Memorial Weekend · Freight Group

Memorial Weekend

I would like to share a personal story about my Family and being in the Military.

I share this story with my employees when they cry and complain about their job and how hard it is! and how hard their job is compared to others in the company.

Had a family reunion quite a while back I will never forget the conversation all of us military folks had about how tough our roles in the military were.

My Grandfather (Pictured far right) was a reconnaissance photographer in the Army Air Corp during WW II. He is featured in a few books about the battles in the Pacific. My Grandfather held the job that had the highest mortality rate in the service.

There were over 100 men who held this job and only 2 survived through the whole war, and my Grandfather was one of them. Being a photographer does not sound hard until you hear him tell everyone at the reunion what it truly entailed.

The camera in the picture in front of these guys weighs over 100 lbs ea.

Grandpa would hold that camera while strapped to the top of the inside of the airplane, they would open the bomb doors and while he was hanging there, his job was to snap pictures of what they were going to bomb. He was always the First plane in the squadron of bombers.

This wasn't the dangerous part, the danger came for this group of brave men when that first airplane would circle back around after all the other airplanes dropped their bombs and go over the area again to take pictures to show what damage the drop had caused.

At this point the people on the ground are pretty pissed and sending everything they had left up into the sky to shoot down the plane, this is when most of these men met their tragic fate.

At the reunion my grandpa said he had the most difficult and dangerous job in the service.

My Uncle Donnie started talking and stated his job in the service during Vietnam was harder then that!

My Grandfather said "Donnie you never even went to Vietnam and you were an Officer"

Your right, but I would take your job in a minute over mine.

My job was to inform Mothers and Fathers that the lives of their children had been taken over in Vietnam. I saw pain and Heartache every day. I had to present the Flag to people who had lost their only children over in that war.

He had many of us in tears.

All I could do was turn to my Grandpa and say "Yep give me that Camera and strap me up in the plane because I just don't want to do what Uncle Donnie had to do"

And this is the story I tell my troops here at Gateway when they complain they have the hardest job!

Both my Grandfather and Uncle Donnie are Buried in the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific.

I hope you all have a blessed Memorial Weekend.

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