The Military Two-Step
At work, Victor, Gabi, Ryan, Mark and I were emailing back and forth about recent air travel incidents (the Miami air marshall shooting, the Southwest plane that went off the runway at Midway, a flight that had engine trouble that Victor and I would have been on if we went to see Grandma this past weekend). The talk turned to fear of flying, and I mentioned how my mother, an ex-stewardess, and my dad, an ex-USAF Vietnam vet, had logged thousands of hours in the air with no major incidents (unless you count your plane being shot by the enemy during a war as a major incident). Anyway, that discussion morphed into a discussion of our relatives and their military service. I mentioned my dad, of course, who was in Vietnam (as well as many of my uncles), and my grandpa, who was in the navy during WWII. Also, my brother-in-law was in Desert Storm.

Anyway, I found out some really interesting stories from Ryan and Mark about their grandpas' military service. So I thought I'd solicit some more stories and encourage Mark and Ryan to post more here. I don't want this to be a political discussion or turn into a debate about the war going on today... I just want to hear more stories about WWII, Vietnam, and other wars we've had. Or if your ancestor did cool stuff in the military without being in a war, I'd like to hear that too. I find it interesting.

So, as far as my stories go...

My grandpa was in WWII, in the Navy, but I’m not sure what he did. My mom was little while he was gone and didn’t remember what he looked like, so she would ask all guys in uniform “Are you my daddy?” which embarrassed my grandma quite a bit. Eventually my grandpa came back and she got reacquainted with him. He died before I was born, so I didn't get to hear any of his stories firsthand.

My dad, on the other hand, has plenty of stories from Vietnam. Some of his duties there included hauling dead bodies (in cargo planes), spraying Agent Orange, and dropping jungle-clearing bombs. His mess tent was blown up on Christmas day, killing a bunch of his friends. He had decided to eat at a different time that day, so he wasn't in the tent when it blew up. But he lost good friends there. On his last mission before leaving Vietnam, he accidentally landed at a VC airstrip in the jungle (they thought it was a US airstrip). They got out of the plane and instantly got a weird feeling. My dad yelled to get back in the plane, and as they did, the VC started shooting. I am pretty sure he told me the plane was on fire as he left the ground, but he was determined to get out alive.

As far as my brother-in-law's service goes, I think he managed to have a good time during Desert Storm. I have seen some pretty drunken pictures from his time there.

Edited to add: I remember now that my cousin was in Desert Storm too, and I hadn't seen him since I was a toddler. So my 8th grade self wrote him a letter, talking about bands I liked and whatnot. He wrote back and turned out to be really cool, and we totally reconnected. Yay.

So, what about your dads? Grandpas? Uncles? Any women in your family with neat stories?