OT: Veterans Day

[Box and Won]

Not sure how many veterans we have here on the board, but to those who are - thanks for your service!

[TheA_Bomb]

Hey Box thanks, that means a lot to me coming from a Pinko like you.

[Dungeon Yankee]

Hey Box thanks, that means a lot to me coming from a Pinko like you.

When and where did you serve? I was with the Big Red One in Nam. Dungeon Yankee was my radio call sign for a special two week mission.

[TheA_Bomb]

US Army Field Artillery Officer, Kuwait 2001, Iraq 2003.

[brianstl]

Thank you both and to all of the other veterans on the board.

[Dungeon Yankee]

US Army Field Artillery Officer, Kuwait 2001, Iraq 2003.

way to go A Bomb, congrats and thanks for your service. I did my AIT at Fort Sill, OK and trained in Fire Direction Control. MOS was 13E20. spent 5 months in C&C Center in Nam with 2/33rd Arty as RTO. all the Arty officers I knew were great guys. however, casualty rate for Arty officers was pretty high as they spent a lot of their tour with infantry. 4 hours before I was supposed to report as forward observer with infantry, army changed my orders. we had a saying in nam that if you survived, the rest of your life was "gravy". i have come to believe that it was God's will that i made it.

[brianstl]

I ran across this story earlier about the oldest living veteran in Britian (possibly the world). I thought it was intresting short story about a time that most people really don't hear much about anymore and never received the attention that WWII did. The guy is 112 and lived on his own until two years ago.

The best part of the story was what he thought was the key to his long life:

He cannot explain the secrets behind his long life - but has said it could have something to do with "whisky, and wild, wild women".

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england...sex/7713556.stm

[slufanskip]

USAF '82 - '90. Served at KI Sawyer AFB in the UP of Michigan, Spangdahlem AFB near Trier GE and Tinker AFB in OKC. I was lucky enough not have had to serve in a time of war. Along with the others on here, I have a deep gratitude for those that seved at all, but especially those who served in combat and even more so, those who have made the ultimate sacrifice. So ... A truly heartfelt thanks to all the Vets and family of the Vets who have made the way of life we often seem to take for granted possible.

[ACE]

Thanks to our veterans and our service men and women. They are the best in the world.

[Postcard]

USAF '82 - '90. Served at KI Sawyer AFB in the UP of Michigan, Spangdahlem AFB near Trier GE and Tinker AFB in OKC. I was lucky enough not have had to serve in a time of war. Along with the others on here, I have a deep gratitude for those that seved at all, but especially those who served in combat and even more so, those who have made the ultimate sacrifice. So ... A truly heartfelt thanks to all the Vets and family of the Vets who have made the way of life we often seem to take for granted possible.

Skip, I appreciate your humble nature but I hope that others don't feel that the job you and countless other veterans did was any less worthy than those that served in combat. Bill McClellan had a nice article about this the other day which I'll include below. I'm sure if your name had been called during a time of war that you would have served just as noblely and bravely as those that came before and after you did. I saw part of a special on PBS last night about Medal of Honor winners. It was quite moving. So thank you to all vets that have served our country.

Veterans Day — it's for everybody who served

Bill McClellan

More columns

Bill's BiographyBy Bill McClellan

ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH

11/10/2008

Veterans Day is not just for heroes. It's also for people like Harry, Bill, Bob and Jim Vierling. The four brothers served in World War II. They didn't storm any beaches or fly any missions over enemy territory. They were just part of the big machine.

Harry, the eldest of the four, was 17 when the war started. He tried to enlist in the Army, but he was turned down because of a heart murmur. A couple of years later, when the Army wasn't quite so selective, he was able to get in, but he never left the states.

The second oldest, Bill, had a similar story. He was rejected by the Army when he tried to enlist on his 18th birthday — also a heart murmur — and later accepted. He made it to the Pacific. His unit was preparing for the invasion of Japan when the atomic bomb made the invasion unnecessary.

Bob joined the Navy on his 18th birthday, which was in May of 1944. He served on a destroyer in the Pacific.

Jim turned 18 in August of 1945. He immediately enlisted in the Navy. The war ended before he got out of training.

"None of us are heroes," said Jim, who seemed a little baffled as to why a reporter would be interested in writing a Veterans Day story about four brothers who didn't do anything heroic.

Why? Because it's not Heroes Day. It's Veterans Day, and most veterans have more in common with the Vierlings than with Alvin York or Audie Murphy. Citizen-soldiers. People who interrupt their lives to serve the country.

The Vierling brothers were the four oldest children of Harry and Lucille Burch. The last five of their children were girls. All nine kids are still living. The boys are all in their 80s. Their sisters range from 68 to 79.

To what do they owe their longevity?

"Beer," said Bob. "Actually, we didn't eat much meat when we were youngsters," he said. The boys were raised during the Great Depression.

"Our mom could make something out of nothing," said Jim.

"You know what saved us? The Catholic Church," Bob said. "There wasn't any government help then. The St. Vincent de Paul Society is the greatest thing."

"We laughed all the time. That's what I remember," said Bill. "We might have been poor, but we were always laughing." He said their father would come home from work — he was a garment cutter — and he would take his hat off, sail it toward a chair and then begin to jitterbug with his daughters.

Actually, the longevity probably owes as much to genetics as to laughter or diet. Harry lived to be 92, Lucille 81. Harry's father, William, who was born in a tenement located where Busch Stadium now sits, lived to be 88.

At any rate, times were hard, and then the war came along. The boys enlisted. Bill, who was sent to Korea at the end of the war, said he had a favorite story about the Army.

"One day in Korea, I got called in to see the colonel. I was just shaking. I wondered what I'd done. He asked me, 'Vierling, what do you think of the food we give you?' I said I thought it was fine. He said, 'That's not what your mother says.' I had complained to her in a letter about the food, and she had written the colonel. I thought, 'Oh no!' But he said, 'The war's over. We'll be getting better food.' And that was that."

Bob's destroyer visited Korea, and he and Bill got together. They showed me a photo. Two very young men looking at the camera and grinning.

After the war, the brothers all got jobs at Cupples Products, a firm that made aluminum windows for the homes that were going up for the returning servicemen who were getting married and starting families. They couldn't build enough homes, nor windows. Three of the brothers made careers of it at Cupples, but not Jim.

"I was at a saloon after work, and somebody was looking at the newspaper, and said, 'They need policemen.' So I went down and applied," said Jim.

He was hired and he was on the St. Louis Police Department for 35 years.

Now, he works occasionally for one of the police officers he met early in his career — Dave Sinclair, the auto dealer. Sinclair employs Jim as a driver when he needs a car driven somewhere.

Bob drives a tour bus at Anheuser-Busch.

The brothers are planning a trip sometime early next year. A nonprofit organization called Honor Flight Network is offering World War II veterans a free flight to Washington to visit the National World War II Memorial. The memorial is dedicated to all those who served in the war. Not just the ones who became heroes, but the ones who were willing to go and who might have been heroes had circumstances been a little different.

[TheA_Bomb]

USAF '82 - '90. Served at KI Sawyer AFB in the UP of Michigan, Spangdahlem AFB near Trier GE and Tinker AFB in OKC. I was lucky enough not have had to serve in a time of war. Along with the others on here, I have a deep gratitude for those that seved at all, but especially those who served in combat and even more so, those who have made the ultimate sacrifice. So ... A truly heartfelt thanks to all the Vets and family of the Vets who have made the way of life we often seem to take for granted possible.

Skip got some sweet assignments. Trier is one of my favorite places in Germany. They drink alot of Bitburger there.

[slufanskip]

Skip got some sweet assignments. Trier is one of my favorite places in Germany. They drink alot of Bitburger there.

Thanks for the note above ... most people on this board wouldn't be surprised to hear, I rarely get called humble.

Seriously though, I'm proud to have served and loved my time, and would have done my duty during war time, but with that said ... I really don't think it compares to having to risk your life. Think of people who stormed beaches, or parachuted into enemy territory, knowing that there was a good chance they wouldn't come home alive, but yet they did what had to be done.

I wouldn't call KI Sawyer AFB sweet. It's 3 hours straight North of Green Bay. I was raised in Fla, Tex, and Cali ... got to KI on Mar 31st for my first assignment and it snowed every single freaking day for my first 30 days, on the 31st day we had flurries, so I don't count it. The last of the snow melted around the beginning of June and it had usually snowed by the end of Oct. Spangdahlem was a different story ... it's a great area with incredible people. My best friend played on Trier's hockey team and I was a DJ at Madison's. We really had the run of the city. I hated to leave, and Bitburgers for a mark per. (about 65 cents back then)

[Bill_Ken R]

I am a proud veteran having served two years in the Army following graduation from SLU, in 1969, during the Vietnam War. I was fortunate to have spent one year at Fort Bragg, NC and one year in Seoul, South Korea. My education got me a nice easy office job and was I ever happy that I didn't get orders for Vietnam. Reading the list of the killed in Stars and Stripes and seeing people I knew from home, college or from basic training was a weekly thing and not a pleasant one. My appreciation to everyone who has served or is serving now.