Their service to our nation was often unbelievable, let’s make it unforgettable

I once stood on the deck of an aircraft carrier in Norfolk, Virginia. I have been to Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, Fort Rucker, Alabama, and Williams Air Force Base near Phoenix. For 14 months, I lived at Jacksonville Naval Air Station, on the banks of the St. Johns Rivers.

But I never had my own wardrobe of Navy blue or Army green. I never had to rise for reveille, march in formation or fire an M16 at someone who shot back.

I never parachuted out of an airplane over enemy territory, stormed beachheads or waded through rice paddies on the other side of the world. I never have crawled into a foxhole or learned how to spit-shine my boots. I never got a “Dear John” letter, dined on C-rations or marched into battle with a Bible in my backpack.

I have no rank or serial number. No medals in a shadow box. No war stories to tell my grandchildren.

There is no sense of regret, though, because I have been surrounded by a legacy of military service. I am proud to be part of a family of veterans. My father was a Navy man who served his country in two wars. My brother flew B-52s out of Fairchild Air Force Base in Spokane. My sister’s patriotism was stirred during Desert Storm. She became a Navy nurse in San Diego, where she met her future husband, an officer who later worked at the Pentagon.

This is my pedigree.

When I turned 18, I registered with the selective service. Although time and circumstance passed me by, I still would have served had my draft number been called.

The only time I got to “wear’’ the uniform – and I treasure this memory – was when I had a newspaper internship at The Columbus Enquirer the summer before my senior year of college.

I spent six days at a Junior ROTC boot camp at Fort Benning and wrote about my experiences. I slept in the barracks, ate in the mess hall, parachuted from a buddy seat at the top of a 250-foot tower and found my way out of the deep woods and swamp with a terrain map and a compass.

My tour of duty has since been stationed on the pages of this newspaper, telling the stories of men and women of the armed forces. I have been an embedded journalist on the home front. My bullets were marks in the margins and words in the cross hairs of a profession filled with deadlines.

At a Chinese restaurant in Warner Robins, I once sat and listened to retired Gen. Robert L. Scott. He was perhaps the greatest World War II hero this area has ever known, a man who wrote books and had a movie made about his life. I think of him every time I travel the stretch of Ga. 247 near the Museum of Aviation that is named in his honor.

I have known retired Maj. David Carter, a former Macon mayor and councilman, for almost as long as I have lived in Macon. He was among the first members of what became the Army’s Special Forces during the Korean War. In 28 years at Lanier and Central high schools, he was commanding officer and senior Army instructor at one of the nation’s largest ROTC programs.

It has been an honor to know Macon’s Fred Johnson, too. He is 104 years old and one of the nation’s oldest survivors of Pearl Harbor. I have stood in Linwood Cemetery at the grave of Sgt. Rodney Davis, Macon’s only Medal of Honor recipient. He fell on a grenade, saving the lives of men in his company in Vietnam. I never knew Davis but have met many of the soldiers whose lives he saved with his act of heroism.

I was proud of my longtime friendship with Macon’s Wiley Baxter, who lost part of his right leg on a battlefield in France, then came home to be immortalized by his brother-in-law, Johnny Hart, as the peg-legged caveman character in the comic strip “B.C.”

I once visited with the late Fred Baker, of Warner Robins, the last of six brothers called to duty during WWII — a Baker’s half-dozen scattered across two fronts in three different branches of the military. Down in Abbeville, Bill Sutton shared with me the story of being the baby of a “Band of Brothers” who served in WWII, Korea and Vietnam. I once wrote about Macon’s Leon Howard, who watched the flag go up at Iwo Jima.

Macon’s Fred Black died on Dec. 20, 1940, almost a year before Pearl Harbor. He was 29 years old when he was fatally shot after pulling over an escaped convict near Ringgold. He was the first Georgia State Patrol trooper killed in the line of duty. The interchange at I-16 and Ocmulgee East Boulevard was named in his honor in 2013.

But here is his “veterans” story. His widow, Juanita Stokes Black, never remarried. After her husband’s death, she served with the Works Progress Administration at Fort Benning, training women to sew parachutes and military uniforms. (She also worked with two famous WWII generals – George Patton and Omar Bradley.)

I have interviewed veterans who spent years in POW camps. I have seen them pull out Purple Hearts and watched them overcome with emotion as they recounted their experiences.

Monday is Veterans Day. The mail won’t run. The banks will be closed. There will be a handful of ceremonies honoring veterans across the city and state.

It truly is a day of gratitude, weeks before Thanksgiving Day.

If you see a veteran, shake their hand or hug their neck.

Thank them for their service.

We are here because they were there.

Ed Grisamore teaches journalism at Stratford Academy in Macon. His column appears on Sundays in The Telegraph.

This story was originally published November 10, 2019 at 6:00 AM.