Hidden Heroes of the Military

[George]

Have you ever known an individual from your past who had a distinguished military record including combat tours who was unassuming?  I knew a family friend, CDR Marvin Quaid USN, who took me flying in his Stearman  over the skies of Monterey County down to Big Sur when I was a teenager.  I knew he served in Korea and Vietnam flying off of aircraft carriers but what I didn't know (until sometime later) was distinguished naval aviator earning  the Silver Star, five Distinguished Flying Crosses, the Bronze Star Medal with combat V, twenty-nine Air Medals, three Navy Commendation Medals with combat V, and various theater ribbons.  He wrote co-authored an article Scooter Memories: Flying the A-4 Skyhawk in Vietnam  (https://www.flightjournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/Scooter-Memories-FJ-413.pdf) discussing his experience in combat.  Marvin is still alive and well at 91 in Monterey and lived a remarkable life serving his country.

[LSP_K2]

I've met a few over the years. Unless the specific subject comes up in normal conversation, you'd never know of their unique past, pretty much like everyone else you meet.

[Oldbaldguy]

Lived around these guys all my life and in most cases had no idea.  Just another day on the job.  I think the most remarkable story about this was by Top Gear’s Jeremy Clarkson.  His father in law was awarded the Victoria Cross for action in WW2 but no one in his wife’s family knew.  As he put it, it just never came up.

[John1]

Have a good friend who was a Marine who was wounded at Chosin Reservoir.   Never said a word about it except to say how cold it was.    Funny story - he went on to do a great deal of business in China.   At one meeting over there, a person his age approached him and asked if he was in the Korean War.  He answered that he was.   Come to find out that this gentleman served in the Chinese PLA in the war and was also wounded.  He asked in jest if maybe it was my friend who shot him.   My friend replied “If I was doing the shooting, you wouldn’t be sitting here at the table right now”.   They both had a good laugh and had a toast in each other’s honor.  

[vince14]

One of my grandfathers served on the HMS Rodney when it was involved in the Bismark sinking, and the other was in the 5th Parachute Brigade and parachuted into Normandy on D-Day. Neither really talked about their experiences.

Edited January 10, 2021 by vince14

[LSP_K2]

I do recall one very specific incident now. A good friend, an older man, years and years ago, was sitting in a chair talking to me, and wearing shorts for the first time that I ever recalled. There was a huge, ugly scar on his left leg, and I asked him about it. He proceeded to tell me that he was wounded in France by a mortar round. Nothing really unusual about that, I initially thought, until I realized that at his age at the time, it could not have been WWII he was referring to. I asked "you mean WWI?", and he replied yes, WWI. Needless to say I was quite stunned by this revelation, and he then told me the whole gruesome story. Interesting stuff right there.

[Jack]

They call it the "great generation", people who lived thru WW2 and sometimes talked about it, and i witnessed such a man from my birthdate on.....my father, who was "drafted" in Poland at the outbreak of the war, endured the russian camps in Siberia as prisoner of war, lateron divisions were formed under russian "supervision" and eventually transferred to the british army system to fight in Palestina and in Italy (battle of Monte Cassino), second polish army division under command of general Anders.

As a child of 6 years old, i often was witness of his nightmares, but he hardly talked about what happened in that era, he passed away in 1982, i still miss him........

 

[Cicchino]

I worked for a man in the early 80s who was a paratrooper with the 504th PIR in WWII; he was wounded at Salerno and sent home. Sharing an office with him for two years, all he spoke about was he jumped with 92lbs of gear. Never a word about anything else. Ernie Wilensky, died just a few years ago. 

[LSP_Mike]

I knew a plank owner fron USS Hornet CV 12. Helped me a great deal when I reall needed it. I still have a Katana he gave me.

I think about these guys more as I get older.

[Pete Fleischmann]

Our own Timmy! Earned the Marine Corps medal for valor.

he’s the real deal.

 

cheers

 

Pete

[Basta]

My grandfather came to the US from Poland as a small child with my maternal great grandparents at the turn of the twentieth century. He enlisted in the Polish cavalry in the Great War and won the equivalent of the CMoH for outstanding valor. He survived the war and returned and married and had a family and was a professional violinist. He never spoke of the war to them other than to say that he had served. When he died, my grandmother discovered his medals and the citation in his papers; needless to say they were all rather stunned by the revelation. 

Edited January 11, 2021 by Basta
Typo

[MikeC]

Apparently the RAF just used to dish out DFCs at random, or so I was told by someone I knew who had one.  Sadly, he never did tell me what he actually won it for.