mil. star question

544 Views 7 Replies 5 Participants Last post by hotbarrel, Oct 22, 2004

hotbarrel

Discussion Starter · Oct 21, 2004

I was not in the military so I have a question for someone that is more familiar with this.
A littel background first, my farther was in WW11, he NEVER would talk about the war EVER NEVER. Till I got married then he was able to bond with my wife and he started talking to her. He told her things the second time we had a family dinner togeather, things he never told ANY of us. it was intresting to listen. he was a bit open with my wife and they shared stories. it was amaizing to listen to. well we all had a family dinner tonight and we ended up talking about the war again. tonight they had some of the standard small talk we heard before. then he mentioned a diery he kept and mentioned something that SHOCKED ME. The moment he said it aloud , it became clear he was overcome with emotion and onyl said he could not talk about it anymore, ,, later on he said he would never be able to tell us the details of either event because thinking about any of it brings back all of it. CLEARLY it was more than he should have to deal with at this point.
What he told us was that he had earned a BRONZE STAR AND A SILVER STAR in the war. nobody in my family had any idea of this, he has had a small box hidden with his books and other stuff in it. I hope he will share that with us at some time.
will someone PLEASE tell me what is involved in earning thies stars. I assume they are not an everyday thing. Can anyone PLEASE tell me ware I may get any more info. IE military records anything. clearly at his age we have littel time left to find out from him and it is just too much for him to bring back.

He told my wife 4 years ago he was on an LST and involved in sixteen invasions. .... A guy at work told me a LST had a 4 hour average life in battel, and a man had an average life of 30 seconds after the door fell open. he went in sixteen times.. holy shit

I realize that I can not even comprehend things he had to have seen and gone through. just too much.
any help will be apprecieted thanks hotbarrel

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Sangrun Hunter

· #2 · Oct 21, 2004

Did he fight in the Pacific?

Anyway, if your Dad got a Bronze star and a Silver star he is one bad hombre or a good guy depending on what did who you would ask.

Those are 2 of the higher medals a soldier can get.

Here are some links to start

http://www.defenselink.mil/specials/ribbons/

http://www.homeofheroes.com/medals/pages_wh/10_bronzestar.html

http://usmilitary.about.com/od/medalsanddecs/

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hotbarrel

Discussion Starter · #3 · Oct 21, 2004

yes he was in the Pacific. I went to see some of the places he was, try to find some of the beaches, and jungels, and that is ware I met my now wife.
when I told him I met a woman their he replied "wouldnt it be funny if her mother was realy your sister" .. we both laughed. I guess the native people were VERRY appreciative when our men drove the ***panees OUT.
I think our marage gave a new value to the sacrofice he made a long time ago, he realy can talk to her.. maby she reminds him of someone ..... Hmmm

thanks for the links sag.

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Triangle 66

· #4 · Oct 21, 2004

Slightly off topic , but I have had relatives and people I've known that were in combat , taken prisoner , etc. and to a man the will say NOTHING about that time period.

Usually,when the subject comes up , they get an odd look on their face , sort of a sweep of emotion , and you can almost see the tears coming and then the instant change of subject.

Discussing of the matter seems to be limited to times when only others , "who've been there" are present.

The slightly off topic subject is the perfect easy with which John Kerry seems to blithely bring up his "heroism". Even politicians such as John McCain seem to still have that "deer in the headlights" look. It just makes you wonder.

It sounds as if your father E-A-R-N-E-D his medals.

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cammobunker

· #5 · Oct 21, 2004

Hotbarrel, you don't say if your dad was Army or Marines. If you will share this with us, and some of those places where you went where he went too, I can help you with the history of some of those places. PM me if you don't want to publicly advertise this info. I'm a history junkie and I can pretty much tell you a history of those battles. The Pacific saw some of the most savage fighting of the war, and just *surviving* 16 landings is a pretty big deal. They didn't just give out Silver Stars like crackerjack prizes either.

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Sangrun Hunter

· #6 · Oct 21, 2004

Cephus,

I was thinking the same thing about the keeping to himself thing.

My uncle has stayed quiet about many of his experiences in Nam until about 10 years ago. He was in the bad stuff with the Marines and what little he does say is harry stuff. Since Kerrry came out to run, one thing he did say was he could have 2 purple hearts of his own, but refused them as was tradition. Man! Is he mad about Kerry!

My father inlaw was there too and will not speak of it at all. He was in the Army for 2 years before going to Nam. He came back not a nice person for a while as we have heard. I told my wife that her Dad must have seen some bad stuff over there. She said no, he was a Mechanic. He was a Mechanic trained in the Army and a cook before that. I told her he saw more than broken vehicles in Nam to get that way because he won't even acknowledge his time over there. His bother was an Airforce mechanic and went there too, but he can't stop running his mouth about it. My wife's uncle is a blowhard of course and his service was noble, but I bet my father inlaw saw some bad stuff.

Some people see stuff that they can never come to terms with and if they do it will practically kill them. I have another relative that had to come to terms with trauma inflicted upon them by a family member when they were growing up. It has just about killed them and it has made a different person.

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hcpookie

· #7 · Oct 21, 2004

My grandfather NEVER talked about anything before he passed away. We have a PRISTENE Nazi military police ceremonial bayonet and he never told anyone how he got it.

All we have been able to figure out is that he was on the 2nd wave of Omaha Beach (!!!) and served under Patton. I recall he mentioned about crossing the Rhine when I did a family tree in junior high.

My Dad searched around and found you can get some military record information directly from the military. You'd have to call around to find the unit he was in, and from there you can track the unit's service record (where they went and stuff like that).

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hotbarrel

Discussion Starter · #8 · Oct 22, 2004

cammobunker. PM sent.
here is a neat storie he has told us a few times. he said his typ boat had NO gun on the back they were basicaly wide open from the back. the ***s found out about this and took advantage of the fact. SSOOOoo the captain of his boat won a 20mm cannon in a card game from an army guy. they welded it to the back of the boat and SHOT BACK. supprizeing the hell out of a bunch of zero's. his story continues with how much the bronze breach weighed and they had to cut the gun off and dump it in the sea before they got all the way back to pearl. thanks for the posts and other stories everyone. HB

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