Welcome Home in Carthage, Texas

[reliquary]

I've only browsed here here before, and wanted to acknowledge the recent efforts of our local community in welcoming home our returning troops.  Here, the family and friends and the local motorcycle patriots make a caravan with flags flying, the local deputies and police escort them in with reds & blues flashing, folks are out on the streets with "welcome home signs". 
 
Google Panolawatchman.com for articles and photos, and tell them "thanks".
 
Then I read down further in this forum and found the things written by AtlLaw and others in "45 years ago today", posted last year.  In the course of a career as an MP, I served one tour in RVN, '69-'70, and am still in awe at the courage of those who fought in the air and on the ground.  Y'all make the few little skirmishes we had on convoy runs seem even more miniscule than they really were.
 
Welcome home, brothers.  It's a lot different out there now, isn't it?

[BBF]

........................
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.......It's a lot different out there now, isn't it?

That part of your post made me think.
How weird is it when a son wears a uniform very different from his father's when their respective countries were bent on mutual destruction. 

[reliquary]

Scatterbrain...
 
I'm having a senior moment and am not quite sure what you're getting at.  In the course of my life, I've met some of what I think you're talking about:
 
a guy who was at Normandy as a German feldwebel (roughly a staff sergeant) had a son who served in the US Army at the same time as I did in RVN.
 
the son of an East German soldier (I forgot what rank Dad was) who escaped to the West and served in the US Army.
 
one child of an Okinawan conscript into the Japanese army who served a tour in the US Army.
 
The real kicker was a guy who served as a conscript in the German army who later went into the French Foreign Legion and then into the US Army.
 
 

[Dinny]

It's a lot different out there now, isn't it?

My take on this may be different than others... Life is indeed much different after a combat tour. I grew up immensely during my year in the sandbox. I guess it's inevitable, especially when you're a busy medic...


Thanks for the recognition of our efforts, I just wish you would have received the same warm welcome we are now.




Thanks, Dinny

[BBF]

Scatterbrain...
 
I'm having a senior moment and am not quite sure what you're getting at.  In the course of my life, I've met some of what I think you're talking about:
 
a guy who was at Normandy as a German feldwebel (roughly a staff sergeant) had a son who served in the US Army at the same time as I did in RVN.
 
the son of an East German soldier (I forgot what rank Dad was) who escaped to the West and served in the US Army.
 
one child of an Okinawan conscript into the Japanese army who served a tour in the US Army.
 
The real kicker was a guy who served as a conscript in the German army who later went into the French Foreign Legion and then into the US Army.

 
You figured it out pretty well. My father served in the Wehrmacht as a conscipt I served in the US Army.
 
This guy you mentioned in the last part of your post wrote a book titled "The Forgotten Soldier" if I am thinking of the same guy.

[reliquary]

Hey, Scatterbrain-
 
We PM'd a couple of times and then I lost track of this thread.  Sorry about that.  I admire you for serving this country and your dad for serving his.
 
The guy I met in RVN started out as a Polish conscript; if I remember correctly, his last name had been shortened to Borodny.  Maybe Frank for a first name.  I've Googled it but got no hits. There was an article on him in the Pacific Stars & Stripes, but they're archived and cost to search.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

[streak]

I've only browsed here here before, and wanted to acknowledge the recent efforts of our local community in welcoming home our returning troops.  Here, the family and friends and the local motorcycle patriots make a caravan with flags flying, the local deputies and police escort them in with reds & blues flashing, folks are out on the streets with "welcome home signs".
 
 
 
 
 
 
Google Panolawatchman.com for articles and photos, and tell them "thanks".
 
Then I read down further in this forum and found the things written by AtlLaw and others in "45 years ago today", posted last year.  In the course of a career as an MP, I served one tour in RVN, '69-'70, and am still in awe at the courage of those who fought in the air and on the ground.  Y'all make the few little skirmishes we had on convoy runs seem even more miniscule than they really were.
 
Welcome home, brothers.  It's a lot different out there now, isn't it?

Great to hear Carthage is a patriotic town!
I started to school in 1947-48 in Carthage and I thought it was a pretty neat place, I am sure it has changed a bunch since I left there in 1948!

[reliquary]

Hey, Streak-
 
We've only lived here for a few years.  It's "smalltown Texas" at its best, in many ways.  I was born and raised in an adjoining county, moved away after HS, and just came back to the area after retiring from the Army in '86.  The Carthage water supply is a nice ~3600-acre public lake, and we moved onto it after retiring from a second career.
 
Panolawatchman.com has some archives and links that would let you see some of the changes, if you have the time.  Some of the sites have the old school yearbooks online...if you have the nerve, you might find yourself.
 
There are a great many lifelong residents here, most of whom are conservative Christians.  Y'all come!