My father is the most amazing man that I have ever known. He has seen more tours of duty than most would care to think of. For this I could not be more proud of him. Pops joined the marine corp reserves in his early 20s, to follow in the footsteps of his father.
He was told in boot camp that he would never make it far in the military. Never tell my father things like that, he will always prove you wrong. soon he was deployed to Vietnam. Before he left he asked my mother to marry him. She accepted but wisely told him that she would not marry him until he returned home safely, for fear of being a military widow before graduating college. Obviously he returned home just fine, or I would not be writing this.
He has since been deployed to desert storm, Somolia, Kuwait, Bosnia and was even taken out of retirement to go to desert storm 2 embedded with a special ops battalion. During these later deployments he not only was part of the action but also acted as a military historian and has now written several books and I believe is working on another. Many of his experiences he is unable to tell us about, but we make our own assumptions when he comes home.
Since he was reserves my father was able to hold a civilian job as well. With his avid love of history and the military he found a job at the smithsonian in DC back in the 70s. A few years before I was born my parents moved to Williamsburg and my father became the curator of the Casemate Museum at Fort Monroe for the next 25 or so years. Once leaving there he became head of collections for the military, back up in DC and just retired this past summer. He is known worldwide by military historians for his work and writings. I have not added any stories about his experiences and have only brushed the surface of his career because I feel I would not do him the proper justice in expressing what he has been through.
