Paul Burris, Air Force Sergeant, Madisonville, KY, 1967 – 1971

Burris took basic training in Texas and the Jet School in Illinois till he was sent to Delaware where he was assigned to the 436th OMS and worked as an Aircraft mechanic for almost two years. He remarked, “I was in the Air Force, the good branch!”

From there he was assigned to the 617th MASS in DaNang, Viet Nam, where he spent a year with the unit and was responsible for maintaining and servicing many types of aircraft during his tour of duty. During this time they came under a lot of rocket attacks and the like, but it’s not something that he likes to talk about, as it is with many veterans. He says they took care of prisoner planes, R&R planes, freedom birds and did a lot of Medevac flights.

Other than that you did what they wanted you to, whether you knew how to do it or not. I had to go help an electrician on a C-124 once and he said take this instrument and go over there and touch that red wire where the panel's off. I go over there and there are a thousand red wires in that thing!

Ralph Hamby, Army, Corporal, White Plains, KY, 1967 – 1969

Hamby received his basic at Ft. Knox and then was sent to Ft. Seal, Oklahoma for his advance training where he volunteered to be a truck driver. So when he went to Viet Nam went as an artillery man, but he didn’t know anything about it because all he had done during training was tow the artillery pieces around. So he got all his training hands on from 1968 – 69 when he was assigned to the 1st of the 18th Artillery in Viet Nam.

He was a Gunner on a 175 Howitzer near Ankhe and they were guarding highway 1 where they were mortared from time to time and the Viet Cong attempted to overrun their position. No one in their battery was wounded or injured however.

I remember once, which I found kind of funny in a way. We were under mortar attack and this guy, I don’t know what his job was, but it wasn’t on a gun; he might have been in the mess hall or something. He was actually out filming this mortar attack! He was OK, didn’t get hurt or anything, but he actually filmed the whole attack!

Ralph White, Corporal, Marines, Madisonville, KY, 1954 - 1957

Ralph White was a Corporal in the United States Marines until he left the service in 1957. Enlisting in 1954 he was part of the 2nd Marines who took part in the evacuation of U.S. nationals and other persons from the Suez Canal during the Cold War in 1956. It was a diplomatic and military confrontation between Egypt on one side, and Britain, France and Israel on the other, with the United States, the Soviet Union, and the United Nations playing major roles in forcing Britain, France and Israel to withdraw.

Ray Bochert, Army, Captain, Dawson Springs, KY, 1952 - 1955

Bochert was a Lt. assigned to 507th Signal Company attached to the 23rd Regiment of the 2nd Division and when he arrived in Korean he went they immediately went to the front, about 40 miles north of the 38th parallel to Wonson. He picks the story up there.

The North Koreans and Chinese didn’t do much during the daytime because we had good air cover. At night though they blew whistles, horns, beat on tin cans and did everything to try and keep us from sleeping. They would sneak up at on the barbed wire at night. The way we found out were the Koreans were was by the smell of kimchi. It had garlic in it and you could tell where they were because they smelled like it.

The Chinese were a little bit rougher. They would get in the trenches with you in hand to hand combat and that’s where I got wounded twice! I never had a shot fired at me, but I had a lot of bayonets coming at me and that’s scary. That’s really terrifying. Hand to hand combat is the worst kind of war, because we were each trying to kill the other and we don’t even know each other, survival is all it is. The first time I got a bayonet wound across my head and I had to shoot him.

The second one was when I was bayoneted through my leg. I was sent off to Pusan to rehabilitate. General Ridgeway gave me a Purple Heart and a Bronze Star Medal because I pulled a bunch of boys out of the way of the Chinese. They were in our outfit and we were pretty much decimated.

We were up against four Chinese Divisions, that‘s a lot of men, 60, 70 or 80 thousand. They swarmed over the hills and they didn’t mind dying, so we helped them out! We had a lot of battles. It’s true that there are no atheists in a foxhole! We all learned to say very brief prayers to God, huddled on the ground in hopes that he would spare us or at least we could get right with him before we lost our lives. I thank God for allowing me to return to the United States alive and in one piece.

Ray Ligon, Army, Sergeant, Madisonville, KY, 1976 -1983

Ligon spent most of his time in service in Armor. He got his first training at Ft. Knox while assigned to the Delta 21 Training Unit. He served in various places over the years and all positions on tanks ranging from loader to tank commander.

One of the events that sticks out the most for Ligon was in 1979 when South Korean President Park Chung-hee was assassinated while he was assigned to the 1st of 72nd Armor Camp Casey, 40 miles north of Seoul, Korea.

I was staying in a place in the village just outside Camp Casey when I got a phone call and they said I needed to come back to the compound as we’re on alert status. As I’m walking back to the compound carrying my guitar, the only thing I could think of because I’d been on tour of the DMZ and have heard everything the North Koreans can do as far as artillery lined out in all the major areas in South Korea, is the song, “One Tin Soldier.” Just thousands and thousands of people could be killed due to political whatever.

So, we get back and we’re rolling out the gate and they eventually called us back and we had to live right there in our unit for three weeks, ready to rock. That was a scary time. That’s the closest I’ve came to a combat situation. I’m thankful it didn’t come to it.

I have a lot of respect for my brother and sister veterans that have been in combat situations. It really humbles me, because I didn’t even get a taste of it and that scared the fire out of me right there.

Renita Duff, Navy, Petty Officer Third Class, Hanson, KY, 1984 - 1988

Duff was assigned to a repair tender, a floating machine shop which was responsible for repairing ships at sea. She worked in the machine shop for awhile and then was assigned to administration where she was the supervisor for the technical library which kept the blueprints of all the ships that they repaired in their fleet while at sea. She recalls when she became a “Shell Back.”

We went on a Western Pacific tour where we went from California to Hawaii, Guam, Singapore, Thailand, the Philippines and a little island called Diego Garcia, aboard the USS Ajax for a nine month tour.

When you cross the equator there’s a big ceremony, if you’re a first-timer ever crossing it, they call it your pollywog before you cross and after you go through the initiation you become a shell back. So I’m an official shell back because I crossed the equator and endured the initiation ceremony. It’s actually better to go through it than not, because otherwise people look down on you if you don’t, so I went ahead and did it.

At the time you’re thinking, this is really bad, but it was all in fun, no one was trying to hurt anybody. They had us do ridiculous things like put our clothes on backwards, craw through trash in salt water and after you got nice and dirty they’d hose you down with salt water and let you stay in the sun for awhile. Then you’d have to go up to like the biggest guy on the ship and he’s got like an oyster in his belly button and you have to retrieve it. That’s the last thing we had to do. Looking back on it, it was all in fun.

My Navy days were the happiest days of my life and I got to see a lot of the world.

Richard Beury, Army Specialist Fourth Class, Madisonville, KY, 1962 – 1964

Beury was assigned to the 82nd Light Truck Company at Ft. Campbell. He says that one of the things they used to do is haul the paratroopers from the 82nd and 101st out to runway for their drops and, on the way out, they didn’t have anything to say, but when they picked them up at the drop zone, they were loud and obnoxious!

I remember we went to West Virginia one time for some war games there and that was an experience. They flew two of our deuce-and-a-half trucks and two trailers onboard C-130s. The airfield was 500 feet short of what they needed to land and take off. When they landed they stopped just short of running off the end of a mountain. When they took off they dropped off the end of the mountain and fell about 200 feet before they got going fast enough to where they could pick it back up again.

While we were up there we were driving at night, dirt roads, with blackout lights. Just a little tiny cat eye was all you could see of the truck in front of you. By the time you got up to five miles an hour the dust in front of you was so thick you could no longer even see that. Of course you couldn’t see the road you’re on and no guard rails or anything like that, just two days straight down and how nobody got killed there, I’ll never know. That was dangerous.

When we got back we didn’t even stay, we just packed up and was sent to Mississippi where the black guy (James Meredith at the University of Mississippi) was the first black student in a college down there. There was turmoil down there and we were down there for that. Of course we couldn’t do anything, we were just there. Somebody threw a whole axle assembly from an overpass down on one of our trucks, but fortunately nobody got hurt. We were down there for a couple weeks till all that died down.

Richard Bruce, Navy, Chief Petty Officer, Madisonville, KY, 1956 - 1977

Bruce worked in or ran the ships services on various ships during his 20 years of service. These positions ranged from being a barber for 13 years for officers and civilians to management aboard the USS John F. Kennedy where he had 110 people working for him. At that time, he had 4 exchanges, the laundry, the tailor shop, and all the service activities that were aboard the ship. They averaged 7 million dollars in sales a year.

He recalls one of the worst times for him when he was in Liberia. Me and a buddy had a few drinks and when we were coming back to the base there was a big tree right outside the gate. The guy bet me five dollars I couldn’t climb the tree. That thing was as big as a room. It had vines on it and so I climbed it and found these things that looked like olives and started throwing them down at him.

The guard on the gate saw him running around this tree, trying to dodge all these things I was throwing down at him and the guard thought he had me up a tree with a knife or something. He came over there and threw him up against the tree and searched, but he couldn’t find a knife or anything. So he took us to jail. They threw our rears in the jail there in Liberia and they tell you before you leave the ship, don’t ever get into a jail overseas. We were worried, but we went on to sleep. About two o’ clock in the morning someone from the American Consulate came down there and got us out. Boy I was so happy! I never was so scared in all my life.

Richard Chappell, Army, Corporal, Hanson, KY, 1950 – 1953

Chappell was the assistant gunner on mortars of the 2nd Infantry Division 9th Infantry Regiment during the Korean War.

They hit us one night at Kumari, Korea when pretty much our whole division got wiped out. There were parachute flares falling everywhere and the fighting was fierce. That was November 27, 1951 and I got shot in the arm.

They moved him back to the aid station and he was sent to Japan to recover for a month and then he returned to Korea. He finished out his tour behind the lines in support roles until he returned to the states.

Richard Graham, Storekeeper Third Class, Navy, Madisonville, KY, 1945 - 1946

Storekeeper Third Class Richard Graham entered the Navy Reserves in January of 1945 and was assigned to the USS Zeilin (APA-3), a Harris-class attack transport that saw service with the United States Navy during World War II until he was discharged in August of 1946.

He served mostly in the South Pacific between the Marshall and Philippine Islands. His only time under actual combat came around the time the atomic bombs were dropped on Japan. They were stationed around Okinawa, Japan and had several hospital ships in their convoy. "One night around Sundown," related Graham, "about 12 to 15 Jap Zeros came down and started shooting at the hospital ships. We returned fire, but we didn't down any of the planes. But in just a little while there were some Air Force P-51 Mustangs that came down and chased them off. "

"At one point at the end of the war, we were assigned to take troops to Japan for occupational Duty," he said. "And after the war was over, our ship came back to the states and worked its way up and down the coast. We were relieving the trains and buses because so many people were being discharged from the military and heading home. We would pick up a load in Seattle and take them to San Francisco. We'd drop them off, pick up another load there and take them to Los Angles. We would then head back up the coast and do again."

Richard Salvato, Chief Petty Officer Second Class, Navy, Madisonville, KY, 1951 - 1955

In 1952 he was assigned to the USS Gurke (DD-783) a Gearing-class destroyer off the coast of Korea assigned to the 7th Fleet. While deployed with the Seventh Fleet, they screened attack carriers and bombarded enemy coastal supply routes and installations, once destroying a Communist train through accurate gunnery, his ship drew fire from Communist shore batteries on 25 June 1953, but escaped without serious damage from two direct hits and the shrapnel of five air bursts. While his role aboard ship was that of cook, when general quarters sounded everyone had their assigned battle station and his was to keep the 20mm guns at his station loaded.

When the shooting stopped in Korea in August 1953 they continued patrols in the Far East to help keep the peace. The six- to eight-month deployments to the Western Pacific were alternated with stateside overhauls and training in a full peacetime routine.

Richard Young, Navy, Seaman First Class, Hanson, KY, 1950 – 1954

Young served his time aboard the USS Thuban, which was an Andromeda-class attack cargo ship for the United States Navy. The ship was named after Thuban, the brightest star in the constellation Draco.

Once they were tied up at Norfolk and Young was on the deck force crew. They were responsible for cleaning, chipping and painting the deck and hull of the ship. There was a member of his crew that didn’t do his harness right and when he was on the side of the ship he pulled the wrong rope and down he went. He hit his back on the bow of the ship and it killed him. Young worked to change jobs after see that and became a cook. He says he really enjoyed that a lot more.

Ricky Long, Sgt., Air Force, Dawson Springs, KY, 1973 - 1979

Sergeant Ricky Long served in the Air Force from June 1973 until March 1979 as a security policeman.

During his time in service two things stand out most with the first being at the close of the Vietnam War. He was stationed at Rickenbacker Air Force Base in Ohio when he got a call about 2 a.m. in the morning and was told to grab his flight gear and get ready, he was leaving. He didn't know what to think. When he and 7 others from his unit arrived in San Francisco they met up with another 180 security policemen and boarded a flight to participate in Operation New Life and Operation Baby Lift. This was the U.S. military evacuation of about 110,000 Southeast Asian refugees displaced by the Vietnam War out of South Vietnam. Four men were each assigned to a plane that flew round robin flights from Saigon evacuating people who had helped the U.S. Military during the war and would have been executed by the North Vietnamese if they were left behind. They stood guard on the noise, tail and wings of the aircraft while it was on the ground and prevented people from rushing the plane.

The other memorable assignment was with the Presidential Honor Guard. He said it was the best duty he ever had. Once the honor guard was standing at attention, during a speech by President Gerald Ford. He relates the story.

The one guy that made me respect him the most, for what he did for the honor guard, was Ford. Used to when we went out on a detail and they braced you up at attention, we're talking sometimes two to three hours and we couldn't move a muscle. If a bee landed on you and stung your face, you'd better not knock it off. We were at the Pentagon at attention and it was hot. Sweat was dripping off our chins. Of course when you were in your ceremonial uniform, you were dressed up, cinched up and everything about you but your face was covered up.

I saw a guy about three down from me that was weaving and heard one of the guys in behind him say catch him! Sometimes if you were fast enough you could grab a guy by the belt and kinda hold him there. Well, they couldn't get him in time and fell face forward on the concrete and I saw blood running out. I just knew he had a broken nose. A guy came up from behind the ranks, grabbed him by his feet and started pulling him back. Gerald Ford was in the middle of his speech; I won't ever forget this, and he looked at the scene and said excuse me. I'd like for all the commanders of my armed forces front and center. First time I'd ever seen anything like that done, breaking protocol. Boy those guys were hustling to get to the front. When they got there he said, if I ever see another one of my troops dragged by his feet, each and every one of you will pay a penalty. He said, I never want to see that again as long as I'm president. After we all got on the bus they told us, from now on if you can't stand it and you feel you're going to pass out you're to take one step back, fall out of the ranks into the rear and someone behind you will step up and take your spot.

Until then our standing order was to stand there till you passed out. They changed that right then, that day."

Rob Blumrick, Army, Specialist 4, Madisonville, KY, 1996 – 2004 (Active and Reserve)

Rob was Petroleum Supply Specialist providing bulk fuel to the line units and aircraft while stationed at Ft. Campbell, Ky.

After basic training and AIT he was stationed at Ft. Campbell with C Company, 7th Battalion, with the 101st Airborne and the 159th Aviation Regiment.

I served during the height of peace time and everything we did was primarily training. Probably the coolest mission I had directly related to my MOS (job) where we flew a Chinook loaded with fuel PODs to Camp Atterbury in Indiana.

We would load up the 600 gallon fuel tanks into the helicopter, there were about four of them, which would give us about 2,400 gallons of aviation fuel, with a pump which we’d load at the rear of the helicopter. It was an experimental mission called the Fat Cow and as far as I know it was the first time it was done.

We flew in, landed and then rolled out the hoses and setup pumps to make a two point refueling station. It was very fast deployment and recovery as well. We could have it setup in about 5 minutes. After we completed the mission we’d put everything back in and we’d be off the ground again in about 5 minutes. That was a really fun mission because it involved multiple steps and flying. In the course of the weekend we were out, we delivered about a quarter-of-a-million gallons of gas to a lot of helicopters. This was part of a bigger maneuver, but the Fat Cow was a big part of the operation.

While I was at Ft. Campbell I was in a band, just me and some guys who had a band together. We entered a battle of the bands contest there at Ft. Campbell and we won! I was then approached by the platoon sergeant that was the leader of the country band there. It was the 101st Airborne country band called “Eagle Country.” They would play of all sorts of functions, officer’s balls, parades and things that were sanctioned by the post. So, they asked me to audition. So I auditioned and did get chosen. So I was assigned to the “Eagle County” and for about a year or so my job was to show up at my unit and play the bass.

Being in that unit I did get some exposure to what my career would eventually become, which is where I am now (technical director for the Glema Mahr Center for the Arts). We had some very high-tech sound equipment and it was all foreign to me at that time, but it provided a basis of knowledge to what I would later on choose to go into professionally.

Robert McKinney, PFC, Marines, Madisonville, KY, 1942 - 1946

Private First Class Veteran Robert McKinney holds a Japanese military rifle he was allowed to keep after his participation in the battle for Iwo Jima in the Pacific. He enlisted in the Marines in out of high school in 1942 and was a radio operator/repairman working alongside the Navajo Codetalkers keeping the radio equipment operating among many other responsibilities, as with anyone serving in combat.

He was about 150 yards away when Marines raised the larger flag on Mount Suribachi so it could be seen better by personnel on the island and by the Navy ships at sea.

After the Atomic Bombs were dropped on Japan and the war came to an end he was part of the occupying force and saw firsthand the city of Hiroshima where one of the two bombs were dropped and he said the devastation was unbelievable, "it was just gone." He left the Marines in 1946 after his enlistment was up.

Robert Riley, Air Force, Chief Master Sergeant, Beulah, KY, 1955 – 1981

Riley spent his career with military working dogs (K-9’s) in various rolls around the world including handler, sentry dog course chief and later Superintendent of the Pacific Air Force Military Working Dog Training Center at Kadena Air Base, Japan.

While assigned to Lackland Air Force Base in Texas, he was on the dog procurement and training team.

What we did was we got green dogs and trained them just like they were GIs. You don’t take a dog and train it on explosives and also train them on narcotics. In other words they’ve each had their own career field.

One of the dogs we had was Nemo. He was a war dog that was retired from service to Lackland because of injuries he sustained while saving his handler’s life in Vietnam.

Riley used to take him all over the country giving presentations on what he’d done and how he saved lives in Vietnam. They even had him on the Tennessee Ernie Ford Show. During his career he and his dogs protected three different Presidents, Nixon, Johnson and Carter.

Roger Locke, Army, Specialist Fourth Class, Madisonville, KY, 1966 - 1969

Locke was a Postal Clerk from 1967 – 1968 with the 575th Postal Unit at Cameron Bay, South Vietnam.

He recalls, at night you could lie in your hooch and right across the bay you could see all the fireworks. They would bomb the hills and you could see the tracers coming out of the helicopters.

One of my jobs, which I really liked, I drove a big duce-and-a-half across the floating bridge across the bay with a load of mail a few miles into the area and I had a guy riding shotgun with me. We would reach the outpost and drop off the mail for the guys and then different units would come and pick-up the mail from there. After we dropped that mail off we’d turn that truck around and got back home.

I liked that job because I really felt like I was helping them guys out by getting that mail over there. I was very proud of my job. Anytime somebody stopped me I’d say, why you stopping me? I got to get this mail through, people are waiting on me. That’s one thing people looked for was mail from home, something to take their minds off things.

I returned to the states in January of 68. The reason I remember that is because my mom and wife held Christmas for me and we had Christmas in January. It was really nice!

Ron Elliott, SSgt., Air Force, Madisonville, KY, 1967 - 1971

Staff Sergeant Ron Elliott, of Madisonville, who served as a medic with the United States Air Force from July 1967 to January 1971 with a variety of assignments around the U.S. and England. "I take great pride in serving and now realize that I matured quite a bit in the service, especially during my tour of duty with the 3rd Air Force in London, England."

Ron Smith, Navy, Petty Officer First Class, Hanson, KY, 1967 – 1971

From 1969 – 1970 Smith was a Flight Deck Crew Leader on board the aircraft carrier USS Ticonderoga off the coast of Vietnam.

We were constantly launching aircraft during Vietnam, says Smith. If you weren’t sleeping you were working and we worked 12 to 18 hours a day. We got panes out, lined them up and ready to go and then they were launched on their mission. We had F-4’s, F-8 Crusader, A-4’s and others.

We had one bird come in and his landing gear wouldn’t come down because it had been shot up and he had to land on is belly. We had to put up all the rigging to catch the plane before it went off the end of the ship. It turned out alright and he wasn’t hurt. We were so far out at sea that we never had much threat from the Viet Cong. We were pretty safe out there.

Ronnie Winstead, Navy Photographers Mate, Third Class Hanson, KY, 1965 – 1967

I worked in the Public Affairs office in Saigon as a Photographer’s Mate, right downtown in the main square and billeted about two blocks away, remarked Winstead. They used to send us out in the field for about two weeks at a time, most of the time it was with the Marines. I spent two weeks in the delta on some of the riverboats, which was wild and crazy. If you ever watched the movie ‘Apocalypse Now,’ and saw the riverboats; they were just like that. The one I was on was captained by John Kerry. He was a Lieutenant and the commander on that peculiar riverboat.

I spent two or three months total in the DMZ with the U.S. Marines and that’s where I spent most of my time. I’d go up there and spend about two weeks doing stories on the boys and come back to the Saigon; me and the Yeoman, the writer that was with me who’d do the stories and I’d do the pictures, we’d put it all together and send it to the hometown newspapers. That was our job. We had a lot of restrictions on what we could tell and what our pictures could show.

It was very interesting and that kept me going. We had six month tours. I did the first six months and then I re-upped for another six and ended up spending three six month tours. I went for a fourth and they said I couldn’t stay. I said, why not and they said because you’ve got high blood pressure and I said, I wonder why?

The time I spent over there was a lot different than I thought it’d be. A lot more dangerous than I thought it‘d be and that’s the reason I didn’t want to go to start with. There were a few times we didn’t know if we were coming home or not, pinned down in a rice patty or something like that. I had two body guards, as they always assigned somebody to watch me, because I couldn’t take pictures and watch my back too. I had two body guards killed while protecting me. I still talk to their families every once in a while. One was a colored named Peter Graves. He was a great big boy, about 6’ 8”.

It was July of 1967, I was aboard the USS Forrestal when it caught fire. I was on board that day doing a story on the flight squadron. That was a wild day, eighteen hours straight of fighting fires, pushing the planes over the side trying to keep the bombs from exploding.

It all started about five o’ clock in the morning and I was on the bridge. When the first 500 pound bomb went off it was right next to the bridge. It blew the windows in and killed the captain. It knocked us down and of course I lost my camera. Well, I headed down to the quarters to get my second camera, my extra one. I got it and went out on the flight deck where I took several pictures, in between trying to help push the planes over the side and fight the fires.

William “Roy” Laster, Army, Sergeant, Hanson, KY, 1966 – 1969

Laster was 507th Combat Engineers at Cameron Bay Viet Nam and he said they did whatever had to be done to get the job done. He says that’s where he was stationed, but he didn’t spend that much time there because they were always out in the field. When asked about what he actually did he said, I can’t do that, it wasn’t pretty.

Other duty stations were, Ft. Benning, GA, Ft. Leonard Wood, MO, Ft. Campbell and just outside of Frankfrurt, Germany.

He did recall that when he was stationed at Ft. Campbell that he and a Lieutenant were responsible for hauling around that was getting out on undesirable discharges. It’d take two or three days to get them processed. One ole boy, remarked Laster, would set back there in the jeep and go, vroom, vroom, vroom, all day long! It took about two or three days to get him processed and we took him to the main gate. He started walking down the road and all a sudden the Lieutenant said, Private, haven’t you forgot something? He said, I don’t need it anymore. Referring to the motorcycle he pretended to ride. That was his out.