Your Family's Military History

[Hatz]

The two that come to my mind right away are:

 

My Grandfather who served on the USS Bunker Hill during the Okinawa Campaign.

 

 

I have his wooden footlocker from his tour of duty.

 

I have a descendent on the Reed side of my tree that was the only officer killed in an engagement on the Korean Peninsula in 1871. His name was Lt. Hugh McKee.

 

United States expedition to Korea - Wikipedia

 

The United States expedition to Korea, the Shinmiyangyo, or simply the Korean Expedition, in 1871, was the first American military action in Korea.

 

He is buried at Lexington Cemetery with a Pagoda marking his grave.

 

Hugh McKee - Wikipedia

 

Hugh Wilson McKee (23 April 1844 - 11 June 1871) was an American naval officer in the 1870s who participated in the United States expedition to Korea in 1871.

[woodsrider]

My granddad was a B52 pilot in WWII. Was shot down and was in a POW camp.

 

My dad wanted to be pilot in the air force but failed the physical due to a skull fracture when he was a kid (fell out of barn). He served 4 years in the air force as a missile specialist.

 

My brother served 4 years in the air force after college working with GPS satellites.

 

My uncle (dad's brother) was an F16 pilot in the air force. Served 32ish years in air forced. He achieved the rank of Lieutenant General. His last assignment was Associate Director for Central Intelligence for Military Support, Central Intelligence Agency. He was serving in that role during 911. His retirement ceremony was at CIA head quarters and we got to meet George Tenant who was still the CIA director at the time.

 

My cousin served 20 years in the Navy and just retired this year.

 

I was the first on my dad's side since my Grandfather to not serve.

[75center]

Great Great Grandfather served with the Ohio 21st in Civil War. Also had relatives serve for the south but not sure what the relationship is. Not sure after that until my father and uncles served in WWII, father spent his time in the pacific, mainly on Guam. Several cousins served in late 50's to early 60's somewhere overseas but not sure where. Brother served in Vietnam and Japan in late 60's early 70's. Nephew served in first Iraq war where he lost a supply truck in the desert, not his finest hour. Another nephew served in Iraq in mid 2000's.

[Wireman]

Grandpa fought in World War II and the Korean War. Uncle fought in the first Gulf War.

[tcjkbt]

My father served in WW II in the army building air strips in the Pacific.

My brother was in the army infantry and served in the Vietnam War near Cu Chi which is about 40 miles northwest of Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh City).

My grandfather served in WW I at Great Lakes Naval Station - which I believe was in or near Chicago. I do not know what he did there.

[swamprat]

One of my great grandfathers was with the Confederate 1st Kentucky Mounted Rifles. Another served in the Union 12th Kentucky Regiment Company A.

 

My maternal grandfather fought in WWI with the 1st Division of the American Expeditionary Force. The diaries of his time during WWI are in the University of Louisville archives.

 

My great uncle was at the Battle of the Bulge.

 

My father tried to join the Navy during WWII, but was turned down due to being color blind. A few months later, he was drafted into the Army and served 32 of his first 48 months in the service on board ships. He served 23 years, saw action in WWII and Korea, and was involved in logistics and training during Vietnam, both home and abroad. He retired as a Command Sargent Major.

[Getslow]

Grandfather on mom’s side was in the Army during WWII. Was on staff to a general and was all over North Africa and Europe during and after the war.

 

Grandfather on dad’s side served in the Army infantry in WWII also. Landed in Europe just days after D-Day and spent the winter of 1944-45 in the forests of Belgium and earned a Bronze Star in the Battle of the Bulge.

 

More distantly, I know some people served in the Union army in the Civil War from among my mother’s relatives but I don’t know who specifically. They would have been about two generations ahead of my grandfather. Perhaps three.

 

My dad’s family wasn’t here yet and any knowledge of any military service in the places that are now Norway and Germany is lost to us.

[mcpapa]

Great-grandfather (whom I met when he was 93) served in the Spanish-American War. His father served in the Civil War (state of New Hampshire). My dad was in ROTC in college, entered the service in 1954 as a 2nd looie and came out two years later as a first. I was born in Fort Jackson, SC. The medical bill for my birth came to seven dollars and change. My parents told me they got what they paid for.

 

We still have my great great grandfather's New Hampshire discharge certificate in a frame.

 

My father-in-law was a Seabee during WWII. Was in the Philippines, Gilbert & Ellice Islands, among others. We have his big framed "shellback certificate" dated 11/26/43, given to military who "crossed the line" (The Equator). This one isn't his, but it looks like this:

 

[Kentucky Windage]

We still have my great great grandfather's New Hampshire discharge certificate in a frame.

 

My father-in-law was a Seabee during WWII. Was in the Philippines, Gilbert & Ellice Islands, among others. We have his big framed "shellback certificate" dated 11/26/43, given to military who "crossed the line" (The Equator). This one isn't his, but it looks like this:

 

 

Ha. I work with a guy who says he's a "trusty shellback" which basically means he's crossed there equator multiple times. He said he tried to talk his captain into crossing the equator at the prime meridian which would have made him a "royal emerald shellback" but the captain just laughed him off.

[Colonels_Wear_Blue]

Grandpa on my Dad's side enlisted in the Navy in WWII. Went through basic training in Camp Livingston, Louisiana in July and August, and trained as a medic. At his medic school graduation ceremony he was handed a helmet with a red cross on it, and at the same time was handed a Brillo pad to scrub the cross off. The MC at the graduation told them it was because the Nazis made a habit of using the red cross as a bullseye.

 

His combat experience in the war started at D-Day +3 in France. He always said, "We didn't have it near as bad as any of the fellas in the first wave, but it was still dicey as all hell when I got there." He served as a medic as the Allied invasion pushed inland, and once they reached Paris, he served as a clerk to a General because of his education.

 

 

Edited June 20, 2018 by Colonels_Wear_Blue

[Colonels_Wear_Blue]

Grandpa on my mom's side planned to join the Marines. The night before enlisting, he and his best friends went out partying together in a "last hoorah" kind of way. Ended up waking up late for the acuity exam for the Marine Corps at the court house, so they went ahead and took the Navy acuity exam that took place afterwards. Trained at the Great Lakes Naval Station, and became a fire controlman on a destroyer, the USS Meade. He was in charge of aiming and firing a pair of 5" guns on the ship. The United States sent 15 destroyers to Guadalcanal, and the USS Meade was the only one of them not to end up at the bottom of Ironbottom Sound.

 

Grandpa also had 3 brothers who served in the Navy during WW2, and a sister who served as a Naval Nurse as well.

 

 

[B-Ball-fan]

My father, a '37 graduate of Covington Catholic High School served in the United States Army Air Corps during WWII and was stationed in the Pacific, and more specifically the Philippines, New Guinea, and Australia where his focus of study and duties were radio and communications related.

After the war, and with his experience he for a few years became a telegraph messenger for the Western Union Company working out of the Dixie Terminal building in downtown Cincinnati.

 

After WWII ended he was released from active duty, but remained a reserve, and was called back again during the Korean War where he served stateside as a staff sargeant until 1951 in the newly created United State Air Force that began in 1947 as its own entity, whereas previously it was apart of the United States Army, as the Army Air Corps, so technically my Dad served in both the Army, and the Air Force.

 

He had 3 brothers, my Uncles John, Jim, and Frank who had all served in the United States Army during WWII.

 

My Grandfather on my Dad's side served during WWI, but I honestly do not know the specific details, and he was born during the mid-to-late 1880's and had passed by the time I was born in 1964.

 

My mother who was the youngest of 13, had 4 older brothers.

 

Her oldest brother Joe, (a minor league baseball player from '30-'32 and my oldest uncle born in 1905 would have been too young to serve in WWI, and too old to serve in WWII, however her brothers, my Uncle Carl served in the Navy during WWII, and my Uncle Leo served in the Army during WWII. Her brother Albert suffered illnesses that prevented him from serving, and he died young due to diabetes.

 

My grandfather on my mother's side was born in 1880, so was too old by the time WWI came around, and by that time had already fathered about 7 or 8 of his 13 children of my grandmother's 16 total pregnancies.

[Bengal Maniac]

Great great great great grandfather was one of the 26 captured/surrendered with Daniel Boone at Blue Licks. He left the Shawnee in 1799 and moved to Paris, Ky and died there in 1844. John Filson interviewed him two months before his death in Bourbon County. He wrote a biography about Boone and wanted he was the only one left from that incident.

 

His son was a Conderderate calvary person that road woth John Hunt Morgan. He didn't ride for very long before being captured in Ohio and sent to a prison camp at Fort Delaware in maryland where he died.

 

He owned a farm that is a major part of Bernheim Forest in Bullitt County. A few of my descendents are buried there.

 

Can't find many other close relatives that fought in any other wars or served in the military.

[Colonels_Wear_Blue]

My father, a '37 graduate of Covington Catholic High School served in the United States Army Air Corps during WWII and was stationed in the Pacific, and more specifically the Philippines, New Guinea, and Australia where his focus of study and duties were radio and communications related.

After the war, and with his experience he for a few years became a telegraph messenger for the Western Union Company working out of the Dixie Terminal building in downtown Cincinnati.

 

After WWII ended he was released from active duty, but remained a reserve, and was called back again during the Korean War where he served stateside as a staff sargeant until 1951 in the newly created United State Air Force that began in 1947 as its own entity, whereas previously it was apart of the United States Army, as the Army Air Corps, so technically my Dad served in both the Army, and the Air Force.

 

The fella in post #25 graduated from Cov Cath with your pop. Pretty sure we have PM'd about that before.

[B-Ball-fan]

The fella in post #25 graduated from Cov Cath with your pop. Pretty sure we have PM'd about that before.

 

Wow..that's cool...

 

I'll have to look at my Dad's yearbook to find him, and I think that you're right, I vaguely recall us talking about this before, but must admit I forget now who your Grandpa is.