{"id":7754,"date":"2013-11-11T15:36:13","date_gmt":"2013-11-11T15:36:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ramworks.net\/blog\/?p=7754"},"modified":"2023-04-22T16:27:35","modified_gmt":"2023-04-22T16:27:35","slug":"the-vet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/empty-cases.com\/blog\/the-vet\/","title":{"rendered":"The Vet"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Dad,<\/a>
Dad, Fort Knox, KY. Circa June 1950<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A mountain boy, he grew up in a hillside community where all he had to look forward to was driving a coal truck. He spent his spare time hunting quail along a rocky creek bank with a single-barreled shotgun that would come apart every time it was fired. When he turned 17 he lied about his age and joined the Army, like his brothers had done in WW II.<\/p>\n

When he arrived art Fort Knox, Kentucky, they said his teeth were bad so they pulled them all in 2 days.\u00a0About a month later he was selected to attend OCS (Officer Training School) but the Korean War broke out and he was told he was going to be an infantryman and was going to fight the communists.<\/p>\n

He wrote his mom letters almost every day. Telling her about the war and about how he wished he were home. He was sort of the platoon sharpshooter and then a squad leader. He got shot in the wrist and they gave him a Purple Heart. He stayed in the fight with a bandage on his arm and kept eating frozen C-rations without any teeth.<\/p>\n

Then one day, during a hard push, he was on the rear deck of a tank firing the .50 caliber machine gun mounted on the turret. A bullet hit him in the center of his left thigh, he fell backward, and his captain caught him just as another bullet entered his chest, exited under his right arm, and then passed through his captain\u2019s forearm. The war was over for this mountain boy.<\/p>\n

Stateside, he spent three years in an Army hospital. He did finally get some false teeth but they told him he might never walk again. That was unacceptable so he worked hard and learned to walk with one leg three inches shorter than the other.\u00a0He also met a young lady and when he walked out of the ward at Fort Pickett, Virginia, they got married.<\/p>\n

Dedication and the GI Bill gave him an education. A strong work ethic\u00a0put him in the public school system where he became a guidance counselor. In that position he advised many young men from the community where he grew up on the importance of having the right attitude, on working hard, and how that still\u00a0meant something is this world.<\/p>\n

12 years later he would begin teaching those same lessons to his son. He also taught his son how to shoot, how to hunt, and about the importance of serving your country. His son learned to shoot, learned to hunt, \u00a0got his own set of combat boots, and passed those same lessons on to that Korean veteran\u2019s grandkids.<\/p>\n