“A Veteran’s STORY”
What does it mean to be a “Veteran”.. To some it is pride in serving their country at a time of need, or an obligation, or perhaps some inner need to prove something to themselves or perhaps others. Back in 1964 when I graduated from High School, I like others of my age at attaining the age of 18 years, had to register for the draft which was then in progress. The country was involved in a war in southeast Asia, a place called Vietnam. The year before we had witnessed the tragic death of our President at the hands of an assassin in Dallas, Texas. President Kennedy had been a veteran of World War Two, and as a later movie about his exploits there “PT-109” bore out- he had been a genuine hero and saved the lives of his crew when his boat was cut in two by an enemy destroyer. Upon becoming President his Administration weathered the incalculable events of the “Cuban missile Crisis” which brought the world to the brink of a nuclear war.
In the summer of 1964-1965 as Vietnam ground on and the newsreels each night on TV reported the events there and the mounting U.S. causalities, the policies of President Johnson to widen that war into Cambodia, Laos and North Vietnam raised the stakes higher and higher.
Growing up in a small town in Northern New Jersey had been an idle existence perhaps. I would have been very happy to continue that idle existence if it had been possible. I had heard stories of others I knew that had gone into some branch of the Service and years later had a riveting disclosure one evening during the U.S. action in Granada. It was an effort to root out Cuban forces that had been entrenched there and save American lives in the process. When the fighting had ceased, a newscast one night rolled the names of U.S. enlisted personnel that had been killed in the event. As the screen rolled out the names and the towns they were from, suddenly I recognized the name of my old friend, Robert Shaumberger of Oakland, NJ… Bobby Shaumberger and I had been cub scouts together and school mates growing up. I had no idea he had been in the Navy, much less a U.S. Navy Seal. His name and rank, Master Chief Petty Officer Robert Shaumberger of Oakland New Jersey with eleven members of his Seal team had drowned in the surf off Grenada, while attempting to “helio-cast” onto the beach. World events had become very personal to me and the News headlines each day became that much more glaring in bold print.
Earlier: As late 1965 rolled around, I was working in town and happy to be making money on my own and supporting myself, fishing and hunting, and enjoying my life in a quiet part of the world, while thousands of miles away, others like me were fighting in trenches and behind barb wire fences or cruising the waters of the South China Sea off the Vietnamese coastline. I was expecting any day my draft notice in the mail and sure enough one day it happened. After some initial confusion I elected to enlist in the Navy, rather than give the Army a chance at sending me to Southeast Asia and a very obvious fate.
Years later- looking back on that experience, I recall certain times in the Service and events I’ll never forget. All Veterans do, of their experiences, whether they were assigned State-side or found themselves face to face with a vicious calculating enemy. The people they met and the places they went become indelible memories, some hidden in the back of the mind, but never really going away. At times, the most innocent of daily events may trigger some long suppressed memory.
A Veteran is like anyone else, a person wishing to live their lives normally; whatever “normal is”.. They request no fanfare for what they did or why they had to do it. It was a part of their life which had to be done, be it circumstances of the moment, or far reaching world events that in even a vague way, affected their lives. A Veteran however is very proud to have done what he or she had to do, and given the circumstances again would not change it at all. A “somewhat student of history” myself, I had once met a gentleman who had been in the Army in Europe in World War One. The elderly gentleman recited one day his fading memories of that time so many years ago, but recalled the mud of France, and the trenches of Belgium, the crash of artillery on distant battlefields, the smell of cordite and blood in the air and finally the exhilaration of Victory day and returning home in one piece, unlike thousands of his comrades who did not return at all.
A Veteran takes great pride in seeing the American flag waving in parades and the honor guard firing the traditional three-gun salute at the memorial celebrations. The flag at half-staff symbolizes all those who did not come home, all those who came home with broken bodies in limbs and spirits. The Veteran proudly keeps his portrait he had taken in service standing on a shelf perhaps in a dusty corner on the dresser, maybe even keeping his old uniforms still hanging in the closet. He keeps all his old memories also, of events and fellow comrades who shared equally in it. If he’s lucky, he still may keep in contact with a few of them from so many years ago.
When watching a particular movie about some historic event, the Veteran may become a bit choked up, even a tear in the corner of an eye perhaps, it’s an emotional thing and as stoic as the most combat hardened, hard-shelled person can be, it still strikes a cord somewhere, because he or she knows what it was like, to feel the thud from distant battlefields, that smell of cordite and blood and the final exhilaration perhaps of coming home.
Some Veterans may be boastful of deeds done, but the vast majority are the great silent masses who after-all were just average ordinary people thrust into a situation where they were required to do extra-ordinary things. Most not by choice at all- but the effects of the way things were….. Those who had only asked to lead normal lives, work and vacation, and enjoy each day doing simple past times- but had been compelled by far-reaching events in foreign lands or perhaps the bureaucracy of events….. To “suck it up”., make a decision, put your head down and do what you knew you had to do, and get through it so you could one day return to your normal existence.
In later years, I would take pride in flying the American flag at my place of work, each time I looked up, saw the star spangled banner, I could recall a similar scene of that fluttering red white and blue pennant on a flag staff at some far distant port of call, straining against the lanyard on the mast of my ship as it plowed through the Mediterranean Sea, rippling from the jack staff on the liberty launch going ashore in France or Italy, Turkey, or Greece. The Marines at Ke’ Son remember it, at Da Nang airbase in Vietnam as mortar rounds dug up the end of the runway at Fox-Delta 3, The prow of the sleek U.S. destroyers cutting through the green sea off Yankee Station, trying desperately to keep up with the thundering wake of the 83,000 ton aircraft carrier ahead of them, flinging off A4’s and A-6’s for a squadron strike on Hanoi. The hulky “Skywarriors” their wing pods hung with a heavy load of ordinance to give “Charlie” a wake-up call. And all the while, that far off thud of battlefields, cordite and blood.
The Veterans— all of us… ask for nothing but to lead normal lives but given the occasion would rise to defend that red white and blue pennant as the wind tears at it, after all as Veterans, we all are just normal people entrusted to do extra-ordinary things.
On this, Veterans Day 2013 a salute to all Veterans of any branch of the Services and all Countries as well…
To that, a salute as well to the people of Boston, Massachusetts and tornado-ravaged Oklahoma.
Bob Spear U.S. Navy MM2 U.S.S.Independance CVA-62 1966 – 1969
FFLA Historian
*Growing up in Oakland NJ in the 1950’s & 60’s, I recall discussions around the dinner table and Dad’s stories of his youth post World War One. In those days; Memorial Day was called “Decoration Day” it symbolized the day that people would gather to lay flowers and wreaths on the graves at Ponds Cemetery and a short firing salute by the town color guard. Poppies were handed out on the streets downtown and American flags were hung from every storefront and home on the Valley Road. Even as a youngster the weight behind the meaning was a heavy hand it seemed. To view the Memorial Day parade along Oakland Avenue was a great treat for a young kid fascinated by the heavy tanks and weapons carriers from Riverdale Armory each year. The last year, tanks were allowed in the parade was a result of their steel cleats yanking out huge chunks of asphalt roadway on Valley road at each turn they had to make. Even the rubber inserts on the tracks weren’t enough for the 50 ton bulk of the machines to prevent this and after severe complaints from the Road Department, sadly no more military tanks were allowed, unless on a carrier transport. There was something a bit odd in that, that here on Ramapo Valley Road that had witnessed the stamping of George Washington’s and General Anthony Wayne’s armies during the Revolutionary War, there were Korean War era M-48’s and M-60’s rumbling down that same stretch of roadway!. But the American flags represented the same nation that now gave honor to it’s Veterans, and serving members of our Armed Forces.
After President Lincoln’s address following Gettysburg in 1863, a National holiday , a day of “Thanksgiving” was put in presidential proclamation and this eventually helped create Veterans Day. It morphed into “Thanksgiving” on November 23rd each year; and of course picked up the stores proclaimed the start of the Christmas buying season! Somehow, along the way, the older “day of Harvest” celebrated by the pilgrims of Massachusetts Bay colony melded with it. As a youngster, my dad always referred to that day in September as “Armistice Day”. The 11th day of the 11th Month of the year 1918 at the 11th hour , the ending of World War One in Europe. Even as a youngster growing up I knew it by that name. But slowly and mostly due to the commercialization of these events by stores for their buying/holiday sales days, they became less of an impact on newer generations who somehow lost that connection with historic events.
December 7th, was always known in our house as “Pearl Harbor Day” and as I grew up and learned history I became acutely aware of that significance as the day the US was attacked and began our entry into World War Two. Sadly September 11th 2001 has now partially eclipsed even that tragic event now.
The significance of all these dates however are not lost on the facts of how much innocence was lost on those famous dates on the calendar. July 4th of course being “Independence Day” became a day for picnics and hot dogs and hamburger grills! and flags flying everywhere. As kids it meant holidays off from school on those during the school year, which were always great! Baseball games at the “Rec field” or riding bikes on Oakland Avenue, perhaps passing the very spots where George Washington’s army themselves trooped along the dusty, sometimes muddy roads of Colonial America, later trod by scores of cub scouts and boy scout troops, the Police and Fire Departments, the Ladies Aid Society, Mothers Club, and the National Guard Armory all in celebration to memorialize all of our collective pride in America.
May 27th 2013
