Any war, that is. All my Facebook friends are posting all about their dads who are all war heroes pounding out democracy with fists of justice, you know? My dad was a boiler tender. He served on the USS John W. Thomasson in the Korean War and if you ask him he had the most important job on the ship (arguably true, as a destroyer isn’t a lot of good if you can’t get it to go anywhere.) I’m hoping the Navy gets back to me about reissuing his medals before Christmas.
So what unappreciated job did your dad do in the military?
Do moms count? Because my dad was too old and too near-sighted to serve in WWII (having been too young for the first one)
If they do, she was a secretary, just like in civilian life. She was a little miffed that she had to do the training for it, because she’d been to business school and had been working for several years when she enlisted. I do wish I’d asked her about it more, though, because she worked with the photographer who worked with the plastic surgeons. So, not saving the world, I guess, just helping to help some of the guys who did, for a little bit.
Oh, how humiliating - yes, what did your mom do in the war? It’s extra-embarrassing because I got all hotted up because one of our Staff Education Day speakers today (a woman!) said “Ladies, you probably don’t know this, but a baseball manager is just like a coach!”
ETA - in my defense, I was thinking in a specific way about the ship my dad served on, where there were no women. I’ll ask for a title change. Seriously, y’all, I went to a women’s college! (Of course, after Staff Ed Day, I had a few stiff post-Staff Ed Day drinks.)
WWII, Army: Not sure. He has the ribbon, but he must have gotten in right at the tail end. He was in the Signal Corps. Was present during at least one A-bomb test, I think.
Korea, Navy: Enlisted rank. Combat Aircrew on an AEW Skyraider, CV-47 USS Philippine Sea.
CV-18 USS Lexington: Not sure of time, rank, or duties. I believe he was on the first cruise after she got her angled deck.
Vietnam, Navy: Lieutenant (O3) aboard CLG-5 USS Oklahoma City, which traded 7th Fleet Flagship duties with CLG-6 USS Providence. Communications.
Paternal grandfather was a flight instructor for awhile, and then was assigned to combat operations as a fighter pilot. He flew a Tempest V on a number of combat operations, but one day was shot down by ground fire over Holland. Too low to bail out, he crash landed and joined up with the Dutch Resistance. He was captured and sentenced to hang but the war was drawing to a close and Allied troops rolled up just in the nick of time. It’s a hell of a story, retold in several Dutch accounts of the late resistance.
Maternal grandfather was a copilot/bomb aimer aboard Halifax III bombers in 427 Squadron. He flew 35 combat missions. Amazingly, not a man in his crew received so much as a scratch. The same could not be said of anyone who flew a plane they’d used… any plane they used that was subsequently used by another crew was shot down, earning them the nickname “The Jinx Crew.”
My dad flew Army helicopters in combat early in the Vietnam War; he’d been in college via ROTC and got taken before the general draft. He managed not to let me know he saw combat until I was well into my 20s. When I was a kid, I knew he’d flown, but he somehow gave me the impression that he was a sort of personal taxi-pilot for important generals and such. He revealed even that much only when I asked him about it directly for a high school US History assignment. I probably didn’t know the right questions to ask, or understand enough about combat to recognize what little he told me or put it in context; he may not have deliberately misled me so much as not relieved me of my ignorance.
Then, all of a sudden, when I started seeing my then-future-husband, he started talking about it in casual conversation. Blew my mind.
That’s my general experience with military men, which has led me to believe (generally accurately) that anybody who’s eager to tell you all about the dudes he garroted is a very pathetic liar.
My Dad’s dad was an ambulance driver in WWI. My mom’s dad was too old to serve in WWII, but worked at the Pantexplant out near Amarillo when it still produced conventional munitions. My dad was evaluated for the draft for the Korean war, IIRC, but was declared ineligible due to a bad hip (he had Perthes diseaseas a kid).
I’m reminded that I had a couple of uncles (mostly my grandmother’s sisters’ husbands) who fought in WWII. One was in the Navy; another in the infantry, and was present at the liberation of one of the concentration camps (a big one–maybe Dachau). He brought back a German officer’s sword he picked up somewhere, and I took it to show and tell once (back when you could take a real sword to school, and not get arrested). I was too young back then to know what a link to history these guys were, and now they are dead, and I really only have the vaguest idea of what they did.
He served on the USS John W. Thomasson in the Korean War and if you ask him he had the most important job on the ship (arguably true, as a destroyer isn’t a lot of good if you can’t get it to go anywhere.) I’m hoping the Navy gets back to me about reissuing his medals before Christmas.