I came "of age" at the end of the Vietnam War. My draft lottery number was 105, and that last year of the draft they only got to 89, so I never served.
I feel like I am making up for that now, as I work for the US Navy. I have learned a lot since I started working at Naval Support Activity Mid-South last June.
A little over a year ago my daughter's boyfriend's father died in his sleep. Tom was a retired LCDR (Lieutenant Commander) in the Navy, having enlisted as an E1, worked his way up, got commissioned as an officer (a Mustang Officer in military parlance), and rose to LCDR (Major in the Army).
At the burial he was accorded full military honors, including a 21 gun salute and Taps. I cried at the beauty of the ceremony. (I'm kind of teary now.) What really broke me down was when the leader of the flag folding team took the flag, with the 21 shell casings from the salute tucked inside, and said something to the effect of, "The President of the United States wished to present you with this flag, and the shell casings fired over your husband's final resting place, in gratitude for his service - and your's - to the United States of America." That's when I lost it.
Two months later I was working at NSA Mid-South, and who was working in the same building as me, but the two sailors who had done the flag ceremony. I thought, while I was watching it, that that was what they did in the Navy. I was wrong.
DC1 Rex Barnes, the leader, is a Damage Controllman First Class. He was just filling a shore billet, and is now back with the fleet. His assistant, MA3 Allison Curtis is still with us, but her real job is Master at Arms, a cop. Her current billet is training Honor Guards.
To know these people, and to work with them every day, is to know that our people in uniform are the finest in the world. You can't imagine the pride I feel to serve with these people every day.
Edited by: PeterZ
