Week 22:
150. How does your family traditionally celebrate Memorial Day?
151. Do you have a family member that has served in the military? Who were they? Did they tell stories about their experiences? If so, what is one that you remember?
152. What do you remember, from your childhood, about the last week of school? Did your school celebrate in any way?
153. What do you remember about the last day of school? Is there one year, in particular, that stands out in your mind? Why?
154. What do you remember about summer time as a child? Did you go swimming? If so, where?
155. What do you remember about one of your first visits to the zoo as a child? Were you excited? What was the occasion? Who did you go with?
156. Have you ever been to the beach? When did you go? Where was it? What do you remember?
This week, I've chosen to do number 151. Do you have a family member that has served in the military? Who were they? Did they tell stories about their experiences? If so, what is one you remember?
Sunday morning, my NCOIC [Non-Commissioned Officer In Charge] and I shared quarters, and I had a weapons carrier - it's a type of truck - and we were on our way to breakfast at the NCO club [Non-Commissioned Officer] and we were talking about business. And, I stopped at a stop sign. The main gate had traffic that came in that way, but there was nobody coming from any direction. And I don't know why, I sat there. I never have done that. And, usually I just stop at the stop sign and drive on if there's nothing coming, and I keep talking. Well, this time I stopped and we talked about five minutes. And while we're talking, I'm looking down the street and I saw this - it looked sort of fuzzy and I'm trying to figure out why it looked fuzzy, and still talking. And then I started up. And it, we went probably a block and it wasn't fuzzy anymore, and so I didn't think anything about it, went on and we went to eating breakfast at the NCO club, and one of the other people that worked our section - I think he was the Chief Clerk at our office - came in and said, "Did you hear about the shooting?" And we said, "What shooting?" "Well, and OJT was loading a 50 caliber machine gun in an air craft down on the flight line and the guy that was supposed to be supervising went back in base ops and while he was in base ops the guy finished loading the 50 rounds belt of ammunition and slammed the breach closed, and he hadn't put the safety on it and it ran the whole belt of the 50 caliber machine gun bullets - that was the fuzzy thing I saw going across the road. It shot up a whole row of quonset huts, about 20 quonset huts. And, everybody was either at breakfast or at church, except one man who was writing a letter home, and it broke a bottle of aftershave lotion on a shelf over his head, and he's sitting there looking where'd all this stuff come from that's dropping all over his letter, and didn't stand up, and it saved his life. He didn't even hear the machine gun going off.
What stories have you been told?