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Veteran’s Day
Great Darke County Fair…
By Al Bliss
This was a special day for me and from the vantage point of an
interested observer, a raft/gaggle/bunch of other soiled seniors spent
some time at the GREAT DARKE COUNTY FAIR, said hello to other veterans
and had a good day.
The age of the majority of the veterans at the Fair was consistently
very senior. In other words with only a few exceptions, the gray
hair was common to those who still had hair. But the sense of humor and
apparent appreciation of common experiences contributed to an
interesting and happy day.
For the second time, I had an opportunity to speak to a Fire control
man assigned to the USS Guam CB-2. I was a Fire Control Technician a
few years later and I saw – or at least I thought I saw a CB in storage
in Philadelphia at the Naval Shipyard but I could not remember the
ship’s name. He said CB-1 was the Alaska and his ship was the Guam. The
ship that I remembered was the Hawaii waiting to be scrapped. We did
laugh when we discovered that we had both worked on a MK 1A fire
control computer. This was a state of the art computer in the early
1940s. It was an electro mechanical device and it weighed
approximately one ton and occupied the majority of a complete room on a
2250 class destroyer.
I spoke to veterans who had been in Korea but had difficulty
remembering exactly where they had been other than in some cases a
harbor where they started out. Stories by men about Vietnam were
virtually non-existent during my search for veterans. Many of the guys
that I met and photographed needed help in the quest for mobility but
the fact that they had made the effort to come to the Fair made me
proud of them.
As is normal when seniors gather for any reason, the topic of health
and the sharing of events that have recently occurred under the general
heading of health did occur. But the most significant underlying
theme was the recognition that this last thing that was successfully
overcome must mean that the doctors are really getting good or there is
something beneficial to be accomplished before a heartfelt goodbye and
the last door closes.
The festivities for the Veterans ended with the audience in the
Grandstand and color guards from many of the Veteran organization in
Darke County plus most of the Auxiliary Groups parading before the
Grandstand and then standing at Parade Rest during an excellent
presentation Jerry Kemp - retired Air Force Pilot. The presentation
ended with a beautiful rendition of taps by two young ladies, (Christy
Moody and Angie Rauh) and a brief but poignant prayer.
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