The FReeper Foxhole Spotlights The DAV - Dec.12th, 200

Disabled American Veterans ^

[Fiddlstix]

Thanks for bringing us the Christmas graphics and music everyday, Fiddlestix.

You're welcome J

[DWPittelli]

please remove me from the FReeper Foxhole

[gatex]

Thanks for the inspiring info.

[Alkhin]

Anti-Jen and all who are veterans, have found a blog-site you might be interested in. The blogger is Rachel Lucas who lives in Texas, and she has a project going in relation to veterans. I am not real clear on it, but it seems like she is researching a wonderful goldmine, and in support, would like to help her.

The History Project

Her grandfather was killed in 1944 in WWII.

Home Page: Piquant Rants and Sassy Impudence

From her site: Rachel is a 30-year-old gun-totin' capitalist oppressor who loathes Al Gore. And don't mess with Texas, because that's where Rachel lives with John, who's also a gun-toter but loathes Hillary Clinton more than Al Gore.

I love her site!

[pro-life]

can you remove me from this list.

[Jen]

You've been removed from the Foxhole ping list. Thanks for your notes. You're welcome to visit us any time you like.

[Jen]

What a great blog-site. I like that gal's sassy attitude! I bookmarked her site for future reference. It seems like her history project is similar to what we are doing here in the Foxhole to remember the history of our country's military operations and record the stories of its veterans. I look forward to reading more as her project progresses. Thanks so much for the link!

Misty & Sam - check out the links. I think y'all will like this site too.

[Jen]

Ooooops, forgot to mention one thing. Be careful when you type my screenname, and don't put a hyphen in it unless you want my evil twin to show up. You really don't want to meet her. Trust me on this. She was still asleep and didn't see your post this morning, so you dodged a bullet this time. ;-)

(See my profile for all the variations of what my name means.)

[larryjohnson]

Yesterday I sent in my DAV Life Member form. I was tempted by a discount and the note that said my membership was provisional(based on what I'll not bother to find out). I applaud their work and I like their mag. I think a top officer is a Mainer.Snow changed to rain today but not before I opted out of a trip to the gym and a car appointment. I got as far as the White House in Jonesboro for breakfas,tho. Cmdr Cut, I sent your WTC post to several friends one is a Navy Veteran whose son missed his train to the WTC that day. Another Green Beret Vet lost friends. Another friend is an AF Vet like me but a USNA grad.

[aomagrat]

Today's classic warship, USS Panay (PG-5)

Panay class river gunboat
Displacement. 474
Lenght. 191'
Beam. 29'
Draft. 5'3"
Speed. 15 k.
Complement. 59
Armament. 2 3", 8 .30 cal. mg.

The USS Panay (PR-5) was built by Kiangoan Dockyard and Engineering Works, Shanghai, China; launched 10 November 1927; sponsored by Mrs. Ellis S. Stone; and commissioned 10 September 1928, Lt. Comdr. James Mackey Lewis in command.

Built for duty in the Asiatic Fleet on the Yangtze Patrol, Panay had as her primary mission the protection of American lives and property frequently threatened in the disturbances the 1920s and 30s brought to China struggling to modernize, to create a strong central government, and, later, to meet Japanese aggression. Throughout Panay's service, navigation on the Yangtze was constantly menaced by bandits and soldier outlaws of various stripes, and Panay and her sisters provided the protection necessary for American shipping and nationals, as other foreign forces did for their citizens. Often parties from Panay served as armed guards on American steamers plying the river. In 1931 her commanding officer, Lt. Comdr. R. A. Dyer, reported: "Firing on gunboats and merchant ships have (sic.) become so routine that any vessel traversing the Yangtze River, sails with the expectation of being fired upon." and "Fortunately, the Chinese appear to be rather poor marksmen and the ship has, so far, not sustained any casualties in these engagements."

As the Japanese moved through South China, American gunboats evacuated most of the Embassy staff from Nanking during November 1937. Panay was assigned as station ship to guard the remaining Americans and take them off at the last possible moment. They came on board 11 December and Panay moved upriver to avoid becoming involved in the fighting around the doomed capital. Three American merchant tankers sailed with her. The Japanese senior naval commander in Shanghai was informed both before and after the fact of this movement.

On 12 December 1937, Japanese naval aircraft were ordered by their Army to attack "any and all ships" in the Yangtze above Nanking. Knowing of the presence of Panay and the merchantmen, the Navy requested verification of the order, which was received before the attack began about 1327 that day and continued until Panay sank at 1554. Three men were killed, 43 sailors and 5 civilian passengers wounded.

A formal protest was immediately lodged by the American ambassador. The Japanese government accepted responsibility, but claimed the attack unintentional. A large indemnity was paid 22 April 1938 and the incident officially settled. However, further deterioration of relations between Japan and the United States continued, as did provocations, many of them stemming from the Japanese Army whose extremists wished war with the United States.

[NEWwoman]

Thanks for all the info. I especially like the quote: " A Smith and Wesson beats four aces. "

[Jen]

FReeper "Getgoing" asked me to post the following, which is an email he received asking for help for hospitalized Veterans this Christmas season. The events suggested for participation are in Texas, but I'm sure could be done at VA hospitals anywhere in the country.

Thank you Getgoing for your concern for our hospitalized Veterans.

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Dear Friends of Vet to Vet and Sitrep with Charley Jones (KRLD Radio),

Christmas is almost here and I am taking this morning to write you a letter.

I was a combat medic in Vietnam and know the trauma and suffering our frontline combat troops experienced. Veterans who fought and sustained permanent disabilities have spent years in ongoing treatments and surgeries at Veterans Hospitals across the United States. These men and women sacrificed their futures for the freedoms our general population takes for granted.

We have had the opportunities to travel, go to school, raise a family, and attend family gatherings during the year especially Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Most disabled Veterans in wheelchairs or in spinal cord injury units do not have the luxury of family or friends during the holiday season.

These men and women who are in cold, and almost empty federal hospitals on December 23rd, will be there on December 25th.

"Alone" takes on a whole new meaning when you are in a hospital bed on Christmas Eve with just thoughts and memories of those wonderful times we had as children with our parents or with our children who now have their own lives and responsibilities. These "back-burner" Veterans need our help.

I will be serving Christmas meals and giving gifts to our Veterans on the 22nd of December, 2002 at the Veterans Hospital in Bonham, Texas @ 13:00 and at the Veterans Hospital in the Transitional Care unit, Dallas, Texas on the 23rd @ 13:00.

I want your help. Let us find the money, time, food, and gifts for those that have no where to go on Christmas. We all have friends with many talents gifts and abilities, ask them for their help. These individuals have or can obtain the items we need for our Veterans for Christmas Day.

I am asking you for all the support we can muster to make Operation Santa Claus-2002 very successful.

My email address is jjo550@aimail.net

Vet to Vet is the organization and all contributions are tax deductible (501 (c) 3)

My address is 25 Highland Park Village, Suite 100-427, and Dallas, Texas 75205. Phone 214-352-2505 or (Fax) 214-352-2095

Website is www.sitreponline.com

Let's get to work for our Veterans and I would suggest that we forward this email to as many of our friends can assist. I will update the progress of this project on my website. Thanks for your time and have a great day.

Your friend,
Jess Johnson

[SAMWolf]

I remember when they used to at least mention the Panay incident in school. Thanks, aomagrat.

[Jen]

Yesterday I sent in my DAV Life Member form.

Good for you LJ. The DAV is a great veterans service organization.

I see you found your way here without a trail of bread crumbs this morning! It's great to see you.

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[Ron H.]

The DAV was a huge help in working with the VA when I filed a disability claim. Their services are free, but I was so grateful for their assistance and impressed with the organization that I joined right away. I highly recommend the Disabled American Veterans organization.

I too am grateful for the assistance I recieved in filing for my disability claims about a year ago. The guys manning the local office at the Houston VA have been a lot of help with that. They however thought they were being helpful when they steered me to what they said was a local active chapter in my neck of the woods.

Went by the address they supplied me and the building (an old canteen/dancehall/gameroom) was all boarded up and appeared to have been for sometime. I visited a web site for the national DAV and only found mention of a Forth Worth, TX chapter as being the supposedly only other chapter near me.

I live about 40+ miles north of Houston (just barely due south of Cleveland, Tx) and the Porter, Tx chapter was the nearest to me supposedly. How can I find out what chapter really is nearest me in the 77372 zip code?

[Ron H.]

Mary Beth Johnson LtCol, USMC

Gotta love that famous American "can do" spirit. Thanks, I got a good chuckle out of your post here AntiJen.

[Darksheare]

Yes. I believe that is the truth.

And even 5'5" tall little guys like me have more fight than the best France has to offer.
Props for the LTC. *Salutes with triple of brain eraser in honor*

[SAMWolf]

Disabled American Veterans
VA Medical Center
4500 S. Lancaster, Rm. 1B148F
Dallas, TX 75216
(214) 857-1119

***
Disabled American Veterans
VA Contact Office
5788 Eckhert Road, Rm. 2B136
San Antonio, TX 78240
(210) 699-2359

***
Disabled American Veterans
VA Regional Office
One Veterans Plaza, 701 Clay St.
Waco, TX 76799
(254) 299-9932

***
Disabled American Veterans
VA Regional Office
6900 Almeda Road, Rm. 1033
Houston, TX 77030-4200
(713) 794-3665

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Here's contact information for the Texas Offices. They may be able to point you to a Chapter near you.

[Ron H.]

Thanks for the try...however this is the same info I got from both the DAV website and also from the Houston DAV office. After telling the guy in the Houston office about the Porter chapter building being boarded up he kinda shrugged and suggested I go to the DAV website.

Kind of like chasing ones tail.

[Bryan]

On the last thread, I told you the first half of the story about those four brothers. Uncle Wendell was wounded early in the war, was grounded, and become an Operations Officer. Uncle Milton was eventually shot down and became a POW. Uncle Charlie became a squadron commander, and flew all those missions to come home unscathed. Dad was the youngest of the four.

He lied about his age and signed up when word came that Mel had been shot down. But he didn't have 20/20 vision, so they made him an engine mechanic. He never left the States and never heard a shot fired in anger -- at least not in that war. After all that, the older three brothers got out of the service and Dad stayed in.

In 1950, Dad was putting on his dress blues. It was his wedding day. A jeep pulled up in front of the house and two airmen got out. The North Koreans had just invaded South Korea. They were there to tell Dad to pack his bag and get into the jeep. After a brief discussion, one of them said, "You pack his bag, I'll be his best man." So Dad left for Korea about an hour later than planned, and the honeymoon was put on hold.

A few months later, a Marine outfit was surrounded at a reservoir in the bitter cold. The Red Chinese had captured their airfield. Dad helped put skis on the C-47 transport planes so that they could land and take off on the frozen reservoir. Marines can go hungry for quite awhile. They flew in with blood plasma, bandages, sulfa powder and ammunition, and flew out with the worst of the wounded. Dad stayed at the airfield in Japan, with smoke coming out of his ears.

HQ realized that the Red Chinese were lining up their antiaircraft guns along a gully leading up to the dam, which was the only logical approach route to the "landing field." They were bringing in elite infantry with AK-47s to shoot down the transport planes -- which were completely unarmored, heavily laden, and flying low, slow and straight. There was a trench on the ridge over the gully, but the Marines had been forced to abandon it due to heavy machine gun and mortar fire. There was a minefield in front of it, so the Chinese hadn't occupied the trench.

In a move that became much more popular with helicopter crewmen in Vietnam, HQ decided to mount .50-caliber machine guns in the doors of the transport planes to make those Chinese gunners keep their heads down. They gathered the ground crewmen together and asked for volunteers to man the machine guns. Guess who stepped forward.

He flew six missions. Even in that bitter cold, he had to fire in short bursts to keep the barrel of the gun from overheating and jamming. Also, the gun mount was makeshift and not perfectly balanced, so when he let go of the gun, the barrel swung straight up. Finally, one day a bullet hit him. It made a neat little elliptical entrance wound in the back of his right thigh, glanced off his hip bone and made a big star-shaped exit wound right on his "love handle."

He fell to the deck of the transport plane, and the barrel of the gun swung straight up. The last sound he heard before he passed out was the Red Chinese soldiers cheering.

At that moment, the war became personal for him.

When he woke up, he was in a tent full of wounded Marines. He had been bandaged from his chest to his knee, and he had been shot full of morphine and he had a bottle of plasma dripping into his arm. He could hear a Marine colonel arguing with his pilot outside the tent: "I can't let you take off without somebody to man that gun, and I can't spare one Marine."

"But Colonel! If we don't get these Marines back to a hospital in Japan, some of them are going to die."

Dad swung his leg over the side of the cot, stood up on his good leg, and limped out of the tent carrying his plasma bottle. He was full of morphine and feeling no pain. "Look, I can stand on one leg. I can man the gun. Let's get outta here."

He hid in the doorway and peeked out as the transport plane took off. The .50-caliber gun barrel was sticking straight up. The Chinese soldiers could see it and were climbing out of their trenches to line up better shots with their AK-47s. He could hear bullets start to hit the plane.

Finally, one of the wounded Marines on board yelled, "I'm hit!" He stepped out into the doorway and swung the barrel down. Any thought of short bursts was far behind him. The Chinese were caught standing in the open and he just laid on the trigger bar until it jammed. When I asked him how many of them were killed, he just said, "A lot of 'em. It was like driving a rocket-powered combine through a corn field."

The Marine colonel was a smart old bird. He had used the transport plane as a decoy. While every Chinese eye was glued to that plane, his Marines slithered back over the top of that ridge, dropped into the trench and set up their machine guns. Dad and the Marines had them in a crossfire. The ground was thick with dead Chinese. Eventually the encirclement was broken and the Marines were relieved.

Dad passed away in 1981. Uncle Melvin still eats raw onions as if they were apples. At the family reunion, I asked him how he could stand it. He said, "It's an acquired taste."