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A veterans day valentine
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here's bob. "neighbor bob." he's 3mo shy of 95. he was 78 years old when monty and i moved to The Compound. monty is my next door neighbor, and bob's property abuts both of our parcels.

bob was drafted at 18 years old, in 1942. his high school, in dodge city, kansas, graduated out about a dozen boys who got drafted (most of the class). bob was drafted into the army but was asked, after basic training, if he wanted to go into the army air force. here's bob below. i took him out to lunch as is my habit and monty's (the day before monty took him to breakfast).



bob began as a flight instructor, flying the T-6. i asked him how many pilots he taught to fly. "25" (bob's sharp as a tack, and remembers WWII exactly).

then he was put into the cockpit of the B-29, and flew those over the pacific. i asked him all the usual questions. "did you know tibbets?" "no. he was before me. by the time i was in the B29 the war had just ended."

just because they weren't shooting at him, it's not as if bob's service wasn't perilous. the B29 had a nasty habit of losing engines during flight, which happened to him, inconvenient when flying from hawaii to guam and similar long runs over open ocean.

half of the dozen who got drafted out of bob's HS class was lost in the war. his best HS friend died aboard the USS liscome bay, a transport carrier, when it was sunk off the gilbert islands.

of the 16 million WWII veterans in the US, about 1 million were alive in 2014. half that number are alive today.

i asked bob yesterday if he thinks he could still fly a T-6 if he was plopped into the cockpit today. bob's quite a humble guy about his abilities, probably overly so. he thought about it for a minute and said, "yes." and then took another bite of his sandwich.

Dan Empfield
aka Slowman
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Re: A veterans day valentine [Slowman] [ In reply to ]
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Please thank him for his service for me and tell him that I expect to see him at women’s camp next April 😉

DFL > DNF > DNS
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Re: A veterans day valentine [Slowman] [ In reply to ]
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Dan thank you for recognizing a member of the Greatest Generation.

Suffer Well.
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Re: A veterans day valentine [SallyShortyPnts] [ In reply to ]
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SallyShortyPnts wrote:
Please thank him for his service for me and tell him that I expect to see him at women’s camp next April 😉

i will do that. by the way, his very first words when he first met monty and me 16 years ago: "there goes the neighborhood."

Dan Empfield
aka Slowman
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Re: A veterans day valentine [Slowman] [ In reply to ]
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Thank you for sharing and caring.
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Re: A veterans day valentine [Slowman] [ In reply to ]
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Dan, Monty Great story. Thank you.

All I Wanted Was A Pepsi, Just One Pepsi

Team Zoot, Team Zoot Mid-Atlantic

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Re: A veterans day valentine [Billabong] [ In reply to ]
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Billabong wrote:
Dan, Monty Great story. Thank you.


Yeah, Dan and Monty. Thanks!

Those WWII vets are a national treasure, pure and simple.

"Politics is just show business for ugly people."
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Re: A veterans day valentine [Slowman] [ In reply to ]
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That's a cool story. It is sad how fast we are losing the WWII generation.

___________________________________________________
Taco cat spelled backwards is....taco cat.
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Re: A veterans day valentine [Slowman] [ In reply to ]
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Ya, old Bob remembers every detail of the old days, and he is pretty good with recent events. Every time I take him out for lunch though, his first comments are to apologize because he is so frail, and he might have some medical event in my presence. And then I remind him that I was a medic for 30 years and it won't be a problem, and we get on with our usual conversations about this and that.

I feel bad for him because he puts so much focus on the fact that he is the last man standing in his circle(well he has one old cop buddy who is barley hanging on). I just like to point out that Bob Hope and George Burns were just hitting their strides at 95, so chin up soldier!

I did have one success in my previous visit, got him to go to the dentist for a tooth that was black. He showed it to me and asked me if I thought it was anything, I said its BLACK Bob!!!! And then he recounts the story of a friend that died in a dentist chair. And I have to remind him that he has had friends die just about everywhere, cannot plan the rest of your life avoiding all those obstacles..I'm gonna look pretty bad though if he doesn't come back from that dentist this week....

Not too many of these guys left anymore, were pretty lucky to have one next door and still with his wits about him..
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Re: A veterans day valentine [Slowman] [ In reply to ]
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Nice job.
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Re: A veterans day valentine [Slowman] [ In reply to ]
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👍👍
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