Thank you Robert Daniel Collier (Deceased War Veteran)
Born in 1925 in New York City in a diverse neighborhood of many languages by the time he was 17 he was fluent in 6 of them and knew portions of 5 others. In World War II he signed up at 17 years of age and was sent to Germany to fight the Axis powers. After the war he posed as a hotel clerk in East Germany (Was fluent in German and with out an accent) and passed information on the communist government.
Was sent to Korea to fight in the Korean War and then transferred back to Germany where he met my mother to be in Frankfurt. She was a single mom who had a little boy (me) who had encephalitis and quite a few problems in addition to she herself having had her leg amputated. He married her and adopted me and brought the two of us eventually to the US.
In 1964 he became a senior military language advisor and was sent to Vietnam. In early December of that year he was shot by sniper fire and died on December 18, 1964 at the age of 39. When with my mom and I, he repeatedly told my mom that the Gulf of Tonkin was untruthful and he always strongly voted for the most dovish candidate available on the ballot.
He encouraged my mom to achieve her US citizenship and she in turn encouraged me to do the same and always be deeply involved in the political dialogue of our nation and community. I wound up running a city initiative in a city of 205,000 that asked for less military spending (in a community of lots of military) and won with 64% of the vote. Then went on the next year to run for US Congress.
I thank him today on this Veteran's Day for his service.
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