Of all your duty stations you were assigned to from your Military Service, which one(s) do you have fondest memories of and why?:
Honestly, everything I recall about the Norfolk is that she and the men aboard her were unique and outstanding. I’m not saying they were without fault. Both the ship and my shipmates had their faults, but I found it easy to overlook them.
Of all your duty stations you were assigned to from your Military Service, which one(s) do you have fondest memories of and why?:
I arrived at Fort Myer, VA, in May of 1967, newly assigned to the 1st Battalion 3rd Infantry and fresh out of AIT. I still remember my first impressions of Fort Myer as I drove into the post from Arlington Boulevard since it was part of Arlington National Cemetery. The very first funeral I witnessed was a Full Honor Funeral for a General who had passed away. The ceremony was breathtaking, including the Caison, The Riderless Horse, marching platoon, the Casket Team, and the bugler. Little did I know at the time that every funeral in Arlington National Cemetery is graded by an officer of the Battalion. Those grades are all reviewed and reported to the Captain and 1st Sargent of each company responsible for providing the funeral team. After a bit of time, it began to sink in just how reverent the cemetery is and how important the services provided by all of the Military Funeral Teams are to the families of fallen soldiers—watching the grief they had as their precious loved one was put to rest. That became abundantly clear on Memorial Day when The Old Guard placed a flag on every grave in the cemetery. Yes, every single grave, just as is still done today. It stays with me always as I reflect upon my days in The Old Guard because placing those flags was not fun.
It was 1965, and my wife and I were living and working in Atlanta, Georgia, when I received my ‘Greetings’ letter from Uncle Sam. I was working full-time and carrying a full semester load in college. Since I was working full-time, I was not eligible for a student deferment, and my rating was 1A.
As a symbol of patriotism and public support during a time when anti-Vietnam war sentiments were growing, the Minnesota Twins baseball team and Marine Corps recruiters in the Minneapolis - St. Paul area came up with the idea of the team sponsoring a recruit platoon to be named the 'Twins Platoon." A letter sent out to area Marine recruits informed them they would be sworn in on TV at pregame ceremonies the night of June 28, 1967. Among those receiving the letter was the author, Christy Sauro Jr. On the designated night, over one hundred young men and four young women stood in the open field in a casually fashioned "civilian" formation and were sworn in. By the end of the sixth inning, the new recruits were hustled out to waiting buses, sped away to the World Chamberlain Field Airport, boarded an American Flyers chartered flight, lifted off the Minneapolis runway and flew into the blackened night for San Diego. Before dawn the next day, the recruits of the Twins Platoon were standing...
Paratrooper Gary Linderer deployed to Vietnam with the 101st Airborne and often went out into the jungle with a six-man Long Range Reconnaissance Patrol. During one patrol, he claimed to have encountered a creature with "deep set eyes on a prominent brow… five feet tall, with long muscular arms, walking upright with broad shoulders and a heavy torso." Linderer had no idea what he saw, but he wasn't the first American to report seeing an ape-like creature while out on patrol, and he definitely wasn't the last. Some Army platoons reported coming under attack from the apes and even fighting them in hand-to-hand combat. There are no known species of apes native to Vietnam, but that didn't stop reports of large, ape-like creatures dwelling in the country's jungles during the entire Vietnam War. US Troops Thought that They Saw Bigfoot in Vietnam Bigfoot didn't get drafted or come over to Vietnam as a figure of the American imagination, either. The Vietnamese, Cambodians and even Laos had...
In 1968-69, I was in my senior year of high school when the Vietnam War was still raging. I knew the likelihood of being drafted into the Army and sent to Vietnam was pretty good. I neither wanted to go into the Army nor to Vietnam. My best option was to check out the U.S. Coast Guard. That’s when I discovered there was a six-month waiting list for the Coast Guard. I went down to the Coast Guard recruiting station in January 1969, signed the enlistment papers and continued my high school education.
James Helms Kasler was born on May 2, 1926, in South Bend, Indiana and following 30-years of distinguished military service, retired as a U.S. Air Force Colonel. Three times James Kasler went off to war and three times returned home. During his career, he is the only person to be awarded three Air Force Crosses. He also was awarded two Silver Stars, Legion of Merit, nine Distinguished Flying Crosses, two Purple Hearts, eleven Air Medals and Bronze Star with V for valor. Setting aside recipients of the Medal of Honor, he is the 10th most decorated serviceman in U.S. history. For some, he is known as Indiana's Sgt. Alvin York, the famous hero of World War II. Biography of James Helms Kasler Shortly after graduating from Shortridge High School, he enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Force in May 1944. James Kasler spent his two-year enlistment flying combat missions over Japan as a B-29 Superfortress tail gunner. Following the war, Kasler attended Butler University in Indianapolis for three...
Who or what influenced your decision to join the military? Which service branch did you select, and what do you remember most about joining up?:
My favourite uncle was my inspiration to join the Corps, not an easy decision at the time because Vietnam was starting to really escalate. It was all over the news, and we were starting to see wounded vets returning, and views of flag-draped caskets with bugles playing taps were popping up frequently on the local news. My Uncle Brady, Uncle Caesar, and my Dad were all Merchant Marines but 180 degrees apart in demeanor. Dad and Uncle Caesar, a US Navy WW II vet, were settled homebodies. Uncle Brady was the happy vagabond with different kinds of stories to tell. We loved hearing their sea stories since my father had been part of the sea convoys carrying supplies and men overseas to Europe and the Pacific, and Uncle Brady had actually had feet on the ground. Dad had asthma and was not eligible for the military.”
Knowing that, as young men, we all faced Universal Military Training, otherwise known as the draft. After my first year of college, I decided that if I really wanted to serve in the armed forces of the United States, it would be better to do it while still young.
I was born and raised in Myra, West Virginia. It was known for being the hometown of Brig. General Chuck Yeager. Yeager was a role model and hero to many in our local community. I joined the Chuck Yeager Civil Air Patrol Flight from 1957-1958 and was exposed to the drill and flight time in an L-17 aircraft. I had the opportunity to attend the CAP Summer Camp in 1957 at Clinton County AFB, Ohio, and experienced a flight in a C-119 Flying Boxcar. I left the summer camp with several hours of exposure to the Air Force Crash Fire Rescue Program, which steered me towards wanting to pursue crash-fire rescue. I took the Air Force entrance exam before graduating from high school. At that time, I was also working for $5 a day as a helper at an International Harvest Dealership, mostly attending to engine rebuilds and preparing vehicles for paint.
My decision to join. I had two first cousins in the Corps. One was a para marine, and he was an Infantryman when they disbanded. He served on Iwo Jima, and I once asked him how long he was on Iwo, and he said, “Oh, about 30 minutes.” He was severely wounded and medivac’ed.
James Patterson, the author of "Walk In My Combat Boots", is the worldwide, best-selling creator of the "Alex Cross" and "Michael Bennett" series of books. Matt Eversmann is a U.S. Army veteran who received the Bronze Star Medal with Valor for leading a team of Rangers in Somalia in 1993. His exploits were depicted in the 2001 film "Black Hawk Down". The two teamed up to create a touching, thoughtful book about the U.S. military, the people who join it, and veterans of three separate eras of conflict, "Walk In My Combat Boots," on bookshelves on Feb. 8. "Walk In My Combat Boots" is a series of short stories, as told by veterans themselves. The stories cover the entire lifecycle of the veteran experience, starting before becoming a recruit, to war stories, to answering questions about military service from one's children. Patterson said he was inspired to write the book after watching veterans' interviews and realizing he'd never heard stories from his own veteran family...
