This one goes out to every aging child who, come Veterans Day, misses the old man (or old lady, for that matter).
Or maybe you just miss Steve Goodman.
Tags: Col. Harold Joseph O'Grady, Steve Goodman, Veterans Day
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Mad Blog Media 
November 11, 2019 at 6:46 am |
Old man, old lady, uncles, friends, etc. Yep. They did all just fade away, didn’t they?
November 11, 2019 at 6:54 am |
Mega Thanks to all veterans and their families.
November 11, 2019 at 9:01 am |
What great things will “Cadet Bonespurs” claim to do for “The Vets” today? Sometimes I think he confuses them with those who practice animal medicine. The USA makes a lot of noise about “supporting the troops” but once they come back from whatever misguided adventures we send them on, the support seems to vanish. A bigger chunk of the Pentagon’s budget should be spent on taking care of these people.
November 11, 2019 at 9:41 am |
Thank you
November 11, 2019 at 9:42 am |
Yes, missing My Old Man, gone now 5 years, WWII Navy doc. And like Steve Goodman & so many others, carried his burdens with grace.
November 11, 2019 at 11:12 am |
Steve gave Death the old Three Stooges eye-poke — damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead.
John Prine said Steve used to call him up whenever he’d written a new piece, day or night.
“Got another one,” he’d say, and play it for him right over the phone.
Now that’s a man who loved his work. I wish he were still here doing it.
November 11, 2019 at 10:36 am |
That’s nice Patrick. Thanks. If I remember correctly, your Dad flew C-47s as well, right? Makes me wonder if he ever towed my Old Man in a glider behind his “Gooney Bird.” They were both in the Pacific Theater during the war, right?
http://exploringthenorth.com/gliders/history.html
November 11, 2019 at 11:03 am |
Yessir, the auld fella flew Gooney Birds with the New Guinea-based 65th Squadron, 433rd Troop Carrier Group. Got the DFC in ’43. That must’ve been a tough ol’ row to hoe.
I’m a Remington Raider myself. I’ve never retreated, but I’ve backspaced a few times.
November 11, 2019 at 1:38 pm |
My Dad was in New Guinea and the Philippines. I can’t remember the unit. I will ask my older brother. He may know. Chances they ever ran into each other are slim to none, probably, based on the large number of troops there. Still, it does make me wonder.
November 12, 2019 at 9:28 am |
Sgt Irvin “Bud” Playez, died at 26 somewhere “in the Asiatic theater,” also served in North Africa. B-25 gunner. Parents got a WIA letter, took over a year for a MIA status update, and another year before he was declared KIA.
Thanks for helping save the whole damn thing.
November 12, 2019 at 2:05 pm |
I gave our government too much credit. Plane crashed Feb ‘44, government changed status from MIA to KIA in ‘51.
November 11, 2019 at 10:53 am |
Thanks Patrick, lost my Dad be 36 yrs ago dec 11. Still wish he was here to ask advice. He was in Navy in South Pacific and Alaska. Never was famous but he was a good man.
November 11, 2019 at 11:05 am |
My auld fella shoved off Oct. 24, 1980. Hard to believe. He survived the war but not the peace.
November 11, 2019 at 1:39 pm |
“As the stars that shall be bright when we are dust,
Moving in marches upon the heavenly plain,
As the stars that are starry in the time of our darkness,
To the end, to the end, they remain.”
Excerpt “For the Fallen”
Laurence Binyon, 1914
November 12, 2019 at 9:17 am |
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
November 11, 2019 at 6:18 pm |
Had relations who fought at Delville Wood during the Somme campaign in WW1. Dad fought in Italy, & North Africa in WW2, his brother was in Tanks, was captured, spent the rest of the war in a POW camp, neither of them ever spoke about it.
I did 3 combat tours up in Northen Namibia/Angola during the bush war, I pray that I’m the last & none of my decendents have to experience that shit.
“Lest we forget”
November 11, 2019 at 7:46 pm |
I kick myself at least once a month for being a self-centered little prick who never grilled his parents on their family histories.
We were told Mom’s dad fought in WWI and was mustard-gassed for his troubles, but later on we heard a rumor that his postwar suffering and premature death had its roots in the same inability to efficiently metabolize ethanol that afflicted Dad’s side of the family.
Dad’s war years we know a little more about, because we have the medals and the paperwork, but some of the details are sketchy. I have come to discount much of what Mom said about his service because I suspect that my capacity for telling tales comes from her side of the family.
November 12, 2019 at 9:15 am |
See below. We all knew the basic deployment dates. But everyone kept the details quiet until it was too late. My dad apparently had a rocky relationship with his dad so he both ran from him while also emulating him, trying to outdo him. Grandpa was a medic at Omaha Beach, but those stories died with him. His son then became a Medical Services officer, and spent the last forty years inflating his war record. War stories will circle the earth three or four times while the truth is still pulling up its pants.
November 12, 2019 at 9:09 am |
I have no idea what my old man did during his Vietnam tours, because he suffered from both Texas Tall Tale Syndrome and early onset Alzheimer’s. In his late sixties, he couldn’t watch The History Channel without claiming everyone on the screen had shared a foxhole in Laos with him. Sucks watching a 76 year old who still thinks he’s running a medical company near the Cambodian border.