They are almost all gone...

DZAUTO said:

Similar with my dad. He was in the Navy in WWII. I do not know what he went through, but I know if was horribly bad. I could NEVER get him to tell me about his experiences.
Looking back, I feel sure he was a candidate for PTSD, because even though he became moderately successful in civilian employment until he died, I remember times (he never knew I was listening) that he spoke harshly about some of the crap he put up with at work.
My family has a good military back ground. Below is Daddy, Me and one of my sons who is today a very successful engineer. He served 2 tours in the Gulf on the carrier Kitty Hawk.
The bottom picture is my uncle (Mom's older brother). He was a B17 pilot. He talked very little about his missions. About the ONLY thing I ever got out of him was that one day he got back on 2 engines and on that mission all of his crew survived. Never learned much more from him.
I have to say, the older I get, the more I understand how those vets felt about their experiences. I will not talk to my kids about my time in Nam.
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dadsfiveseven said:

My grandfather was a WWII vet. He served in one of the early Navy CB units in the Pacific. I have his flag, his "cruise" book, and a bunch of old photos that he and his friends took while in the Pacific. He never really spoke about his service to anyone, not even very much to my grandmother. When I asked her about it, she just said that he didn't talk about it, but had mentioned something about building a bridge for a bomb. He was in the Pacific, in a CB unit that spent time in Hawaii and the Marianas islands, and his cruise book mentions missions that cannot be written down. Pretty sure that his unit must have been the group who unloaded the A-bombs from the ship to Tinian island, and built the airfields there. I need to get in touch with a CB museum and see what records I can find for his unit. One thing on my bucket list is getting to Tinian to see what's left of the airfields and the pits they used to load the A-bombs into the aircraft.

I have been to Japan, and visited Nagasaki a couple of times with several of my co-workers. It's a very somber place, especially at the museum and at the hypocenter. We did have one older gentleman giving us a strange look while we were there. I nodded to him out of respect and went on with what I was doing. He appeared to be old enough to be a WWII veteran at the time.

My uncle (Dad's younger brother) is a Vietnam veteran. He really doesn't talk about his time in the service, either. I know that his barracks were bombed one night, and he lost a few friends that night. I sit quietly and listen when he does talk about it, though those times are few and far between. I still have the little camo pants and shirt that he sent me while he was there. He's dealing with some health issues now, likely from the Agent Orange.

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koolminx said:

Dadsfiveseven!
I have been a Navy Seabee since 7-27-85. I am in contact with all of my surviving brothers and almost thousands more via Facebook and one of my shipmates I served with in ACB1 back in the early 90's, he is an absolute Genius on veterans, and he visits them very often and promotes gatherings here in the Pacific Northwest, another fellow shipmate much older than I, Normand DuPuis, is an active veteran that promotes Sea Bee gatherings across the USA as he travels back and forth across the Unites States.

I am 100% positive that between all the gathered knowledge and history that "someone" will know some of what he experienced and possibly even knew him. I'm aware of several WWII Seabee survivors, we just lost one last week at the ripe age of 102 or there abouts. Our big brothers are fading fast after all these years of being Plank owners of our Creation on March 5th 1942.

I would love to know more.

My Fellow Tri Fivers, ALWAYS tell the stories! Tell them long enough that our youth remember to tell them to their youth! Keep our history ALIVE!

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dadsfiveseven said:

My grandfather was a WWII vet. He served in one of the early Navy CB units in the Pacific. I have his flag, his "cruise" book, and a bunch of old photos that he and his friends took while in the Pacific. He never really spoke about his service to anyone, not even very much to my grandmother. When I asked her about it, she just said that he didn't talk about it, but had mentioned something about building a bridge for a bomb. He was in the Pacific, in a CB unit that spent time in Hawaii and the Marianas islands, and his cruise book mentions missions that cannot be written down. Pretty sure that his unit must have been the group who unloaded the A-bombs from the ship to Tinian island, and built the airfields there. I need to get in touch with a CB museum and see what records I can find for his unit. One thing on my bucket list is getting to Tinian to see what's left of the airfields and the pits they used to load the A-bombs into the aircraft.

I have been to Japan, and visited Nagasaki a couple of times with several of my co-workers. It's a very somber place, especially at the museum and at the hypocenter. We did have one older gentleman giving us a strange look while we were there. I nodded to him out of respect and went on with what I was doing. He appeared to be old enough to be a WWII veteran at the time.

My uncle (Dad's younger brother) is a Vietnam veteran. He really doesn't talk about his time in the service, either. I know that his barracks were bombed one night, and he lost a few friends that night. I sit quietly and listen when he does talk about it, though those times are few and far between. I still have the little camo pants and shirt that he sent me while he was there. He's dealing with some health issues now, likely from the Agent Orange.

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United States Navy Seabee Museum

www.history.navy.mil