I met a 97 year old WWII/Vietnam Vet this weekend

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Or the shite he’s done “off the books”

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This. Dad (who passed this year) was commanding a USMC special weapons squadron (nukes) based in Miami during the time that the Cuban missile crisis arose. I was reviewing his flight logs over the weekend - every day they went out for "training." A week before the Cuban Missile Crisis itself the log entries end. They start back up about ten days after the Cuban Missile Crisis resolved itself.

I'd love to know what went on during the gap in coverage.

Met Col. Ed Shames, one of the Band of Brothers, at the WWII museum in New Orleans, which was pretty cool. Took some pics with him along with my son and got a book autographed. He was in remarkably good health for his age and still appears to be around.

God bless that man. I had a great great uncle who fought in both WWII (served under Patton) and Korea. I met him as a kid but has since passed. I’m friends with his daughter on FB (whom I never met) and she post pictures of him during the time he served. Very cool

My late father-in-law joined the Navy in 42 at age 16 and served in the Pacific arena, eventually guiding the landing craft to a lot of the island beaches that the Marines were tasked with taking. He got out without a single scratch physically, but talking to my brothers-in-law, the old man NEVER talked about his time in the Navy other than he served.

How bout these two interesting bits of ww2 history tied to BR Area, Band of Brothers, and The Pacific.

Eugene Roe "Doc" from Band of Brothers is Buried in Baton Rouge

and

Snafu Shelton from The Pacific Settled in St Francisville and Buried there

A morbid association comes from an older guy on Old Pics of Baton Rouge Facebook group that said that Snafu's house was the very one that Derrick Todd Lee lived in when he was caught. I did some digging and addresses for Snafu appear to be very close(his grave is also a few hundred yards away) to where Derrick Todd Lee lived But I'm not so sure it's the same house just north of Thompson's Creek on 61.

My BIL was in the navy on P3 recon flights over cuba. They flew a circle around the island with fighter cover above. They were constantly searching for russian missle bases, fighters & subs. The tension was unbearable, they knew the world hung in the balance but had no hesitation to drop nukes.
He said they would land, refuel & go again. There was no time off...no breaks, no naps, no off time. They made it on coffee, cigarettes & sheer guts. Nobody bitched or complained about working hours or how hard it was. They were given a mission & they determined that they would not fail. The world was depending on them. I thank God for every one of those men.
When it ended he said the cheering & tears & relief was indescribable. They faced down the Soviet Union at he height of its power...and won. "They skulked back to mother frickin' russia(my BIL's words) with their tail between their legs! "
He said they knew then the Soviets would fall, just a matter of time.
People now have no clue just how close we came to annihilation & how terrifying that must have been.

As a kid in the 70s, our next door neighbor was a veteran of the Great War.
Mister Kelly also retired from the railroad.
He was tough as a hogs snout, put us kids to work and tipped the garbage men.

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you never can tell who is for real or not.

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I'm 66 and my dad and just about all my uncles and their peers were either in WWII or Korea, and sometimes both. I really don't recall any war stories being told when I was coming up other than that they served and what branch they were in, but never any details of action they saw and for sure, the horrors of war they saw.

A good friend of mine, now deceased, was a Nam vet and he absolutely hated the yahoos that pretend they served and spout on and on about where they saw action, how many VC they killed, etc.

He was devastated when he found out a guy we became friends with had lied about being in the service and in Nam during the Tet Offensive. The guy had his story down pat, but what gave him away was he died suddenly and when my buddy contacted his wife about funeral arrangements and maybe getting VA help, it was then she told him her husband had never been in the military and had lied about it all those years.

That is why "Stolen Valor" is such a big thing to many people.

lol...it looks like some salty weekend warrior is on down vote patrol..they must be mad that they can't share their "super top secret" missions here today