When I built my house 20yrs 
later, I all came back to me like it was yesterday.

My Mother's brother was in Germany and was captured and escaped. He 
would not really tell many war stories, he just listened to the others 
tell theirs.

As a kid, it was always interesting to hear these war stories. Whenever 
a group of men got together, the war stories would start within 15 
minutes............

We will never be able to thank our veterans enough.

Cecil in OKla










On 11/12/2015 5:35 AM, charlie hill wrote:
> Hi Don,  I live about 35 miles from Lejeune and have worked aboard that
> base many times over the years.    I'm not surprised at the living
> conditions.
> There wasn't much in this part of the world when I was born in 1950 and
> most of what was here was built up during the war.
>
> I had a couple of friends aboard the Enterprise off Vietnam.  One of them
> died
> of cancer a few months ago.  He was on her when the N. Koreans captured
> our spy ship in the late 60's and took a high speed ride up the coast as we
> repositioned assets for that episode.   My thanks go out to your dad and you
> and all of our vets for your service.  I was in the draft line but they
> didn't want me.
>
> Charlie
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Don
> Sent: Wednesday, November 11, 2015 9:56 PM
> To: Antique tractor email discussion group
> Subject: Re: [AT] Thank You Vets
>
> My father joined the Marines in 1938.  He was in the maneuvers in Camp
> Lejeune where they used trucks with stove pipes to pretend to be tanks
> and bombed with sacks of flower.  My mother said that they lived in a
> converted chicken coop.
>
> He was in Perl on December 7 building barracks and was in several
> Pacific island invasions including Guam where he was wounded.  He was
> one of those who went into caves and in one a suicide with a hand
> grenade blew him back out.  He always said he was "Shot in the ass on
> Asan Point", one of the invasion beaches.  They sent him home and he
> spent the remainder of the war as a drill Sargent at Pendelton.  I
> always kidded my mother that I knew what they were doing to celebrate
> the end of the war, I was born in March of 1946.
>
> I have looked in one of those caves on Asan Point, glad it was not me
> there.  But someone had to do it.  I have also looked up that draw on
> Omaha Beach on a nice June day and wandered through the cemetery at the top.
>
> My little taste of war was working on helicopters while ridding a big
> boat with an airport on its roof off Viet Nam.
>


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