Memorial Day 2020

    Just wanted to be the first to wish all vets a wonderful Memorial Day and thank you for your service!! I know there is a lot of military on the forum so...

    I might not be right but I can sure sound like it

    Tomorrow is Memorial Day, take a moment and remember the fallen. If you're having a beer give a little toast. Enjoy your barbecue and add their families when you bless the food. No grand gestures are needed just remember and be thankful for their sacrifice.

    Sitting on the deck with some bourbon thinking of my dad, WW2 Vet. He didn't like talking about the war. I've discovered over the years that not many people who experience combat do.

    Took the pic from my deck chair, seems fitting.

    Here's my dad, probably 1946. He ran away from the family farm and joined up at 16, lying about his age. The family story is that the Navy recruiter who had served with my grandfather, called when my dad showed up.

    When Grandpa Carl heard about it, he said "You better take the SOB, he sure hates farm life!"

    Dad is on the left in the top photo, and he's standing in the back in the lower photo... Gene is the fellow with a drink in each hand!

    He passed away in 1996. I miss him terribly.

    The smarter you get, the funnier I am.

    Here's my father as a WWII Seabee. As the oldest of 6 boys, he had moved to Vancouver, WA to work in the shipyards with his father at age 17 to help his family pay the bills back in Greeley, Colorado. He was elected captain of the football team in absentia his senior year. He joined the Navy as soon as he turned 18 and shipped off to the Pacific Theater.

    My Uncle Chuck, dad's next oldest brother and fellow seaman, put this shadow box together for me and one for my older brother. He painstakingly acquired reproductions of all of his medals (my brother got the original medals that we had) and included this chronology and explanation on the back. At the bottom of the list you'll see his ruptured duck, the small lapel pin under the photo.


    Dad passed in 1972 at the young, young age of 47. I never knew him as an adult but he is still huge in my memories.

    Remember folks - this isn't a rehearsal, this is The Show!8)

    No one told me there was show and tell :/

    Anyway here is a little memento my father left me. He made the frame himself and did the arrangement. He served in the Pacific theater and was part of the occupation army in Japan. He passed away in 2015.