Let's honor our loved ones who served. I'll start.

[BlackVelvetElvis]

My father served in Korea during the war. 3rd army, 7th reg., Co. B. He was a cook.
His experience disturbed him and almost made him lose his faith because he saw alot of children suffer and starve. He saw Korean children dig through the trash at the mess often. He never forgot that. That was the only thing he ever told me about his experience.

[Mr. McD]

1. My father fought in WWI

An uncle was killed in Korea.

[murielm99]

2. My grandfather served in World War I.

He was seventeen at the time.

My father served in WWII, in the Far East.

My uncle by marriage was a POW who survived the Bataan Death March.

My husband served in Germany, during the Vietnam era.

[elshiva]

3. God Bless Your father!

My grandfather served in the South Pacific as a SeaBee during WWII. Very sweet man who just tells silly stories about making potato boats and seeing Bob Hope. Never told us anything scary, but I think it WAS!

My uncle served during Vietnam War. Never close to him, not such a nice guy, but he did what he could during the war. Navy?

My dad was a contientious objector during the Vietnam War. Great man who stood up for he beliefs after being drafted into the Navy.

REMEMBER THE CONTIENTIOUS OBJECTORS, TOO!

[BlackVelvetElvis]

5. You must be proud of your dad elshiva. nt

[elshiva]

9. Yhank you! Yes I am!

[Fleshdancer]

20. Here's my list:

(oops! I don't know how my msg got here, I hit reply to the original poster :shrug:)

My brother is currently serving. He knows I don't agree with the Iraq war but he knows I fully support him. He has been my hero my entire life and I couldn't be more proud.

My father served three tours in Vietnam. My mom enlisted for the GI Bill. They met at Ft. Hood and several years later, I was born. I owe my very existence to the US Army. ;)

I have one uncle and one aunt who served in the Army.

I have one grandfather who lied about his age to enlist and fight in WWI and my other grandfather fought in WWII. Their fathers both served as well.

I have relatives on both sides of the Civil War. There is a plaque in the Alamo honoring a man who I am somehow related to. I also have relatives who fought in the Revolutionary War.

Thankfully my mom did all the leg work on my family history several years ago...I need to go through it and remember the names. On the way to her house today, I will be visiting my father at the cemetery to say hello and to thank him for his service as a soldier and a father. Later I'll open up the photo albums and show my daughter pictures of her great-grandfathers and share their stories with her. I take great pride in my family and Memorial Day is a special time to honor them as well as all the others who have served.

[Elidor]

4. Dad was a marine radar operator on Eniwetok in the Pacific during WWII

Later the site of atomic tests. (Contaminated to this day.) He had to have a clearance, because radar was still very new, and the Japanese had no idea what we could learn with it. I suppose there was someone on base with orders to shoot dad if he was in danger of falling into enemy hands. He joined the marines because the Army wanted to send him to intelligence school, but he wanted no part of it. He took infantry over intelligence.

[jaxx]

6. My dad was a marine

WWII in the Pacific. He never talked about war either, only told us he saw his best friend blown to bits.

[Lone_Star_Dem]

7. My grandfather and great uncle served in WWII

My other grandfather served in Korea.

My father and two uncles served in Vietnam. One of those uncles lost his life there, I never got to meet him.

:patriot:

[GirlinContempt]

8. My grandfather served in WWII

Two tours of duty. One started in early 1940, the second in late 43 (as far as I know)

Edit:
I'm from Canada, not sure if it counts

[BlackVelvetElvis]

12. Sure it counts!

All Du'ers are welcome, whatever your nationality.

[RobbinsdaleDem]

10. Lots of military in the family

My hubby was in the navy during the Vietnam War. He served on an aircraft carrier.

My brother was in the navy on a guided missile cruiser during the Vietnam war.

My dad was in the navy during WWII.

My grandfather was in the army but not during war time.

My grandfather's brother served in the army and died in WWI. He's buried in France. He was only 19-years-old when he was killed.

[Midnight Rambler]

11. Three uncles in Vietnam

Two of them were in the Army. One, who has since passed away, apparently was visibly disturbed by his experiences. When my other uncle gave the eulogy, he remarked that he was never the same person when he came back. The other Army uncle to this day will change the subject when you ask him about the war.

The other uncle of mine who served was in the Air Force. Agent Orange has caught up with him (cancer). He's not looking good, and he may not have much longer. :cry:

[mark414]

13. my great-grandfathers and my grandfather

both my greats made it through the trenches of WWI and my grandfather was in the navy on a boat on the way towards japan when the surrender was announced.

one of my great grandfathers lived to be 101 and died when i was 12, in 1997...he gave me all his old stuff left over from the war; letters, photos, old equipment and shells, etc...lots of great stuff

[BlackVelvetElvis]

14. Mark414, you have a treasure. nt

[DemBones DemBones]

15. My dad was career Navy, served in the South Pacific in WW II,

never talked about it.

After he was dead, his younger brother finished writing a family history he had worked on for years, tracing the family back to the 1500's in England. In the family history, my uncle (Army, served in Japan during the Occupation, too young to get in during the war) wrote about their first cousin, Eddie, an Army medic, Bronze and Silver Star winner, killed and buried "somewhere in Italy." He wrote that Eddie and my dad had been close friends, being the same age.

I never heard my dad speak of Eddie, never knew the story at all. I only knew what a difficult person Uncle Ed (my great uncle) was, how my dad and his brothers tried to avoid Uncle Ed for the most part -- do you suppose Uncle Ed's peculiarities had anything to do with losing his only son in the war? Or my dad's quirks, for that matter; how did it affect him to lose a cousin who was also a friend? :think:

My older brother was a Marine, enlisted during the Korean war, enlisting at 17 1/2, convinced his country needed him as cannon fodder (he actually said this to my parents.) He did three or four tours of duty.

My husband and younger brothers were fortunate enough to draw good numbers in the first draft lottery during the Viet Nam war. My husband had filed for conscientious objector status but no decision was made on his case. My mother, who'd raised us on or near bases all over the U.S. and abroad, and been a good military wife, quickly making every new house into a home, said she'd encourage my brothers to go to Canada if drafted. My father, fed up with the Viet Nam war's immorality, agreed with her on this.

But those who served during the Viet Nam era, including many friends and classmates of mine and of my husband's (notably his best friend David, drafted and sent to Nam), deserve to be honored as much as those who resisted an unjust and illegal war. It was a difficult time to be a man of age for military service, with many having to make a difficult decision.

(It's those who wangled Guard duty back home or extended deferments, phony 4Fs, etc., and who now support war (or, worse, claimed to support one they wouldn't serve in) who are worthy of scorn. Their consciences should plague them but they likely have none!)

Added on Edit: I want to also honor my father-in-law who, during WW II, was drafted at age 28 into the Navy, though he'd been married and a father for years, and had high blood pressure to boot. At his physical, they made him lie down and kept taking his blood pressure until they got a reading low enough to make him draft-worthy! He wasn't happy about leaving his pregnant wife and I'm sure money was a concern (when did the military ever pay what a man was earning in civilan ife?) but he did his duty in a war almost everyone agreed was a just and necessary war. His younger, and yet unmarried, brother also served, but in the Army.

All these old soldiers, sailors, and Marines (except a couple from the Viet Nam generation) are gone now. May they all rest in peace as we remember them this Memorial Day.

[argyl]

16. My uncle Homer flew fifty missions over Germany. The Tuskegee

Airmen escorted his bomber group. He had nothing but praise for them,saying they were as good as the Air Force had.

He was my mother's brother. Her favorite cousin,John Porter, wasn't so fortunate.He was shot down over Germany and his body was never recovered.

My father and his brother were both in the Army,in noncombatant roles.

On Monday December eighth,1941,my Dad and his brother Kenneth were standing in line in Southeastern Kansas to enlist,and several hundred miles south,in Central Texas,my uncle Homer and his cousin John were doing the same.They had plenty of company that day.

[NMMNG]

17. My maternal grandfather

He served in the Army in Korea, and received a Purple Heart. He never talked about it but I recall seeing a plaque on the wall in his house.

My father was in the Navy for several years but he's never talked with me about his service (my parents divorced when I was 3 and my mom got custody of me). I have a Polaroid of my parents on their wedding day, and he is wearing his uniform in that.

[VOX]

18. My Dad served to the rank of captain in the Army Air Corps in WWII...

He attended OCS in Florida in 1943 -- I still have his yearbook. Part of the Technical and Training Command, he was assigned to test aircraft off the lines at Douglas Aircraft in Long Beach and Santa Monica -- where he met my Mom. Hardly the most dangerous assignment of the war, but necessary. My mom used to joke that my dad's "Purple Heart" was the split lip he got while playing handball. :)

I've got a photo of him in a C-47 cockpit, wearing his crush cap and his "pinks," and he looks happy and determined. :thumbsup:

He was a true gentleman, and a terrific person. He passed away suddenly, nearly 25 years ago. I still think of him every day.

[dbt]

19. Dad was devilishly handsome and charming in 1943.

I have a picture of him, taken the very morning he got on the bus to go to Little Rock for his induction physical. He looks like the George Clooney character in O Brother, Where Art Thou.

He was drafted when he was almost thirty and the Army sent him to the South Pacific, to the island of Saipan. He wound up in a hospital in Hawaii with a Purple Heart, two bullet wounds and a battlefield promotion to Sergeant. There were five soldiers in his unit (for lack of an accurate word) left alive. He spent the rest of the war convalescing and never saw battle again, thank Goddess.

I was just a child when I noticed that neat round hole in the upper portion of his right ear. Later he showed me the scar across his chest. MANY years later, it dawned on me that if he'd been standing an inch to the right or an inch farther forward we would have never had such a conversation.

It was not until he became a grandfather that he talked of Saipan at all, and that story lasted maybe fifteen seconds. "They sent the Marines in first," he said, "And they just got chewed up. We went in behind 'em." We got around to the subject of the bullets, and he just drifted off. That was the extent of his reminiscence of World War II; there was never another word spoken of it.

I wish I could have known the prewar version of Dad. Word is, he cut quite a swath through the young ladies of a small Arkansas town "back before the war." After he died, I found another picture of him before he was a soldier, wearing a double breasted suit and a sharp fedora.

"Whoa," said my son. "Pawpaw was cool!"